Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 062.djvu/216

210 that he could not think her acquaintance dearly purchased even by this great peril. She stood erect, one hand on the edge of Andre' bed. whom she seemed resolved to protect, the other extended towards the door with a gesture of supreme majesty.

"What do you here, murderer?" she cried, in dear and thrilling tones. "You sought a lover; you find a wounded and helpless man. Begone! Fear you not lest the wound break out afresh at your presence? Are you not sick of bloodshed? Do you come as an assassin?"

The young girl accentuated the last word in so singular a manner, and accompanied it with so piercing and terrible a look, that Juancho was embarrassed, reddened, turned pale, and the ferocity of his countenance was exchanged for an expression of uneasiness. After a pause, he spoke in a choked and faltering voice.

"Swear, by the relics of Monte Sagrado, and by the image of the Virgin del Pilar, by your dead father, and your sainted mother, that you do not love this man, and I instantly depart."

Andrés awaited Militona's reply with intense anxiety. She made none. Her long black lashes drooped over her cheek, which was suffused with a faint tinge of pink. Although this silence was perhaps his doom to death, Andrés felt his heart leap with joy.

"If you will not swear," continued Juancho, "affirm it. I will believe you: you have never lied. But if you keep silence, I must kill him." And he approached the bed with uplifted knife.

"You love him?"

"Yes!" exclaimed the young girl, with flashing eyes and a voice trembling with passion and indignation. "I love him. If he dies on my account, let him know at least that he is beloved. Let him carry to his grave that word, his consolation and your torture."

"With a bound, Juancho stood beside Militona, whose arm he rudely grasped.

"Do not repeat it," he exclaimed, "or I throw you, with my knife in your heart, upon the body of your minion."

"What care I!" cried the courageous girl. Think you I will live, if he dies?"

Andrés made a desperate effort to raise himself. He endeavoured to call out; a reddish foam rose to his lips—his wound had opened. He fell back senseless upon his pillow.

"If you do not depart," cried Militona to the torero, "I hold you vile, base, and a coward. I believe all that has been said of you; I believe that you could have saved Domingues when the bull knelt upon his breast, and that you would not, because you were meanly jealous of him."

"Militona! Militona! you have a right to hate me, although never did man love woman as I love you; but you have no right to despise me. No human power could save Domingues."

"If you would not have me think you an assassin, depart!"

"Yes, I will wait till he is cured," replied Juancho, in a gloomy tone.—"Take good care of him. I have sworn, that whilst I live, no man shall call you his."

During this stormy scene, old Aldonsa had slipped out to sound an alarm in the neighbourhood. Five or six men now rushed into the room, seized Juancho and dragged him out with them. But on the landing-place he shook them from him, as a bull shakes off a pack of dogs, and forcing his way through all opposition, reached the street and was lost to view in the maze of buildings that surrounds the Plaza de Lavapies.

The friends of Don Andrés de Salcedo, uneasy at his disappearance, had already applied to the police to obtain news of his fate. Researches were made, and Argamasilla and Covachnelo, two of the most wily alguazils of the secret police, at last succeeded in ferreting out traces of the missing cavalier. Orders were given to arrest Juancho the bull-fighter, on a charge of assassination. But the Madrid police are not very celebrated for courage and decision, and the two thief-catchers above named, to whom the execution of the warrant was intrusted, proceeded on their mission with infinite delicacy, awed by the notorious strength and fierceness of the torero. Evil tongues were ready to assert that they took considerable pains not to meet with the man for whose capture they affected to be anxious. At last, however, a