Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

"I do not understand you, Count," said Baltasar. "You talk as if the young man's life or death were in my hands. I bring intelligence which it is my duty to convey to the general as speedily as possible, and I am no way responsible for the consequences. I cannot believe that you would have me forget my duty, and suppress news of this importance."

"Certainly not," answered the Count; "but much depends on the way in which such things are told. Moreover, the general talked yesterday of calling a council of war, to deliberate and decide on the fate of these prisoners. Should he do so, you will be a member of it; and if you wish to serve me, you will give your vote on the side of mercy."

What reply Don Baltasar would have made to this request, must remain unknown; for, before he had time to speak, the conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door of the apartment, and one of Zumalacarregui's aides-de-camp entered the room.

"The general has returned from his ride, Major Villabuena," said the officer; "he has heard of your arrival, and is impatient to see you."

"I am ready to accompany you to him," said Baltasar, by no means sorry to break off his dialogue with the Count.

"General Zumalacarregui also requests your presence, Señor Conde," said the aide-de-camp.

"I will shortly wait upon him," replied Villabuena.

The two officers left the house, and the Count re-entered his sleeping apartment to complete his toilet.

On reaching Zumalacarregui's quarters, Major Villabuena found the Carlist chief seated at a table, upon which were writing-materials, two or three maps, and some open letters. Several aides-de-camp, superior officers, and influential partisans of Don Carlos, stood near him, walked up and down the room, or lounged at the windows that looked out upon the winding, irregular street of the village. In the court-yard of the house, a picket of lancers sat or stood near their horses, which were saddled and bridled, and ready to turn out at a moment's notice; a sentry paced up and down in front of the door, and on the highest points of some hills which rose behind the village, videttes were seen stationed. Although there were more than a dozen persons assembled in the apartment, scarcely a word was uttered; or if a remark was interchanged, it was in a low whisper. Zumalacarregui himself sat silent and thoughtful, his brow knit, his eyes fixed upon the papers before him. The substance of the intelligence brought by Don Baltasar had already reached him through some officers, to whom the Major had communicated it on his first arrival at the general's quarters; and Zumalacarregui waited in a state of painful anxiety to hear its confirmation and further details. He foresaw that extreme measures would be necessary to put an end to the system adopted by the Christinos, of treating the prisoners they made as rebels and malefactors, instead of granting them the quarter and fair usage commonly enjoyed by prisoners of war; but although Zumalacarregui had been compelled, by the necessities of his position, to many acts of severity and apparent cruelty, his nature was in reality humane, and the shedding of human blood abhorrent to him. It was, therefore, with some difficulty that he resolved upon a course, the adoption of which he felt to be indispensable to the advancement of the cause he defended.

Don Baltasar made his report. Two days previously, he said, whilst reconnoitring with a handful of men in the neighbourhood of Pampeluna, and observing the movements of the garrison, he was informed that an execution of Carlist prisoners was to take place in that city on the following morning. He sent a peasant to ascertain the truth of this rumour. By some accident the man was detained all night in the fortress, and in the morning he had the opportunity of witnessing the death of Captain Orrio and four other officers, who were shot upon the glacis, in presence of the assembled garrison. This was the substance of the Major's report, to which Zumalacarregui listened with the fixed and profound attention that he was accustomed to give to all who addressed him. But not contented with relating the bare facts of the case, Don Baltasar, either unmindful of his cousin's wishes, or desirous, for reasons of his own, to produce an effect as unfavourable as possible to the Christino prisoners, did all he could to place the cruelties exercised on the unfortunate Carlists in the strongest possible light.

"Your Excellency will doubtless grieve for the loss of these brave and devoted officers," said he, as he concluded his report; "but to them their death was a boon and a release. The information brought by our spies concerning the cruelty with which they were treated, exceeds belief. Crowded into loathsome dungeons, deprived of the commonest necessaries of life, fed on mouldy bread and putrid water, and overwhelmed with blows if they ventured to expostulate – such were the tender mercies shown by the agents of Christina to the unhappy Orrio and his gallant companions. Although their imprisonment was but of three weeks' duration, I am informed that they were so weakened and emaciated as scarcely to be able to walk to the place of execution, which they reached amidst the jeers and insults of their escort."

There was a movement of horror and indignation amongst the listeners.

"The savages!" muttered Zumalacarregui. "And how did they meet their death?"

"Like heroes. Their last look was a defiance to their enemies, their last words a viva for the king. It is said that the Christinos offered them their lives if they would renounce Charles V. and take up arms for Isabel, but to a man they refused the offer."

"Truly," said Zumalacarregui, "the cause must be good and righteous that finds such noble defenders. Have you heard aught of the prisoners at Tafalla, Major Villabuena?"

"They are still detained there," said the Major, "but it is said that orders for their execution are daily expected."

"By whom is it said, or is it merely a supposition of your own?" said a voice behind Don Baltasar.

The Major turned, and met the stern gaze of the Count, who had entered the room unobserved by him. Baltasar looked confused, and faltered in his reply. He had heard it – it was generally believed, he said.

"Such reports are easily circulated, or invented by those who find an interest in their fabrication," said the Count. "I trust that General Zumalacarregui will not place implicit faith in them, or allow them to influence his decision with regard to the unfortunate Christino officers."

"Certainly not," returned Zumalacarregui; "but the undoubted facts that have yesterday and to-day come to my knowledge, render any additional atrocity on the part of our enemies unnecessary. The volley that they fired yesterday on the glacis of Pampeluna, was the death-knell of their own friends. Count Villabuena, the prisoners must die."

A hum of approbation ran through the assembly.

"With such opponents as ours," said Zumalacarregui, "humanity becomes weakness. Captain Solano, let the prisoners be placed in capilla, and order a firing-party for to-morrow noon."

The officer addressed left the room to fulfil the commands he had received; and Zumalacarregui, as if desirous to get rid of a painful subject, called Count Villabuena and some of his officers around him, and began discussing with them a proposed plan of operations against the division of one of the generals whom Rodil had left to follow up the Carlist chief during his own absence in Biscay.

In the apartment in which the interview between the Conde de Villabuena and his cousin had taken place, and within a few hours after the scene in Zumalacarregui's quarters, the Count was seated alone, revolving in his mind various schemes for the rescue of Luis Herrera from his imminent peril. To rescue him, even at risk or sacrifice to himself, the Count was fully resolved; but the difficulty was, to devise a plan offering a reasonable chance of success. An appeal to Zumalacarregui would, he well knew, be worse than useless. The general had decided on the death of the prisoners from a conviction of its justice and utility; and, had his own brother been amongst them, no exception would have been made in his favour. The Count, therefore, found reason to rejoice at having said nothing to Zumalacarregui of the interest he felt in Herrera personally, and at having based his intercession in behalf of the prisoners on the general ground of humanity. A contrary course would greatly have increased the danger of the plans he was now forming. Since there was no hope of obtaining Herrera's pardon, he was determined to accomplish his escape. How to do this was a difficulty, out of which he did not yet clearly see his way. The village was small, and crowded with Carlist soldiers; the prisoners were strictly guarded; and even should he succeed in setting Herrera at liberty, it would be no easy matter to get him conveyed in safety to any post or garrison of the Christinos, the nearest of which was several leagues distant, whilst the road to it lay through a wild and difficult country, entirely unknown to Luis, and containing a population devoted to Don Carlos.

It was three in the afternoon. Count Villabuena leaned over the balcony of his apartment, and gazed musingly into the street of the little village. The scene that offered itself to him was one that at any other moment might have fixed his attention, although he was now too much pre-occupied to notice its picturesque details. The rays of the August sun fell in a broad flood of light upon the scattered houses of the hamlet, making the flint and granite of their walls to glitter again; the glare being only here and there relieved by a scanty patch of shadow, thrown by some projecting wall, or by the thick foliage of a tree. The presence of the Carlist troops caused an unusual degree of bustle and animation in the village. Many of the houses had for the time been converted into shops and taverns; in the former, tobacco, fruit, sardines, and other soldier's luxuries, were exposed for sale on a board in front of the window; whilst in the latter, huge pig-skins, of black and greasy exterior, poured forth a dark stream of wine, having at least as much flavour of the tar with which the interior of its leathern receptacle was besmeared, as of the grape from which the generous liquid had been originally pressed. Through the open windows of various houses, glimpses were to be caught of the blue caps, strongly marked countenances, and fierce mustaches of the Carlist soldiers; their strangely-sounding Basque oaths and ejaculations mingling with the clack of the castanets and monotonous thrum of the tambourine, as they followed the sunburnt peasant girls through the mazes of the Zorcico, and other national dances. Hanging over the window-sills, or suspended from nails in the wall, were the belts, which the soldiers had profited by the day's halt – no very frequent occurrence with them – to clean and pipeclay, and then had hung to dry in the sun. Here, just within the open door of a stable, were men polishing their musket-barrels, or repairing their accoutrements; in another place a group, more idly disposed, had collected in some shady nook, and were playing at cards or morra; whilst others, wrapped in their grey capotes, their heads resting upon a knapsack or doorstep, indulged in the sound and unbroken slumber which their usually restless and dangerous existence allowed them but scanty opportunity of enjoying.

The house occupied by Count Villabuena was nearly in the centre of one of the irregular lines of detached buildings that formed the village. About eighty yards further off, on the opposite side of the road, from which they receded, and were partially screened by some barns and a plantation of fruit-trees, there stood two houses united under one roof. They were of the description usually inhabited by peasants of the richer sort, and consisted of a ground floor, an upper story, and above that a sort of garret under the tiles, which might serve as the abode of pigeons, or perhaps, in case of need, afford sleeping quarters for a farm-servant. In one of these houses, in which a number of soldiers were billeted, a guard-room had been established, and in the other, before the door and beneath the side-windows of which sentries were stationed, the prisoners were confined. They had been brought to this village immediately after their capture, as to a place of security, and one little likely to be visited by any Christino column. Zumalacarregui had accompanied them thither, but had marched away on the following day, leaving only a few wounded men and a company behind him. He had now again returned, to give his troops a day or two's repose, after some harassing marches and rapid movements. Count Villabuena had accompanied the general upon this last expedition, but not without previously ascertaining that Herrera was well cared for, and that the wound in his arm, which was by no means a severe one, was attended to by a competent surgeon. The prisoners were lodged in a room upon the upper floor, with the exception of Herrera, to whom, in consideration of his suffering state, was allotted a small chamber near the apartment of his comrades, the side window of which overlooked the open country. This casement, which was about fifteen feet from the ground, was guarded by a sentry, who had orders to fire upon the prisoners at the first indication of an attempt to escape.

Whilst the Conde de Villabuena gazed on the temporary prison, of which he commanded a view from his balcony, and meditated how he should overcome the almost insuperable difficulties that opposed themselves to Herrera's rescue, there emerged from the door of the guard-room a man, whose gait and figure the Count thought he knew, although he was too far distant to discern his features. This man was in a sort of half-uniform; a blue jacket decorated with three rows of metal buttons, coarse linen trousers, and on his head the customary woollen boina. From underneath the latter appeared a white linen bandage, none of the cleanest, and considerably stained with blood. His face was pale and thin, and the Count conjectured him to be a wounded man, recently out of hospital. The person who had thus attracted Villabuena's notice, turned into the street, and keeping on the shady side, either from disliking the heat, or out of regard to his recently bleached complexion, walked slowly along till he arrived near the Count's window; then looking up, he brought his hand to his cap, and saluted. As he did so, the Count recognised the well-known features of Paco the muleteer.

The surprise felt by the Count at the reappearance of this man, whom he fully believed to have been killed when he himself was rescued from the Christinos by Zumalacarregui, was succeeded by a joyful foreboding. By the aid of Paco, with whose sagacity and courage he was well acquainted, who had been at a former period in his service, and whom he knew to be entirely devoted to him, he felt at once that he should be able to accomplish the escape of Herrera. Giving but one glance around to see that he was not observed, he made a sign to the muleteer to come up to him. Paco obeyed, and in another moment entered the apartment.

"I thought you were in your grave, Paco," said Villabuena, "and so did we all. I myself saw you lying in the dust of the road, with a sabre-cut on your head that would have killed an ox."

"It was not so bad as it looked," replied the Navarrese. "Nothing like a close-woven boina for turning a sabre edge. Pepe Velasquez is a hard hitter, and if I had worn one of their pasteboard shakos, my head would have been split in two like a ripe tomata. But as it was, the blow glanced sideways, and only shaved off a bit of the scalp, though it left me senseless, and as like dead as night be. After the troops and your señoria had marched away, and just as life was returning, some peasants found me. They took me home and doctored me, and three days ago I was well enough to crawl hither. I am getting strong and hearty, and shall soon be in the saddle again."

"So much the better," replied the Count. "We want all the men we can muster, and especially brave fellows like yourself. Meanwhile, what are you doing, and where are you quartered?"

"In the house of José Urriola, here the guard-room is. My duty is to take the prisoners their rations, and clean out their room. Poor Don Luis, as your señoria doubtlessly knows, is amongst them."

"I do know it, and it is concerning him that I wish to speak to you. Paco, I know I can depend on you."

"You can, your señoria," replied the muleteer. "Do you think I have forgotten all your honour's kindness, how you got me out of the scrape about the smuggling?"

"Or the one about thrashing the alguazils," returned the Count, with a smile.

"Ah, your señoria was always very good to me," said Paco; "and I am not the man to forget it."

"You have an opportunity of showing your gratitude," said the Count. "Have you heard that the prisoners are to be shot to-morrow?"

Paco started.

"And Don Luis with them?"

The Count nodded affirmatively.

"It will be the death of Doña Rita," exclaimed Paco with blunt passion. "Speak to the general – you can do it. He will not refuse Señor Herrera's life, if you ask it."

"You are mistaken," said Villabuena; "in that quarter there is no hope. The only chance for Don Luis is his escape, before to-morrow morning."

Paco shook his head, and remained for a moment silent. The Count observed him attentively.

"It is difficult," said the muleteer, "and dangerous."

"Difficulties may be overcome; for the danger, you shall be amply recompensed," said the Count, anxiously.

"I want no recompense, señor," cried the Navarrese, with one of those bursts of free and manly independence that characterise his countrymen. "I will do it for you if it cost me my life.

"But how is the escape to be accomplished?" said the Count. "Does any plan occur to you?"

"I could do it," said Paco, "had I been ten days longer off the doctor's list. But I am still weak; and even if I got Don Luis out of his prison, I should be unable to accompany him till he is out of danger. I take it he will want a guide. I must have some one to help me, Señor Conde."

"That increases the danger to all of us," said the Count. "Whom can we trust?"

"I can find some one," said Paco, after a moment's reflection, "who will be safe and silent, if well paid."