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All rights reserved. * v1 *,*-* "I Qso C CHARACTERS ACHILLE LOUVOIS LABOISSIERE PADRE JOSEF MERCEDES URSULA SERGEANT & SOLDIERS SCENE: SPAIN 4, 4, 6 ) i I .1 PERIOD: i8IO CAST AS PERFORMED A T PALMER'S THEATRE CAPTAIN ACHILLE LOUVOIS of MR. E. J. HENLEY the LIEUTENANT LABOISS1ERE 2dchasseurs iMR. MAURICE BARRYMORE PADRE JOSSF...... MR. J. L. OTTOMEYER MERCEDES...........MISS JULIA ARTHUR OLD URSULA...... MRS. D. P. BOWERS Sergeants, Soldiers, etc. MERCEDES ACT I A detachment of French troops bivouacked on the edge of the forest of Covelleda-A sentinel is seen on the cliffs overhanging the camp - The guard is relieved in dumb show as the dialogue progresses - Louvois and Labois siere, wrapped in greatcoats, are seated by a smouldering fire of brushwood in the foreground - Starlight. SCENE I LOUVOIS, LABOISSILRE LABOISSIERE Louvois! Louvois, startingfrom a reverie Eh? What is it? I must have slept. : I: IMERCEDES LABOISSIERE With eyes staring at nothing, like an Egyptian idol! This is not amusing. You are as gloomy to-night as an undertaker out of employment. Louvois Say, rather, an executioner who loathes his trade. No, I was not asleep. I cannot sleep with this business on my conscience. LABOISSIERE In affairs like this, conscience goes to the rear -with the sick and wounded. Louvois One may be forgiven, or can forgive himself, many a cruel thing done in the heat of battle; IO e. MERCEDES but to steal upon a defenceless village, and in cold blood sabre old men, women, and children -that revolts me. LABOISSIERE What must be, must be. Louvois Yes -the poor wretches. LABOISSIERE The orders are Louvois Every soul! LABOISSIERE They have brought it upon themselves, if that comforts them. Every defile in these infernal mountains bristles with carabines; every village I I MERCEDES gives shelter or warning to the guerrillas. The army is being decimated by assassination. It is the same ghastly story throughout Castile and Estremadura. After we have taken a town we lose more men than it cost us to storm it. I would rather look into the throat of a battery at forty paces than attempt to pass through cer tain streets in Madrid or Burgos after nightfall. You go in at one end, but, diantre! you don't come out at the other. Louvois What would you have? It is life or death with these people. LABOISSIERE I would have them fight like Christians. Poi soning water-courses is not fighting, and assas I2 MERCEDES sination is not war. Some such blow as we are about to strike is the sort of rude surgery the case demands. Louvois Certainly the French army on the Peninsula is in a desperate strait. The men are worn out contending against shadows, and disheartened by victories that prove more disastrous than defeats in other lands. LABOISSIERE It is the devil's own country. The very birds here have no song.- Even the cigars are damna ble. Will you have one? Louvois Thanks, no. 1 Except in a few provinces, singing-birds are rare in Spain, owing to the absence of woodland. I3 MERCEDES LABOISSIERE, after a pause This village of Arguano which we are to dis cipline, as the brave Junot would say, is it much of a village? Louvois No; an insignificant hamlet - one wide calle with a zigzag line of stucco houses on each side a posada, and a forlorn chapel standing like an overgrown tombstone in the middle of the ceme tery. In the market-place, three withered olive trees. On a hilltop overlooking all, a windmill of the time of Don Quixote. In brief, the regu lation Spanish village. LABOISSIERE You have been there, then?- with your three withered olive trees! x4 _, MERCEDES Louvois, slowly Yes, I have been there.. LABOISSIERE, aside He has that same odd look in his eyes which has puzzled me these two days. (Aloud.) If I have touched a wrong chord, pardon! You have unpleasant associations with the place. Louvois I? Oh no; on the contrary I have none but agreeable memories of Arguano. I was quar tered there, or, rather, in the neighbourhood, for several weeks a year or two ago. I was recovering from a wound at the time, and the air of that valley did me better service than a platoon of surgeons. Then the villagers were I5 MERCEDES simple, honest folk - for Spaniards. Indeed, they were kindly folk. I remember the old padre; he was not half a bad fellow, though I have no love for the long-gowns. With his scant black soutane, and his thin white hair brushed behind his ears under a skull-cap, he somehow reminded me of my old mother in Languedoc, and we were good comrades. We used now and then to empty a bottle of Valdepefias together in the shady posada garden. The native wine here, when you get it pure, is better than it promises. LABOISSIERE Why, that was consorting with the enemy! The Church is our deadliest foe now. Since the bull of Pius VII., excommunicating the Emperor, we all are heretical dogs in Spanish eyes. His I6 MERCEiDES Holiness has made murder a short cut to hea ven.1 By poniarding or poisoning a Frenchman, these fanatics fancy that they insure their infini tesimal souls. Louvois rises Yes, they believe that; yet when all is said, I have no great thirst for this poor padre's blood. If the marechal had only turned over to me some other village! No- I do not mean what I say. Since the work was to be done, it was better I 1 In Andalusia, and in fact throughout Spain at that period, the priests taught the children a catechism of which this is a specimen: "How many Emperors of the French are there? " " One actually, in three deceiving persons."-" What are they called?" "Napoleon, Murat, and Manuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace."-" Which is the most wicked?" " They are all equally so." -" What are the French?" "Apostate Christians turned heretics." -" What punishment does a Spaniard deserve who fails in his duty?" "The death and infamy of a traitor." - "Is it a sin to kill a Frenchman?" "No, my father; heaven is gained by killing one of these heretical dogs." 17 MERCEDES should do it. There's a fatality in sending me to Arguano. Remember that. From the moment the order came from headquarters I have had such a heaviness here. (Pauses.) Awhile ago, in a half doze, I dreamed of cutting down this harm less old priest who had come to me to beg mercy for the women and children. I cut him across the face, Laboissiere! I saw him still smiling, with his lip slashed in two. The irony of it! When I think of that smile I am tempted to break my sword over my knee, and throw myself into the ravine yonder. LABOISSI;RE, aside This is the man who got the cross for sabring three gunners in the trench at Saragossa! It is droll he should be so moved by the idea of killing x8 MERCEDES a beggarly old Jesuit more or less. (Aloud.) Bah! it was only a dream, voila tout- one of those villainous nightmares which run wild over these hills. I have been kicked by them myself many a time. What, the devil! dreams always go by contraries; in which case you will have the sat isfaction of being knocked on the head by the venerable padre - and so quits. It may come to that. Who knows? We are surrounded by spies; I would wager a week's rations that Arguano is prepared for us. Louvois If I thought that! An assault with resist ance would cover all. Yes, yes -the spies. They must be aware of our destination and purpose. A movement such as this could not have been made unobserved. (Abruptly.) Laboissibre! I9 MERCEDES LABOISSIERE Well? Louvois There was a certain girl at Arguano, a niece or god-daughter to the old padre- a brave girl. LABOISSIERE Ah- so? Come now, confess, my captain, it was the sobrina, and not the old priest, you struck down in your dream. Louvois Yes, that was it. How did you know? LABOISSIERE By instinct and observation. There is always a woman at the bottom of everything. You have only to go deep enough. 20 i MERCEDES Louvois This girl troubles me. I was ordered from Arguano without an instant's warning —at mid night- between two breaths, as it were. Then communication with the place was cut off.... I have never heard word of her since. LABOISSIERE So? Did you love her? Louvois I have not said that. LABOISSIERE Speak your thought, and say it. I ever loved a love-story, when it ran as clear as a trout-brook and had the right heart-leaps in it. With this 21 MERCEDES sighing in the tree-tops, and these heavy drooping over us, it is the very place and for a bit of romance. Come, now. Louvois It was all of a romance. LABOISSIERE I knew it! I will begin for you: You loved her. Louvois Yes, I loved her. It was the good God that sent her to my bedside. She nursed me day and night. She brought me back to life.... I know not how it happened; the events have no sequence in my memory. I had been wounded; I dropped from the saddle as we entered the village, and 22 wind stars hour MEARCEDES was carried for dead into one of the huts. Then the fever took me.... Day after day I plunged from one black abyss into another, my wits quite gone. At odd intervals I was conscious of some one bending over me. Now it seemed to be a demon, and now a white-hooded sister of the Sacred Heart at Paris. Oftener it was that madonna above the altar in the old mosque at Cordova. Such strange fancies take men with gunshot wounds. One night I awoke in my senses, and there she sat, with her fathomless eyes fixed upon my face, like a statue of Pity. You know those narrow, melting eyes these women have, with a dash of Arab fire in them.... LABOISSIERE Know them? Sacrebleu! 23 MERCEDES Louvois The first time I walked out, she led me by the hand, I was so very weak, like a little child learning to walk. It was spring, the skies were blue, the almonds were in blossom, the air was like wine. Great heaven! how beautiful and fresh the world was, as if God had just made it! From time to time I leaned upon her shoulder, not thinking of her.... Later I came to know her - a saint in disguise, a peasant-girl with the instincts of a duchess. LABOISSIERE They are always like that, saints and duch esses-by brevet! I fell in with her own sister at Barcelona. Look you -braids of purple - black hair and the complexion of a 24 MERCEDES newly- minted napoleon. I forget her name. (Knitting his brows.) Paquita... Mariquita? It was something-quita, but no matter. Louvois How it all comes back to me! The wild foot paths in the haunted forest of Covelleda; the broken Moorish water-tank, in the plaza, against which we leaned to watch the gypsy dances; the worn stone-step of the cottage, where we sat of evenings with guitar and cigarette. What simple things make a man forget that his grave lies in front of him! (Pauses.) There was a lover, a contrabandista, or something - a fellow who might have played the spadassin in one of Lope de Vega's cloak- and - dagger comedies. The gloom of the lad, fingering his stiletto-hilt! 25 2MERCEDES Presently she sent him to the right-about, him and his scowls-the poor devil. LABOISSIERE Oh, a very bad case! Louvois have any hurt befall that girl, I would not Laboissiere! LABOISSIERE Surely. Louvois And there's no human way to warn her of her danger! LABOISSIERE To warn her would be to warn the village - and defeat our end. However, no French messenger could reach the place alive. 26 MERCEDES Louvois And no other is possible. Now you under stand my misery. I am ready to go mad. LABOISSIERE You take the thing too seriously. Nothing ever is so bad as it looks, except a Spanish ragot. After all, it is not likely that a single soul is left in Arguano. The very leaves of this dismal forest are lips that whisper of our movements. The villagers have doubtless made off with that fine store of grain and aguardiente we so sorely stand in need of, and a score or two of the brigands are probably lying in wait for us in some narrow canion. Louvois God will it so! 27 NMERCEDES LABOISSIERE Louvois, if the girl is at Arguano, not a hair of her head shall be harmed, though I am shot for it when we get back to Burgos! Louvois You are a brave soul, Laboissiere! Your words have lifted a weight from my bosom. Without your aid I should be powerless to save her. LABOISSIERE Are we not comrades, we who have fought side by side these six months, and lain together night after night with this blue arch for our tent-roof? Dismiss your anxiety. What is that Gascogne proverb? -" We suffer most from the ills that never happen." Let us get some rest; we have 28 MERCEDES tad a rude day.... See, the stars have doubled their pickets out there to the westward. Louvois You are right; we should sleep. We march at daybreak. Good-night. LABOISSIERE Good-night, and vive la France I Louvois Vive l'.Empereur! LABOISSIERE walks away humming " Reposez-vous, bons chevaliers!" Louvois, looking after him There goes a light heart. But mine... mine is as heavy as lead. 29 MERCEDES SCENE II LYRICAL INTERLUDE Soldiers' Song While this is being sung behind the scenes the guard is relieved on the cliffs. Louvois wraps his cloak around him and falls into a troubled sleep. The camp is hushed; the fires burn low; Like ghosts the sentries come and go: Now seen, now lost, upon the height A keen drawn sabre glimmers white. Swiftly the midnight steals away - Reposez-vous, bans chevaliers! Perchance into your dream shall come Visions of love or thoughts of home; The furtive night wind, hurrying by, Shall kiss away the half-breathed sigh, 30 MERCEDES And softly whispering, seem to say, Reposez-vous, bons chevaliers! Through star-lit dusk and shimmering dew It is your lady comes to you! Delphine, Lisette, Annette - who knows By what sweet wayward name she goes? Wrapped in white arms till break of day, Reposez-vous, bons chevaliers! In the course of the song the stage is gradually darkened and the scene changed. 3I ACT II Morning - The interior of a stone hut in Arguano -Through the door opening upon the calle are seen piles of Indian corn, sheaves of wheat, and loaves of bread partly consumed - Empty wine-skins are scat tered here and there among the cinders- In one cor ner of the chamber, which is low-studded but spacious, an old woman is sitting in an arm-chair and crooning to herself -At the left, a settle stands against the wall - In the centre of the room a child lies asleep in a cradle - Mercedes - Padre Josef entering abruptly. SCENE I MERCEDES, Padre JOSEF, then URSULA Padre JOSEF Mercedes! daughter! are you mad to linger so? MERCEDES MERCEDES is you who are mad to come Nay, father, it back. Padre JOSEF We were nearly a mile from the village when I missed you and the child. I had stopped at your cottage and found no one. I thought you were with those who had started at sun rise. MERCEDES Nay, I brought Chiquita here last night when I heard the French were coming. Padre JOSEF Quick, Mercedes! there is not an instant to waste. 33 MERCEDES MERCEDES Padre Josef, while there is yet [Pushes him towards the door. Padre JOSEF And you, child? MERCEDES I shall stay. Padre JOSEF Listen to her, Sainted Virgin! she will stay, and the French bloodhounds at our very heels! MERCEDES, glancing at Ursula Could I leave old Ursula, and she not able to climb the mountain? Think you - my own flesh and blood! 34 Then hasten, time. MERCEDES Padre JOSEF Ah, cielo! true. They have forgotten her, the cowards! and now it is too late. God willed it - santifcado sea tu nombre! (Hesitates.) Mer cedes, Ursula is old -very old; the better part of her is already dead. See how she laughs and mumbles to herself, and knows naught of what is passing. MERCEDES The poor grandmother! she thinks it is a saint's day. [Seats herself on the settle. Padre JOSEF What is life or death to her whose soul is otherwhere? What is a second more or less to the leaf that clings to a shrunken bough? But 35 M~ERCEDES you, Mercedes, the long summer smiles for such as you. Think of yourself, think of Chiquita. Come with me, child, come! URSULA Ay, ay, go with the good padre, dear. There is dancing on the plaza. The gitanos are there, mayhap. I hear the music. I had ever an ear for tambourines and castanets. When I was a slip of a girl, I used to foot it with the best in the cachuca and the bolera. I was a merry jade, Mercedes- a merry jade. Wear your broidered garters, dear. MERCEDES She hears music. (Listens.) No. Her mind wanders strangely to-day, now here, now there. The gray spirits are with her. (To Ursula gently.) 36 MERCEDES No, grandmother, I came to stay with you, I and Chiquita. [Crosses over to Ursula. Padre JOSEFr You are mad, Mercedes. They will murder you all. They will not have the heart to harm Chiquita, nor me, perchance, for her sake. Padre JOSEF They have no hearts, these Frenchmen. Ah, Mercedes, do you not know better than most that a Frenchmen has no heart? [Points to the cradle. MERCEDES, hastily I know nothing. I shall stay. Is life so sweet to me? Go, Padre Josef. What could save you if they found you here? Not your priest's gown. 37 MERCEDES MERCIEDES Padre JOSEF my daughter? You will follow, MERCEDES No. Padre JOSEF I beseech you! MERCEDES No. Padre JOSEF Then you are lost! MERCEDES Nay, padrino, God is everywhere. Have you not yourself said it? Lay your hands for a 38 MfERCEDES moment on my head, as you used to do when I was a little child, and go -go! Padre JOSEF Thou wert ever a wilful girl, Mercedes. MERCEDES Oh, say not so; but quick - your blessing, quick! Padre JOSEF Ak Dios..... He makes the sign of the cross on Mercedes' forehead, and slowly turns away. Mercedes rises, follows him to the door, and looks after him with tears in her eyes. Then she returns to the middle of the room, and sits on a low stool beside the cradle. 39 [Kneels. 0MERCEDES SCENE II MERCEDES, URSULA URSULA, after a silenzce Has he gone, the good padre? MERCEDES Yes, dear soul. URSULA, refectively He was your uncle once. MERCEDES Once? Yes, and always. How you speak! URSULA He is not gay any more, the good padre. He is getting old... getting old. 40 MERCEDES MERCEDES and she eighty years last San ToMiguel's dayr her! Miguel's day! URSULA What day is it? MERCEDES, laying one ftinger on her l26s Hist! Chiquita is waking. URSULA, fquerulously Hist? Nay, I will say my say in spite of all. Hist? God save us! who taught thee to say hist to thy elders? Ay, ay, who taught thee?... What day is it? MERCEDES, aside How sharp she is awhiles! (Aloud.) Pardon, pardon! Here is little Chiquita, with both eyes 41 42rERCEDES wide open, to help me beg thy forgiveness. (Bends over the cradle.) See, she has a smile for grandmother.... Ah, no, little one, I have no milk for thee; the trouble has taken it all. Nay, cry not, dainty, or that will break my heart. URSULA Sing to her, nieta. What is it you sing that always hushes her?'T is gone from me. MERCEDES I know not. URSULA Bethink thee. MERCEDES I cannot. Ah - the rhyme of The Three Little White Teeth? 42 MERCEDES URSULA, clapping her hands Ay, ay, that is it! MERCEDES rocks the child, and sings Who is it opens her blue bright eye, Bright as the sea and blue as the sky? Chiquita! Who has the smile that comes and goes Like sunshine over her mouth's red rose? Muchachita! What is the softest laughter heard, Gurgle of brook or trill of bird, Chiquita? Nay,'t is thy laughter makes the rill Hush its voice and the bird be still, Muchachita! Ah, little flower-hand on my breast, How it soothes me and gives me rest! Chiquita! 43 4MERCEDES What is the sweetest sight I know? Three little white teeth in a row, Three little white teeth in a row, Muchachita! As Mercedes finishes the song, a roll of drums is heard in the calle. At the first tap she starts and listens intently, then assumes a stolid air. The sound ap proaches the door and suddenly ceases. SCENE III LABOISSITRE, MERCEDES, then SOLDIERS LABOISSIERE, outside A sergeant and two men to follow me! (Mutters.) Curse me if there is so much as a mouse left in the whole village. Not a drop of wine, and the bread burnt to a crisp- the scierats! (Appears at the threshold.) Hulloa! what is this? An old woman and a young one 44 MERCEDES -an Andalusian by the arch of her instep and the length of her eyelashes! (In Spanish.) Girl, what are you doing here? MERCEDES, in Frelnch Where should I be, monsieur? LABOISSIERE You speak French? MERCEDES Caramba! since you speak Spanish. LABOISSIERE It was out of politeness. But talk your own jargon - it is a language that turns to honey on the tongue of a pretty woman. (Aside.) It was my luck to unearth the only woman in the place! 45 _/MERCEDES The captain's white blackbird has flown, bag and baggage, thank Heaven! Poor Louvois, what a grim face he made over the empty nest! (A,loud.) Your neighbors have gone. Why are you not with them? MERCEDES, ointingff to Ursula It is my grandmother, sefior; she is very old. LABOISSIERE could not carry her off, and you - So? You remained? MERCEDES Precisely. LABOISSIERE That was like a brave girl. (Touching his cay.) 46 MERCEDES I salute valor whenever I meet it. Why have all the villagers fled? MERCEDES Did they wish to be massacred? LABOISSIERE, shrugging his shoulders And you? MERCEDES It would be too much glory for a hundred and eighty French soldiers to kill one poor peasant girl. And then to come so far! LABOISSIERE, aside She knows our very numbers, the fox! How she shows her teeth! 47 MERCEDES MERCEDES Besides, senfior, one can die but once. LABOISSIERE That is often enough. - Why did your people waste the bread and wine? MERCEDES That yours might neither eat the one nor drink the other. We do not store food for our enemies. LABOISSIERE They could not take away the provisions, so they destroyed them? MERCEDES, mockingly Nothing escapes you! 48 MERCEDE'S LABOISSIERE Is that your child? MERCEDES Yes, the hza is mine. LABOISSIERE husband -with the brigands Where is your yonder? MERCEDES My husband? LABOISSIERE Your lover, then. MERCEDES I have no lover. My husband is dead. 49 MERCEDES LABOISSIERE I think you are lying now. He's a guerrilla. MERCEDES If he were, I should not deny it. What Span ish woman would rest her cheek upon the bosom that has not a carabine pressed against it this day? It were better to be a soldier's widow than a coward's wife. LABOISSIK RE, aside The little demon! But she is ravishing! She would have upset St. Anthony, this one - if he had belonged to the Second Chasseurs! What is to be done? Theoretically, I am to pass my sword through her body; practically, I shall make love to her in ten minutes more, though her 5o MERCEDES readiness to become a widow is not altogether pleasing. (Aloud.) Here, sergeant, go report this matter to the captain. He is in the posada at the farther end of the square. Exit sergeant. Shouts of exultation and laughter are heard in the calle, and presently three or four soldiers enter, bearing several hams and a skin of wine. IST SOLDIER Voil1, lieutenant! LABOISSI.RE Where did you get that? 2D SOLDIER In a cellar hard by, hidden under some rushes. 3D SOLDIER There are five more skins of wine like this 51 MERCEDES jolly fellow in his leather jacket. Pray order a division of the booty, my lieutenant, for we are as dry as herrings in a box. LABOISSIERE A moment, my braves. (looks at Mercedes significantly.) Woman is that wine good? MERCEDES The vintage was poor this year, senor. LABOISSIERE I mean - is that wine good for a Frenchman to drink? MERCEDES Why not, senor? 52 MERCEDES LABOISSIERE, sternly Yes or no? MERCEDES Yes. LABOISSIERE Why was it not served like the rest, then? MERCEDES They hid a few skins, thinking to come back for it when you were gone. An ill thing does not last forever. LABOISSIERE Open it, some one, and fetch me a glass. (To Mercedes.) You will drink this. 53 MERCEDES MERCEDES, coldly When I am thirsty I drink. LABOISSIERE time you shall drink because J Pardieu! this am thirsty. MERCEDES (Empties the glass.) To the As you will. King. LABOISSIERE That was an impudent toast. I would have preferred the Emperor or even Godoy; but no matter- each after his kind. To whom will the small-bones drink? MERCEDES The child, senor? 54 MERCEDES LABOISSIERE Yes, the child; she is pale and sickly-looking; a draught will do her no harm. All the same, she will grow up and make some man wretched. MERCEDES But. senfior LABOISSIERE Do you hear? MERCEDES senior- she is so little, only old, and the wine is strong! LABOISSIERE She shall drink. 55 But Chiquita, thirteen months MERCEDES MERCEDES No, no! LABOISSIERE I have said it, sacre nom MERCEDES Give it me, then. (Takes the glass and holds it to the child's lis.) LABOISSIERE watching her closely Woman! your hand trembles. MERCEDES Nay, it is Chiquita swallows so fast. See! she has taken it all. Ah, senor, it is a sad thing to have no milk for the little one. Are you content? 56 MERCEDES LABOISSIERE Yes; I now see that the men may quench their thirst without fear. One cannot be too cautious in this hospitable country! Fall to, my children; but first, a glass for your lieutenant. [Drinks. URSULA Ay, ay, the young forget the old... forget the old. LABOISSIERE, laughing Why, the depraved old sorceress! But she is right. She should have her share. Place aux dames! A cup, somebody, for Madame la Diablesse! 57 ~MERCEDES MERCEDES, aside Jose-Maria! One of the men carries wine to Ursula. Mercedes sits on the stool beside the cradle, resting her forehead on her palms. Laboissiere stretches himself on the settle. Several soldiers come in, and fill their canteens from the wine-skin. They stand in groups, talking in under tones among themselves. URSULA rises from her chair The drink has warmed me to the heart, Mer cedes! Said I not there was dancing on the plaza?'Tis but a step from here.'Twould do these old eyes good to look once more upon the dancers. The music drags me yonder! (Wanderingly.) Nay, take away your hands, Mercedes -a plague upon ye! [Goes out. LABOISSIERE suddenly starts to his feet and dashes his glass on the floor The child! look at the child! What is the 58 MERCEDES 59 matter with it? It turns livid -it is dying! Comrades, we are poisoned! MERCEDES rises hastily and throws her man tilla over the cradle Yes, you are poisoned! A1 fuego - al fuego - toados al fuego!/ You to perdition, we to heaven! [The soldiers advance towards Mercedes. RE interposing Quick, some of (Unsheathes his to have begun. Leave her to m e! warn the others! I end where I ought MERCEDES tearing aside her neckerchief Strike here, sefior.... 1 To the flames - to the flames - all of you to the flames! you, go sword.) MERCEDES Louvois enters, and halts between the two with a dazed expressibn; he glances from Laboissiere to the woman, and catches his breath Mercedes! LABOISSIERE Louvois, we are dead men! Beware of her, she is a fiend! Kill her without a word! The drink already throttles me - I - I cannot breathe here. [Staggers out, followed wildly by the soldiers. SCENE IV LOUVOIS, MERCEDES Louvois What does he say? MERCEDES You heard him. 6o MERCE-DES 6i Louvois His words have no sense. (Advancing towards her.) Oh, why are you in this place, Mercedes? MERCEDES, recoiling I am here, senior Louvois You call me sefior - you shrink from me MERCEDES Because we Spaniards do not desert those who depend upon us. Louvois Is that a reproach? Ah, cruel! Have you forgotten MERCEDES I have forgotten nothing. I have had cause MERCED~S to remember all. I remember, among the rest, that a certain wounded French officer was cared for in this village as if he had been one of our own people- and now he returns to massacre us. Louvois Mercedes! MERCEDES I remember the morning, nearly two years ago, when Padre Josef brought me your letter. You had stolen away in the night - like a deserter! Ah, that letter- how it pierced my heart, and yet bade me live! Because it was full of those smooth oaths which woman love, I carried it in my bosom for a twelvemonth; then for another twelvemonth I carried it because I hoped to give it back to you. (Takes a pafper from her 62 MIERCEDES 63 bosom.) See, sefior, what slight things words are! (Tears the paper into small 2ieces, which she scatters at his feet.) Louvois Ah! MERCEDES Sometimes it comforted me to think that you were dead. Senior,'t is better to be dead than false - and you were false! Louvois Not I, by all your saints and mine.! It is you who have broken faith. I should be the last of men if I had deserted you. Why, even a dog has gratitude. How could I now look you in the face? MERCEDES 'T was an ill day you first did so! .IVERCE~DES Louvois Listen to me! MERCEDES Too many times I have listened. Nay, speak not; I might believe you! Louvois If I do not speak the truth, despise me! Since I left Arguano I have been at Lisbon, Irun, Aranjuez, among the mountains -I know not where; but ever in some spot whence it was im possible to send you tidings. A wall of fire and steel shut me from you. Thrice I have had my letters brought back to me-with the bearers' blood upon them; thrice I have trusted to messengers whose treachery I now discover. For a chance bit of worthless gold they broke the seals, and wrecked our lives! Ah, Mercedes, 64 MERCEDES when my silence troubled you, why did you not read the old letter again! If the words you had of mine lost their value, it was because they were like those jewels in the padre's story, which changed their color when the wearer proved unfaithful. MERCEDES Aquilles! Louvois Though I could not come to you nor send to you, I never dreamed I was forgotten. I used to say to myself: "A week, a month, a year -what does it matter? That brown girl is as true as steel!" I think I bore a charmed life in those days; I grew to believe that neither sword nor bullet could touch me until I held you in my arms again. (The girl stands with her 65 MERCEDES hands crossed upon her bosom, and looks at him with a growing light in her eyes.) It was the day before yesterday that our brigade returned to Burgos -at last! at last! O love, my eyes were hungry for you! Then that dreadful order came. Arguano had been to me what Mecca is to the Mohammedan- a shrine to be reached through toil and thirst and death. Oh, what a grim freak it was of fate, that I should lead a column against Arguano- my shrine, my Holy Land! Mercedes moves swiftly across the room, and kneeling on the flag-stones near Louvois's feet begins to pick up the fragments of the letter. He suddenly stoops and takes her by the wrists. Mercedes! MERCEDES Ah, but I was so unhappy! Was I unhappy? 66 MERCEDES I forget. (Looks up in his face and laughs.) It is so very long ago! An instant of heaven would make one forget a century of hell! When I hear your voice, two years are as yesterday. It was not I, but some poor girl I used to know who was like to die for you. It was not I - I have never been anything but happy. Nay, I needs must weep a little for her, the days were so heavy to that poor girl. And when you go away again, as go you must Louvois I shall take you with me, Mercedes. Do you understand? You are to go with me to Burgos. (Aside.) What a blank look she wears! She does not seem to understand. MERCEDES, abstractedly With you to Burgos? I was there once, in the 67 2MERCEDES great cathedral, and saw the bishops in their golden robes, and all the jewelled windows ablaze in the sunset. But with you? Am I dreaming this? The very room has grown unfamiliar to me. The crucifix yonder, at which I have knelt a hundred times, was it always there? My head is full of unwonted visions. I think I hear music and the sounds of castanets, like poor old Ursula. Those cries in the calle- is it a merry-meeting? Ah! what a pain struck my heart then! 0 God! I had forgotten! (Clutches his arm and pushes him from her.) Have you drunk wine this day? Louvois Why, Mercedes, how strange you are! MERCEDES No, no! have you drunk wine? 68 MERCEDES Louvois Well, yes, a cup without. What then? How white you are! MERCEDES Quick! let me look you in the face. I wish to tell you something. You loved me once... it was in May... your wound is quite well now? No, no, not that! All things slip from me. Chiquita- nay, hold me closer, I do not see you. Into the sunlight -into the sunlight! Louvois She is fainting! MERCEDES I am dying- I am poisoned. The wine was drugged for the French. I was desperate. Chiquita- there in the cradle- she is dead and I - [Sinks down at his feet.: *'!-'i: 69 MERCEDES Louvois, stooping over her Mercedes! Mercedes! After an interval a measured tramp is heard outside. A sergeant with a file of soldiers in disorder enters the hut. SCENE V SERGEANT and SOLDIERS IST SOLDIER Behold! he has killed the murderess. 2D SOLDIER If she had but twenty lives now! 3D SOLDIER That would not bring back the brave Labois siere and the rest. 2D SOLDIER Sapristi, no! but it would give us life for life. 7o MERCEDES 4TH SOLDIER Misericorde! are twenty SERGEANT Hold your peace, all of you! (Advances and salutes Louvois, who is half kneeling beside the body of the woman.) My captain! (Aside.) He does not answer me. (Lays his hand hurriedly on Loauvois's shoulder, and starts.) Silence, there! and stand uncovered. He is dead! CURTAIN. 7I 0