Letters of Two Brides

DON FELIPE HENAREZ TO DON FERNAND

PARIS, September.

The address of this letter, my brother, will show you that the head of

your house is out of reach of danger. If the massacre of our ancestors

in the Court of Lions made Spaniards and Christians of us against our

will, it left us a legacy of Arab cunning; and it may be that I owe my

safety to the blood of the Abencerrages still flowing in my veins.

Fear made Ferdinand's acting so good, that Valdez actually believed in

his protestations. But for me the poor Admiral would have been done

for. Nothing, it seems, will teach the Liberals what a king is. This

particular Bourbon has been long known to me; and the more His Majesty

assured me of his protection, the stronger grew my suspicions. A true

Spaniard has no need to repeat a promise. A flow of words is a sure

sign of duplicity.

Valdez took ship on an English vessel.For myself, no sooner did I see

the cause of my beloved Spain wrecked in Andalusia, than I wrote to

the steward of my Sardinian estate to make arrangements for my escape.

Some hardy coral fishers were despatched to wait for me at a point on

the coast; and when Ferdinand urged the French to secure my person, I

was already in my barony of Macumer, amidst brigands who defy all law

and all avengers.

The last Hispano-Moorish family of Granada has found once more the

shelter of an African desert, and even a Saracen horse, in an estate

which comes to it from Saracens. How the eyes of these brigands--who

but yesterday had dreaded my authority--sparkled with savage joy and

pride when they found they were protecting against the King of Spain's

vendetta the Duc de Soria, their master and a Henarez--the first who

had come to visit them since the time when the island belonged to the

Moors. More than a score of rifles were ready to point at Ferdinand of

Bourbon, son of a race which was still unknown when the Abencerrages

arrived as conquerors on the banks of the Loire.

My idea had been to live on the income of these huge estates, which,

unfortunately, we have so greatly neglected; but my stay there

convinced me that this was impossible, and that Queverdo's reports

were only too correct. The poor man had twenty-two lives at my

disposal, and not a single real; prairies of twenty thousand acres,

and not a house; virgin forests, and not a stick of furniture! A

million piastres and a resident master for half a century would be

necessary to make these magnificent lands pay. I must see to this.