Go you then to Don Augustin; in one short hour I will rejoin you.”
“Remember it is but an hour!”
“One hour,” repeated Inez, as she kissed her hand to him; and then blushing, ashamed at her own boldness, she darted from the arbour, and was seen for an instant gliding towards the cottage of her nurse, in which, at the next moment, she disappeared.
Middleton returned slowly and thoughtfully to the house, often bending his eyes in the direction in which he had last seen his wife, as if he would fain trace her lovely form, in the gloom of the evening, still floating through the vacant space.
Don Augustin received him with warmth, and for many minutes his mind was amused by relating to his new kinsman plans for the future.
The exclusive old Spaniard listened to his glowing but true account of the prosperity and happiness of those States, of which he had been an ignorant neighbour half his life, partly in wonder, and partly with that sort of incredulity with which one attends to what he fancies are the exaggerated descriptions of a too partial friendship.
In this manner the hour for which Inez had conditioned passed away, much sooner than her husband could have thought possible, in her absence.
At length his looks began to wander to the clock, and then the minutes were counted, as one rolled by after another and Inez did not appear.
The hand had already made half of another circuit, around the face of the dial, when Middleton arose and announced his determination to go and offer himself, as an escort to the absentee.
He found the night dark, and the heavens charged with threatening vapour, which in that climate was the infallible forerunner of a gust.
Stimulated no less by the unpropitious aspect of the skies, than by his secret uneasiness, he quickened his pace, making long and rapid strides in the direction of the cottage of Inesella.
Twenty times he stopped, fancying that he caught glimpses of the fairy form of Inez, tripping across the grounds, on her return to the mansion-house, and as often he was obliged to resume his course, in disappointment.
He reached the gate of the cottage, knocked, opened the door, entered, and even stood in the presence of the aged nurse, without meeting the person of her he sought. She had already left the place, on her return to her father’s house!
Believing that he must have passed her in the darkness, Middleton retraced his steps to meet with another disappointment. Inez had not been seen.
Without communicating his intention to any one, the bridegroom proceeded with a palpitating heart to the little sequestered arbour, where he had overheard his bride offering up those petitions for his happiness and conversion.
Here, too, he was disappointed; and then all was afloat, in the painful incertitude of doubt and conjecture.
For many hours, a secret distrust of the motives of his wife caused Middleton to proceed in the search with delicacy and caution.
But as day dawned, without restoring her to the arms of her father or her husband, reserve was thrown aside, and her unaccountable absence was loudly proclaimed.
The enquiries after the lost Inez were now direct and open; but they proved equally fruitless.
No one had seen her, or heard of her, from the moment that she left the cottage of her nurse.
Day succeeded day, and still no tidings rewarded the search that was immediately instituted, until she was finally given over, by most of her relations and friends, as irretrievably lost.
An event of so extraordinary a character was not likely to be soon forgotten.
It excited speculation, gave rise to an infinity of rumours, and not a few inventions.
The prevalent opinion, among such of those emigrants who were over-running the country, as had time, in the multitude of their employments, to think of any foreign concerns, was the simple and direct conclusion that the absent bride was no more nor less than a felo de se.
Father Ignatius had many doubts, and much secret compunction of conscience; but, like a wise chief, he endeavoured to turn the sad event to some account, in the impending warfare of faith.
Changing his battery, he whispered in the ears of a few of his oldest parishioners, that he had been deceived in the state of Middleton’s mind, which he was now compelled to believe was completely stranded on the quicksands of heresy.
He began to show his relics again, and was even heard to allude once more to the delicate and nearly forgotten subject of modern miracles.
In consequence of these demonstrations, on the part of the venerable priest, it came to be whispered among the faithful, and finally it was adopted, as part of the parish creed, that Inez had been translated to heaven.
Don Augustin had all the feelings of a father, but they were smothered in the lassitude of a Creole.
Like his spiritual governor, he began to think that they had been wrong in consigning one so pure, so young, so lovely, and above all so pious, to the arms of a heretic: and he was fain to believe that the calamity, which had befallen his age, was a judgment on his presumption and want of adherence to established forms.
It is true that, as the whispers of the congregation came to his ears, he found present consolation in their belief; but then nature was too powerful, and had too strong a hold of the old man’s heart, not to give rise to the rebellious thought, that the succession of his daughter to the heavenly inheritance was a little premature.
But Middleton, the lover, the husband, the bridegroom—Middleton was nearly crushed by the weight of the unexpected and terrible blow.
Educated himself under the dominion of a simple and rational faith, in which nothing is attempted to be concealed from the believers, he could have no other apprehensions for the fate of Inez than such as grew out of his knowledge of the superstitious opinions she entertained of his own church.
It is needless to dwell on the mental tortures that he endured, or all the various surmises, hopes, and disappointments, that he was fated to experience in the first few weeks of his misery.
A jealous distrust of the motives of Inez, and a secret, lingering, hope that he should yet find her, had tempered his enquiries, without however causing him to abandon them entirely.
But time was beginning to deprive him, even of the mortifying reflection that he was intentionally, though perhaps temporarily, deserted, and he was gradually yielding to the more painful conviction that she was dead, when his hopes were suddenly revived, in a new and singular manner.
The young commander was slowly and sorrowfully returning from an evening parade of his troops, to his own quarters, which stood at some little distance from the place of the encampment, and on the same high bluff of land, when his vacant eyes fell on the figure of a man, who by the regulations of the place, was not entitled to be there, at that forbidden hour.
The stranger was meanly dressed, with every appearance about his person and countenance, of squalid poverty and of the most dissolute habits.
Sorrow had softened the military pride of Middleton, and, as he passed the crouching form of the intruder, he said, in tones of great mildness, or rather of kindness—
“You will be given a night in the guard-house, friend, should the patrol find you here;—there is a dollar,—go, and get a better place to sleep in, and something to eat!”
“I swallow all my food, captain, without chewing,” returned the vagabond, with the low exultation of an accomplished villain, as he eagerly seized the silver. “Make this Mexican twenty, and I will sell you a secret.”
“Go, go,” said the other with a little of a soldier’s severity, returning to his manner. “Go, before I order the guard to seize you.”
“Well, go I will;—but if I do go, captain, I shall take my knowledge with me; and then you may live a widower bewitched till the tattoo of life is beat off.”
“What mean you, fellow?” exclaimed Middleton, turning quickly towards the wretch, who was already dragging his diseased limbs from the place.
“I mean to have the value of this dollar in Spanish brandy, and then come back and sell you my secret for enough to buy a barrel.”
“If you have any thing to say, speak now,” continued Middleton, restraining with difficulty the impatience that urged him to betray his feelings.
“I am a-dry, and I can never talk with elegance when my throat is husky, captain.
How much will you give to know what I can tell you; let it be something handsome; such as one gentleman can offer to another.”
“I believe it would be better justice to order the drummer to pay you a visit, fellow.
To what does your boasted secret relate?”