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,Iwas 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!Amillion piastres and a resident master for half a century would be necessary to make these magnificent lands pay.I must see to this.
The conquered have time during their flight to ponder their own case and that of their vanquished party.At the spectacle of my noble country,a corpse for monks to prey on,my eyes filled with tears;Iread in it the presage of Spain's gloomy future.
At Marseilles I heard of Riego's end.Painfully did it come home to me that my life also would henceforth be a martyrdom,but a martyrdom protracted and unnoticed.Is existence worthy the name,when a man can no longer die for his country or live for a woman?To love,to conquer,this twofold form of the same thought,is the law graven on our sabres,emblazoned on the vaulted roofs of our palaces,ceaselessly whispered by the water,which rises and falls in our marble fountains.But in vain does it nerve my heart;the sabre is broken,the palace in ashes,the living spring sucked up by the barren sand.
Here,then,is my last will and testament.
Don Fernand,you will understand now why I put a check upon your ardor and ordered you to remain faithful to the /rey netto/.As your brother and friend,I implore you to obey me;as your master,I command.You will go to the King and will ask from him the grant of my dignities and property,my office and titles.He will perhaps hesitate,and may treat you to some regal scowls;but you must tell him that you are loved by Marie Heredia,and that Marie can marry none but a Duc de Soria.This will make the King radiant.It is the immense fortune of the Heredia family which alone has stood between him and the accomplishment of my ruin.Your proposal will seem to him,therefore,to deprive me of a last resource,and he will gladly hand over to you my spoils.
You will then marry Marie.The secret of the mutual love against which you fought was no secret to me,and I have prepared the old Count to see you take my place.Marie and I were merely doing what was expected of us in our position and carrying out the wishes of our fathers;everything else is in your favor.You are beautiful as a child of love,and are possessed of Marie's heart.I am an ill-favored Spanish grandee,for whom she feels an aversion to which she will not confess.
Some slight reluctance there may be on the part of the noble Spanish girl on account of my misfortunes,but this you will soon overcome.
Duc de Soria,your predecessor would neither cost you a regret nor rob you of a maravedi.My mother's diamonds,which will suffice to make me independent,I will keep,because the gap caused by them in the family estate can be filled by Marie's jewels.You can send them,therefore,by my nurse,old Urraca,the only one of my servants whom I wish to retain.No one can prepare my chocolate as she does.
During our brief revolution,my life of unremitting toil was reduced to the barest necessaries,and these my salary was sufficient to provide.You will therefore find the income of the last two years in the hands of your steward.This sum is mine;but a Duc de Soria cannot marry without a large expenditure of money,therefore we will divide it.You will not refuse this wedding-present from your brigand brother.Besides,I mean to have it so.
The barony of Macumer,not being Spanish territory,remains to me.