The Spanish dancer : being a translation from the original French by Henry L. Williams of Don Caesar de Bazan by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York : Grosset & Dunlap
Published: 1901-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

Wedded Behind Prison Bars. 119

"Marquis, we are brothers!" and Jose shook the other's hand demonstratively.

"I see, I see! The king- bestows the hunting-box upon my daughter for the sake of her husiband—his favorite, as his father was the last monarch's?"

"Well, no ! Out of respect for his memory!"

*'His memory ?"

"Exactly ; for " he held his hand up to beg attention.

The silence was broken by a volley of firearms, which sent dull echoes through the thick prison air.

"Great heavens ! Musketry !"

"A salvo of joy!" corrected Jose, with a reassuring smile. "In honor of the marriage."

"But are we not to see our happy son-in-law?" ' "Not yet—marquis; he has gone -on the king's service to another world!"

j "Oh, the New World, where all brave Spaniards go?" ! "Precisely—the new world to him! Take your daughter to your new residence. I will notify you when you may present your thanks to his majesty."

He placed them in charge of his footmen to be conducted to the carriage-and-four still waiting-. Then, going to the window, he peered out between the curtains at the prostrate form on the parade-ground, with two penitent friars crouching over it and unrolling the cere cloth.

"Good-night, Cousin Csesar!" said he, waving his hand.

CHAPTER X,

THE HUSBAND OF PSYCHE.

When the sovereigns of Spain becatnie enervated aind, inistead of risking their lives in battles, lost only time in petty pursuits, such as the shooting of small birds, since falconry vi^as too exacting a pastime, the gunsmiths conr-trived lighter and surer firearms. The princes first to carry fowling-pieces worthy the title were of Spain.

This led to the hunting-boxes, in which were held nightly revels after the slaying of big game, becoming shooting pavilions. Here the mild sportsmen discussed, on the table, the woodcock, snipe and hares, which had superseded the wolf, boar and roebuck.

Such a shooting shelter, magnified with luxuries, adorned with decorations by Italian artists and paintings by Velasquez and his disciples, received the Countess of Garofa, under the tutelage of her suddenly-provided father and mother.

It is one of the redeeming features of the court, which has few, to let nothing disturb its surface, for, if you accept a proclaimed event as settled, argument ceases, and consequently there cannot arise the acrimony of debate.

As every family pretending to antiquity had its legend of a 'Stolen heir, sometimes abducted by eagles, sometimes by those human birds of prey, the gypsies, the tale of Maritana being rescued from the everlasting wanderers was t!o be endured. The story was embellished by miystery of the midnight marriage, followed by an unaccountable fusillade in the Corregidor's courtyard; this was claimed by one tale-teller to have been fatal to the bridegroom, and by another to have so little injured him

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