LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1749, 27 September 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE BSLLE OP SANTA CRUZ. A * Scrimmage' at Teneriffk. [From ‘ London Society, 'J (Concluded ) Admittedly she was the belle and beauty of Santa Crnz—for even that spiteful old harridan Donna Isabella de Muchos Males Palabres said so—and the pet name she went by was La Hermosa, Inez the Beautiful. There were eyes and eyes, and there were fans and fans, in the city and suburbs of that Island; but Inez distanced all her skilled compeers in the use and abuse of both. When she sent a bright sidelong glance out of those large flashing optics, let a word or two fall from those ruby Ups, dimpled that lovely face of hers with an arch smile, and waved and whirled, furled and unfurled, the air-producing little whirligig she held in her jewelled hand—pop ! bang ! —down dropped the spoil at which this mitrailleuse of artillery had bsen directed, as if it had been knocked over by a MartiniHenry rifle. Howard, Adams, your humble servant, all of us were more or less hurt by random shots ; but dear old Teddy O’Grady, he felt them hottest and hardestand La Hermosa, knowing this, kept on firing and firing without mercy, and riddled him to pieces. So down he fell; and being a hot and impetuous Galway man, it was as much as I could do to (keep him from getting foul of old Pedro, hurling him over the precipices of the ‘ pake,' pitching him into the ‘say,’ ‘splificating the * villen,’ and in point of fact from committing some threatened act of violence that would rid him of the Intendente, and leave his wife a ‘ widder.’ He was ‘ claue gone anent that colleen,’ he said. “The left soide of me body is as wake as wather gruel, ’ he sung, and he vowed he’d be the death of the “ pra-Adamite” husband —auld Meetooaolah Pedro—he would I’

But notwithstanding these menaces the Don walked in peace, and took matters very quietly. He did not apptar to notice O'Grady’s predilections, or to dispute his pretty cara sposa’s right to an open flirtation; ‘ they all do it,’ so why not his better half ? He still puffed away at hia piincipes and regalias, still smothered himself in his roquelaure, still treated my friend with the greatest politeness and courtesy, and was still always placing the ‘ tree auld cheers’ and ‘ the sleep of keyarpet’ at his service. Well, one night there was a fete at the palace JJof the Governor, El Conde de Pocoa Pesos. His Excellency gave us lots of good music from the military bands of the garrison; lots of brilliant light from his country pressed oil; lots of grapes, orange?, dates, and figs from the gardens hard by ; lots of sour Canary wine; but little —precious little—in the way of substantial meats and drinks. It could not be called a ruinous entertainment, and probably coat the Count three or four dollars good and lawful coin of Spain, We soon got wearied of the whole affair, O’Qrady especially, for although Don Pedro, without the everlasting capote, aplendaoious in all tho bravery of his beat uniform and multitudinous stars and crosses, was well to tho front, Inez tho Beautiful did not show. Fandangoes, boleros, cachuchas, waltzes, had no charm for him—O’Gxady of course I mean. He passed by flashing eyes without a glance at their lustre. He disregarded tho buenas noches, and other polite salutations of many a fascinating maid. He ruthlessly crushed against dainty natural and artificial feminine configurations without regard to disarrangement or physical suffering. He scratched with tho heavy bullion cf his epaulettes the nude arms and shoulders of delicately cuticled brunettes without a word of apologetic sorrow; and he dug his spurred heels—he was our adjutant —into the skirts and shapely ankles of matrons and maids, and tore flounces and flesh without so mnoh as asking pardon for the injuries. More than all, he aroused the indignation of Madam the Countess of Pocoa Pesos —the great captain’s captain—by leaving untasted the fruit and acid vintage of her banquet, anathematising the whole turning out as ‘ deuced rotten Barmacolde

faste.’ He was ‘out of aorta,' he said, ‘ complately down on hia luck,’ and he’d 4 be off and take a moonlight stroll on the bache.’ Bat instead of walking towards the bache, I see him follow the road to the Calle de la Reyna—Queen street— in which my lady Inez lives. 4 That s not the way to the Atlantic, old man ! ’ I shout after him.

4 You be smothered 1’ he replies, goes on and I turn towards mins inn.

1 But scarely am I settled to my whisky and cigar, when in rushes O’Grady, pale and 1 agitatsd. He seized my tumbler, and drains 1 it at a draught. 1 ‘ln the name of goodness,’ I say, ‘ what’s 1 up? Where have you been, and what on earth have yon been doing ?’ 4 Doing ! look here !’ and stripping off his coat he shows me a wound through the fleshy part of his arm, which had saturated his sleeve with blood, and from which the gore was still oozing. ‘Great Heavens !’ I exclaim, 4 how’s this? What row have you been in ? Who has wounded you after this fashion?’ ‘Don’t be after making a fuss, Tim,’ he says, 4 it’s nothing—nothing to what oi gave Carlos de Garrldo, leeftenant of artillery stationed here—ye know the baste—and who, belave mo, won’t be able to show on parade wid his guns for a month to come. Oi didn’t go to the say, as ye know. Oi went to have a quiet chat and a dish of tay wid Inez, wid tho Senora Povero Diabolo. Oi mane oi’d frequently been before, and oi fancy me prisence was welcome. Well, the tay, or rather some voile chocolate, had been earved, and oi was telling me lady in the best Spanish of Pooos Pesos’ fate—whew! — from the Powers onnly knows where, Carlos de Garrido tares into the room, blurts out a word or two oi don’t understand, then draws a stiletto, and widout by your lief, or Wid your lief, dales me a prod, the coward 1 Faith, he staggered me a bit; but I was on me pins in a jiffey. Oi wrenched the wapon from bis hand, and letting drive—one, two —right from the shoulder, hit full into his face, reeled him over, and oi think that oi have irremadiably damaged hia big Rooman nose, and deeaposed of two or tree of those tobacco-dyed teet of his down his ugly troat. Inez scramed, clung to me arum, intrated me to spare her ooczen—maybe he was her coozen, though the family loikeness isn’t strong—and then fainted away. Oi left her lying sinseless in one corner of the flute, Garrido blading in another, and here oi am. Sind for soma more dhrink, Tim, f-r oi’m hated and favored, and thin we’ll be talking the mather ever in pace.’ Betimes next day in walks Don Pedro to Dickson’s, and seeks an interview with O’Grady. The old Caballero is more polite than ever ; he bows and scrapes ; figuratively he kisses Teddy’s hands and feet; assures him of his exalted estimation; and ends by requesting the honor of crossing swords with him that evening in tho gardens at the end of the town. He adds that he must vindicate the honor of his house, and keep from scandal his young wife’s reputation. He has evidently got hold of the wrong end of the story, for he makes no allusion to the artillery cousin, nor to the dagger stab still smarting and paining the man he is addressing ; he merely, over and over again, insists on fighting. O’Grady tells him that he has not the least objection to fight; indeed, as an Irishman, he is rather given that way ; hut that upon much the same principle that he would not marry a woman old enough to be his grandmother, he’d as lief not fight a gentleman of sufficient years to be hia grandfather, and which Don Pedro certainly Is. Upon which the Don’s blood is more up than ever. Ho says that he is juvenility itself ; that his feelings are young, if, indeed, his age is advancing; that he belongs to the best of nobility; and that no Spaniard, from the Cid down to Espartero. was ever too old for the duello. Fight he must, and fight he will. ‘Bay it so,’ says O’Grady, 4 oi’m your man, and by the poiper that p’ayed before Mowaes, look out for squalls, for oi’ll teach you 44 What pirils do envi r on The man that meeddles wid oanld iron.” Adios, viva usted con Dios, as ye yoursels say in these pasrts.’ So the meeting was settled, and at sundown O’Grady and I, with Oastoroilo, the doctor, in attendance, sneak into the gardens as quietly as possible. But imagine onr astonishment, when we had been trying to keep the matter dark, to find half of the elite of Santa Cruz drawn together to witness the passage of arras between their Intendente and the English officer. Yes; on the walks and plats there were the men smoking and lonnging; in the summerhouses and pavilions there were the women irying and peeping, tricked out, all in their jest go-to-bull fights finery, and all 4 nods and becks and wreathed smiles.’ There they were, giggling and flirting, eating ices, drinking chocolate, and making an onting and a holiday of the whole business. Likely enough they looked upon Pedro and O’Grady as a oonple of matadors brought into the ring for an encounter with an Andalusian bull. Soon the Don comes on the field. He divests himself of his cloak and military tnnic, and in his shirt sleeves and tight pantaloons looks like the driest of dried Guanche mummies in the city of Lagnna hard by. He does not seem to have an Inch of solid flesh into which O’Grady’a smallsword could be driven, nor a single drop of that bine blood he is always boasting about to be set free from his shrivelled veins.

The two men—the one so old and timeworn, the other so young and world fresh—take post opposite each other, and welltried Toledo blades are placed hi their hands. They salute and put themselves ‘on guard.’ At the very first exchange of ‘ feints ’ I see that the plucky old Don is an adept swordsman ; he handles his weapon with so much grace and delicacy. O’Grady is less ?olished and attractive with his sword, but know him to bo no mean fencer—that he has a quick eye, an iron wrist, strength and agility to counterbalance his opponent’s superiority. The odds—and I daresay those ladies were making bets in Havana cigars, Paris gloves, and bonbons with their attendant cavaliers —were therefore to my mind in favour of my principal. The attack begins. Clink, clink, clink, clink. The swords ring one against the other. Point and Sarry, parry and point, are rapidly and exteronsly exchanged. Clink, clink, clink, clink. The blades are disengaged while each man pauses for an instant to take breath.

Presently the combat is resumed. Clink, clink, clash, clash, clink. A lunge might and main from the Don, an incomplete faulty guard by O’Grady, and ho gets pricked, hardly more, in the forearm. ‘ Bueno, bneno!’ the lookers-on shout, and clap their hands, just as if they were applauding a neat hit or catch at a cricketmatch.

Again the swords are crossed. Clink, clink, clash, clash, clink, clash, g-n-r-r-h, as one iron scrapes against the other. Ah, O’Grady’s point has made a veiy decided, but not deep, puncture in what little there is of the Intendente’s deltoid.

* Baata, baata, basta ! It is enough,’we all exclaim ; ‘it is enough 1 Blood has been spilt on both sides. It is enough, Don Pedro ; enough, O’Grady !’ • Oi’m quite contint,’ calls out Teddy, dropping hia rapier. ‘ Para mi I non soy!—l’m not satisfied!’ spits out his antagonist. He is livid with rage, smarting with pain, and wants mncho mas sangro —much more blood. So, spite of our endeavours and protestations, at it they go again ; but not for long ; for, whether from fatigue or mischance we know not, the Don makes a fatal error—exposes his defence; O’Qrady sees it, lunges like lightning and with terrible force. Ah, maldita, carramba! His blade transfixes his enemy somewhere about the seventh rib.

Ho staggers, and falls back on tho turf ; the men crowd up; the women scream ; Fernando de Castoroilo examines the wound, shakes hia head, and sends off to apprise Inez of her chance of widowhood, who, we hear subsequently, receives the news with a pleasant hopeful smile. Then the aguazils—the Santa Cruz * bobbies ’ —who had been dodging behind the orange and olive-trees, and had not attempted to interfere before, move up, and ‘ run us both in.’

Next morning we are taken before the Alcade—the beak—and examined ; but as the fight Is declared on all sides to hare been strictly on the square, entirely in accordance with the laws of Spanish honour, and moreover as very many o£ the worthy Santaornzians are waiting impatiently for

old Pedro’s official and marital dead man’s shoes, why the worshipful magistrate lets ns off with a fine, and an Injunction to clear out of the city ventre a terre. So for a few days we rusticate in the grass-g-own streets of Laguna; then once more embark on board the Floriline, set sail alow and alotf, and turn our backs on Inez, Pedro, Pocos Pesos, Garrido, and the whole * bil’ng. ’

Years passed away. O’Gradv, poor fellow, had been killed in the Caffre wars, and I had returned to England. Shopping one day in Regent street, my attention was attracted by a lady's voice asking, in a foreign accent, for some ‘ silk of Lyons ’ and some ‘ gloves of Paris.’ Turning round, and glancing under a fashionable bonnet, who should I see but our old friend Inez of Teneriffe, looking more matronly, but as fascinating and pretty as ever. We entered at once into conversation. She told me that Don Pedro recovered from his wound, and after plaguing her for * two, tree years ’ with a churchyard cough, which the doctors wore not obliging and gallant enough to permit to run its own rapid course, but were always patching up with ‘ oil of codfeeshe,’ had at last ‘ gone out,’ the saints be praised I That—si certamente—she was married again, was now the wife of El Colonel Carlos de Garrido, with a lapfnl of children, and—with the same flash of the sparkling eyes that had bowled over Teddy on the Marina of Santa Cruz— 1 todavia a la dlsposicion do usted, senor—entirely at your service, sir.