However, they carried on an extensive correspondence, and the worst of it all was that I had to be the go-between and courier. That drove me mad!—The regular thing was that I should go out and meet the young gentleman at a certain place, as punctually as a clock, and he would give me a note to carry to my young mistress; having discharged this commission, she would give me one to take to him. How often have I felt tempted to burn those letters instead of delivering them. However, luckily for me, I always kept cool enough to resist this base temptation. I need hardly add that I hated Malespina; I no sooner saw him come into the house than my blood boiled, and whenever he desired me to do anything I did it as badly and sulkily as possible, wishing to betray my extreme disgust. This disgust, which to them seemed simply bad service, while to me it was a display of honest wrath worthy of a proud and noble heart, earned me many reprimands, and above all it once led my young lady to make a speech that pierced me to the heart like the thrust of an arrow. On one occasion I heard her say: “That boy is getting so troublesome that we shall have to get rid of him.”
At last the day was fixed for the wedding, and it was only a short while before that event that all I have already related took place with reference to my master’s project. It may therefore be easily understood that Doña Francisca had excellent reasons for objecting to her husband’s joining the fleet, besides her regard for his safety.
VI
I remember very well that the day after the cuffing bestowed on me by Doña Francisca in her wrath at my irreverent conduct and her intense aversion to all naval warfare, I went out to attend my master in his daily walk. He leaned upon my arm, and on the other side of him walked Marcial; we went slowly to suit Don Alonso’s feeble pace and the awkwardness of the old sailor’s wooden leg. It was like one of those processions in which a group of tottering and worm-eaten saints are carried along on a shaky litter, threatening to fall if the pace of the bearers is in the least accelerated. The two old men had no energy or motive power left but their brave hearts, which still acted as truly as a machine just turned out of a workshop; or like the needle of a ship’s compass which, notwithstanding its unerring accuracy, could do nothing to work the crazy craft it served to guide! During our walk my master—after having asserted, as usual, that if Admiral Córdova had only tacked to port instead of starboard the battle of “the 14th” would never have been lost—turned the conversation once more on their grand project, and though they did not put their scheme into plain words, no doubt because I was present, I gathered from what they said that they intended to effect their purpose by stealth, quietly walking out of the house one morning without my mistress’s knowledge.
When we went in again indifferent matters were talked over. My master, who was always amiable to his wife, was more so, that day, than ever. Doña Francisca could say nothing, however trivial, that he did not laugh at immoderately. He even made her a present of some trifles, doing his utmost to keep her in a good humor, and it was no doubt as a result of this conspicuous complaisance that my mistress was crosser and more peevish than I had ever seen her. No accommodation was possible; she quarrelled with Marcial over heaven knows what trifle, and desired him to quit the house that instant; she used the most violent language to her husband; and during dinner, though he praised every dish with unwonted warmth, the lady was implacable and went on grumbling and scolding.
At last it was time for evening prayers, a solemn ceremony performed in the dining-room in the presence of all the household; and my master, who would not unfrequently go to sleep while he lazily muttered the Paternoster, was that evening unusually wide awake and prayed with genuine fervor, his voice being heard above all the rest. Another incident occurred which struck me particularly. The walls of the rooms were decorated with two distinct sets of prints: sacred subjects and maps—the hierarchy of Heaven on one hand and the soundings all round Europe and America on the other. After supper my master was standing in the passage, studying a mariner’s chart and tracing lines upon it with his trembling forefinger, when Doña Francisca, who had gathered some hints of the plan for evasion, and who always appealed to Heaven when she caught her husband red-handed in any manifestations of nautical enthusiasm, came up behind him, and throwing up her arms, exclaimed:
“Merciful Heaven! If you are not enough to provoke a Saint!”
“But, my dear,” my master timidly replied, “I was only tracing the course taken by Alcalá Galiano and Valdés in the schooners Sutil and Mejicana when we went to
