CRISTOVAL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2751, 1 March 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

CRISTOVAL.

Some twenty years ago, one Sunday morning, at Madrid, a young woman enveloped in her long mantilla entered the Church of Notre Dame d'Atoeha holding by the hand a little child of rare and wonderous beauty. At the sight of this little angel, with his mass of golden, tumbled ringlets, his eyes as black as night, his cheeks roßy and dimpled as a cherub s, all the devotees kneeling upon their mats of rushes ceased their prayers to look upon him with a tender smile, the elder ones from memories that crowded upon them at the sight of the child, the young senoritas from presentiment. The young woman, the good and beautiful Rosaria de Solis, had come to thank the Virgin for having saved the life of this her only child. The face of the mother was pale and thin, her eyes encircled with dark rings; for many long i and anxious nights had she pasted of I late by the bedside of the poor little 1 80 Shall I tell you of the noble nature of this Donna Rosario de Solis ? No, it is unnecessary, for all the world knows the B torv of her life and sacrifices, and that to save a dying father from the pursuit > of a ferocious creditor she had given _herself as a hostage and married the creditor herself, Don Andres de Solis, the fiscal. Rosario was beautiful, but With a beauty th»t sculptors and painters were power-

less to depict; it lay in her eyes, in her smile, iD the serenity of her brow, the grace and suppleness of her swan-like neck, the purity and loveliness of the soul imprinted upon her perfect features. In the meant ime, Rosario, on her knees before the Miraculous Virgin sparkling with precious stones and carrying in her arms an infant Jesus, gave thanks to heaven, while the child regarded wonderingly a, sun that made a glittering aureole about the head of the holy mother, the tapers that burned before the altar, the flowers and fountaius with their jets of water. All at once bis eyes full upon the steps leading to the chapel grating, and he perceived crouching there in her tatters a horrible old beggar woman hold ing toward him. a black and withered hand, supplicating and repulsive ; but behind the woman and gazing at him with appealing eyes the little Cristoval aaw the head of another, a little one like himHelf, brown, pitiful emaciated, who seemed to beckon him to approach her, and to complain to him that she was hungry. " A poor little betrgar,mamma," laying his hand upon Rosario's sleeve; "she cries with hunger—see her—there!" and he pointed to the wicket, through which still came the wail for bread.—Hungry— a babe like that—Roaairo shuddered. .

"Go at once, ray precious one," placing a piastre in Cristoval's fingers; "go at once and oarry her this alms from God," Little by little the soft hymn of the organ rose in the silence of the chapel, rising, falling, filling the nave with a volume of sound more and more powerful ; the chants of the priests follower! it, and the soul of the devoteeß in the body of the Church rose to heaven upon the wave of sacred harmony. Suddenly, in the midst of the .fervor of her prayers, it seemed to Rosario that the Virgin to whom she knelt louked upon her with a frowning eye, as if denying or refusing to listen to her petitions; a strange, inexplicable fricht took possession of her, a feeling of dread, of alarm.' And where was Cristoval? She looked about her, turning her eyes from corner to corner of the shaded chapel. He was not beside her, nor in fact, in sight, neither in the Church itself nor in the court before the door. Was he lost ?. Impossible ! He was hiding from her, playing upon her maternal terrors, concealed, perhaps in the lodges or in the folds of the curtains. Nevertheless, her voice was hoarse and and strident as slie-demanded of a woman kneeling near her: "Have you seen my child, my little Cristoval ? "The little one with the silver buttons ?" responded the dame. "No, senorita, but doubtless he is yonder by the pulpit of St. Sebastian seeking to startle you." " Perhaps," said Rosario, darting in the direction of the pulpit, and feeling peoping beneath it and pushing aside even the altar cloth in the ardour and energy of ber search. The child was not there. Could he be at home ? Had he tired and wandered through the street alone in his efforts to return ? Shivering, trembling, under her mantle, her brain throbbing with agony, the poor mother turned toward lier dwelling. Arrived at last, she enters breathlessly. It, too, was empty, silent, mournful. At the top of the staircase she encountered her husband, Don Audres. " Where is Cristoval ?" were the questions that crossed each other. Ah, where indeed? She answered nothing ; Don Andres also was dumb with grief. Pineal though he was, still a father, and held to humanity by love for his child.

Rosario sought to retrace her steps, to descend, to run, God knows where, in the fields, in the thoroughfares, in all the alleys and by ways of the city ; but her loo's bent under her—she was unable to stand.

"Go thou !"' she cried pushing her husband from her ; " seek Cristoval, find him, go at once !" and Don Andrea obeyed. Alas, however, tho child was seen 110 more ; he had vanished completely, absolutely, as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. From that day on, R,osario, a heartbroken woman, went no more to the ohapel of Notre Dame d'Atoeha, where it seemed to her she must always see the child so cruelly taken from her, and whom she still hoped would one day be restored to her. And upon the palace itself what sombre night had fallen ; no noise, no joy no merriment in the silent household ; no childish lips to laugh and prattle behind the thickets of the garden ; no flower beds trampled by reekless feet; no tiny hands to join in prayer, and an ever present vision of Cristoval, her baby boy, stumbling in the dust of the highways, under the stick of the mendicant, without bread, without clothes, his cheeks pale and meagre, his eyes stained by tears. The heart of the mother was indeed broken!

Week's, months and years passed away thus. The father was consoled; a true man of justice, hard, pedantic, cruel and gasping, the habitual sight of crime always before him had given him a heart of bronze. For him success justified and sanctified the means, and in bis business of fiscal he had an opportunity to put his principles in practice. In short, an avaricious leech, he served himself to the best of his ability with the best of all that came before him. Some eighteen years after the event narrated to you, one gloomy morning in the early spring, Don Andres de Solis was called to Castile. An avaricious old uncle, whose heir he had become, had succumbed to a mortal malady, and despite the grievous condition of the roads, that ics and snow made nearly impracticable, ho had unhesitatingly begun the journey. < Gold' was at the end of it. As the carriage slowly mounted the defiles that crossed the Sierra de Saint Adrian, the fiscal felt himself invaded by a sentiment of melancholy—a vague presentment. Why ? Unless it was the loneliness ef the plane, the sombre grandeur of the pines that crowned it, tho steep, precipitous ascent up which the vehicle laboured at an almost perpendicular angle, he could not have told you. The sudden stoppage of the carriage some fifty rods or so beyond the chapel of Saint Adrian abruptly roused him from the reverie into which he had fallen, and at the same moment a group of men concealed in the rocks and crevices of the mountain flung themselves upon the bridles of the horees; a voice commanded him to descend. " I descend !" saidDe Solis scornfully; " back ladrones, back at once—thou art talking to the Fiscal Don Andres do k 0 " Don Andres the fiscal ! No, Don Andres the miser ; Don Andres the usurer the brigands answered, advancing wrathfully. Their chief, however, a young man, handsome, well built, and with the eye of an eagle, pushing them aside, placed himself at the opening—to recoil immediately with a cry of as tonish - menfc, echoed by the prisoner within for tho features of the one were the features of the other—tho likeness betwean them incredible ; onlyjin the case of Don Andres de Solis tho face was wrinkled and faded by time ; iu tho case of the young man brown, fresh and ruddy. As for the rest, the heavv eyebrows, the brow, broad and full, the nose, Ion? and aquihne, all were the same—not a line was missing. •' Thy name, boy, thy name ?" demanded De Solis in a stifled voice ; " give methymame." . . T " Cristoval, the trabucaire (brigand)—i have no other ! " " My sou, my son Cristovnl. intending his arms with a cry of j' % y, forgetting everything iu the rapture of the moment, and seeing but the face bofort bint) young

proud aud haughty. "Thou art my eon," he continued; "my son stolen from me in infancy and mourned ao long. I know it—l tell thee I know it." Uristoval smiled contemptuously. " Think not, Don Andres," signing to his men to withdraw a little, " think not to eßcape by so infamous a rase. I am a waif—rescued from the pavement, it is true; I also have the misfortune to resem • you strangely; never-the-less, I believe thon liest, for there is naught else in likeness or kinship between us. It is better so, for thou wouldst be shamed by a son in the ranks of the miserable trabucaires, bunted like ferocious beasts; whilst- I, were it true, should scorn and loathe myself. What I, the free and honourable trabuoaire, who fight an enemy openly and bravely, the son of Don Andres the Fiscal, the Judas who sells his friends as the disciple sold his Lord 1 Never! And if I thought it true I would this moment dash out my brains on the rooks at our feet to atone for my misfortune—to expiate my shame. All the same I shall conduct mynelf toward thee as if really thy son. Wait a moment—hear me out," calmly repulsing the fiscal, who had thrown himself forward with a movement of joy, " there are times when an honour ahle and voluntary death ia enough to efface a criminal and ugly past. Behold this pistol—take it and kill thyself ! If we are of the same blood, thou wilt comprehend that my proposition honours thee and that thou s'houldst not hesitate. Accept it and I will acknowledge thee as my father before all my comrades. What say you ?'• The face of Don Andreaß whitened, his lips trembled. The trabuciare shrugged his shoulders. " Soul of fiscal—soul of coward ! I am not of thy unworthy race. It is well, and thou ahalt live—live in the scorn of all, but on condition that thou keepest silence upon, all that has passed between us and outrage me no more by the title of " son," It is an insult I shall instantly avenge." " Miserable boy," oried the unhanpy father," were thy mother here thou wouldst not dare deny her. Return with me to thy home ; quit forever these despairing fugitvea; come to thy m®ther, Rosario! "That they may say, " Like father, like son ?" No, I will not return ; nevertheless, I will see the Donna Rosario, and see her soon." * * * * * * *

The summer that followed this scene upon the Sierra da Saint Adrian a course of bull fights had been announced at Valladolid. You know the passion of she Spanish people for this style of diversion and tow they run to them for leagues around. AH the same I was struck with astonishment when I entered the circus, for the vast and double amphitheatre, the boxes opening upon the place of the taureaux and every inch and corner of the monstrous building seemed to rock and tremble with the thunders of applause. The signal was given by the alcalde, or corregidor (I have forgotten which), the toreros clustered in the space like a flock of brilliant birds. A magnificent bull from Ciudad-Real bounded into the ring, amid the plaudits of the people and the alguazils hurtling about him, the pointed darts of the bull fighters with the wads of burning paper teasing and stinging Jiim ceaselessly. For a moment the animal remained motionless, his head hanginsr, his tail switching his flanks, his legs trembling convulsively.

" Toro malo (bad bull) " Toro malo!" screamed a thousand voices.

The picadores advanced upon him ; the bull retreated ; he was a coward : indeed, a child could have frightened him.

"The dogs! the dogs?" cried the people loudly, and all heads turned towards the box of the corregidor, for he alone could grant the demand of the exasperated public, T turned with the rest to the box of the magistrate ; beside him at the back of the box was the figure of a woman in deepest mourning, pale, emaciated, no longer young, but whos>> features still preserved the traces of angelic beauty. She seemed to assist at the corrida, as a corpse or a statue might have done, and her regard was vague and fixed as if contemplating something invisible to all save he " Who is she ?" I demanded of an obliging neighbour. " Donnaßosario de Solis," ho answered,

"a saint who has made her purgatory upon earth, for God has left her hor husband and permitted the theft from her of her son. She sees him always in her

thoughts, she waits upon him, but her place is the oratory, not the box of the corregidor. Stay, the struggle beyins !" Even ae he spoke a chulo entered the arena holding by the collar two enormous doss. A handsome fellow, this chulo, well built, with heavy eyebrows and lons', aquiline nose. All the same the specta tors saw but the dogs—already precipi-

tating themselves upon the bull, his oyes, now red and bloodshot, bent angrily upon his adversaries and upon the man who had entered with them to defy him. The chulo advanced, erect and fenrless.

"Viva el chnlo !" shaking over the arena the perfume of their scarf* and handkerchiefs and showering- upon him a rain of roses. With a smilfi, a bow, a wonderful bound, the youth responded, sprang forward, rese into the air, to seat liimself a moment later astride the back of the taureau, his hands locked firmly about the horns of the animal, hi-) cachette a sort of poinard, ready in his belt. Even the Donna Kosario moved from her stony calm, leaned from the corrccidor's lose, her eves fixed in terror upon that scene of daring. " And you say," said I to mv obliging' neighbour, " the wife of the fiscal takes no in these courses—see her now!" " But even as I spoke, at a sign from her husband, mindful of the attention she was attracting, Donna Rosario shrank a train into the shelter of her curtains neverlheless, not before I had Been that, the eyes of the chulo, in spite of his dangerous position, had sought and crossed with those of the wife of the corregidor. The struggle between the taureau and his assailants has become frightful; bellowing, pawing the dust, and covered with foam from his efforts to dislodge his burden, the creature, like a mammoth centaur, plunged about the arena, the dogs, bleeding from 100 wounds, snapping at his heels, the flame tipped javelins of the waiting toreros menacing and driving him from rail to rail. The brute, however, was stronger than man, and the strength of the chulo was failing him, but at the instant when, swaying from side to side, it seemed that he must fall from his seat to be gored and ground by the horns of his enemy, ho lifted himself like a dancer upon a tight rope glided to the earth across the open space, and turned at bay, his lips compressed, his bearing proud and 80 As the bravo torero thus boldly faced the onslaught in the arena, I saw and heard a suddou commotion arise at the abates of the barriers among the Royal volunteers who guarded them ; also that a, oroup of men hastily entered the box of the corregidor; that a woman's fisrure leaned from the railing of the box, her eyes, like coals of fire in her pallid face, her hands uplifted, and crying imperiously in a veice that had nothing human

in it. " Meure, chulo ! Meure chulo !" And the young' man, lifting his eyes to the face above him, docile and obedient as a son to the commands of a mother, cast his poniard from him, and disarmed awaited the end—an end not Ion? coming a roar from the taureau, a thud, a cry from the Donna Rosario, for it was Bbe who hud

thrown to tho chulo that hurried order, and all was over for Cristoval the trabucaire.

Cristoval the trabuoaire? Ay, recognised not only by the fiscal and hi* wife as Cristoval, their son, bat by the anthorities as well, as the hunted brigand who would be seized and imprisoned at the moment of his leaving the arena. It was this tho men who had entered the box of the corregider at the moment of the encounter had come to tell him ; this that had induced the heroic mother to command her soil to die rather_than live to be dishonoured. Cristoval, worthy of this great heart, obeyed. Three months later Rosario, too, was dead—a victim to the scourginjw and exces»ive penalties that she imposed upon herself in order to expiate that which she called " the crime of her pride." How did this all come about ? Bravado ! To see his mother, to keep his word to the man whom, nevertheless, he refused to acknowledge as his father, th# unfortunate boy, dimruised as a chulo, had entored the city and entered it to his d^ath. Who told mo the beginning find the end of this sorrowful story ? Don Andres himself, and the .tongue of Valladolid and all Madrid.—Translated from the French of Emanuel Gonzales,