[Ill.u.s.tration: "G.o.d help me!" cried Alvarado, throwing aside the poniard, "I cannot!"]

"Glad am I that you did not, for I have pa.s.sed my life where no child of yours could hope to be--among honorable men, winning their respect, which I now forfeit because of thee."

"Alvarado," said the Viceroy, "this much will I do for thee. He shall be shot like a soldier instead of undergoing the punishment we had designed for him. This much for his fatherhood."

"My lord, I ask it not," answered the young man.

"Sir," exclaimed Morgan, a gleam of relief pa.s.sing across his features, for he knew, of course, that death was his only expectation, and he had greatly feared that his taking off would be accompanied by the most horrible tortures that could be devised by people who were not the least expert in the practice of the unmentionable cruelties of the age, "you, at least, are a father, and I thank you."

"Yes, I am a father and a most unhappy one," groaned de Lara, turning toward Alvarado. "Perhaps it is well you did not accomplish your purpose of self-destruction after all, my poor friend. As I said before, Spain hath need of you. You may go back to the old country beyond the great sea. All here will keep your secret; my favor will be of service to you even there. You can make a new career with a new name."

"And Mercedes?" asked Alvarado.

"You have no longer any right to question. Ah, well, it is just that you should hear. The girl goes to a convent; the only cloak for her is in our Holy Religion--and so ends the great race of de Laras!"

"No, no," pleaded Mercedes, "send me not there! Let me go with him!" She stepped nearer to him, beautiful and beseeching. "My father," she urged, "you love me." She threw her arms around his neck and laid her head upon his breast. Upon it her father tenderly pressed his hand. "You loved my mother, did you not?" she continued. "Think of her. Condemn me not to the living death of a convent--away from him. If that man be his father--and I can not believe it, there is some mistake, 'tis impossible that anything so foul should bring into the world a man so n.o.ble--yet I love him! You know him. You have tried him a thousand times. He has no qualities of his base ancestry. His mother at least died like a Spanish gentlewoman. My lords, gentlemen, some of you have known me from my childhood. You have lived in our house and have followed the fortunes of my father--you have grown gray in our service. Intercede for me!"

"Your Excellency," said old Don Caesar de Agramonte, a man, who, as Mercedes had said, had literally grown gray in the service of the Viceroy, and who was man of birth scarcely inferior to his own, "the words of the Lady Mercedes move me profoundly. By your grace's leave, I venture to say that she hath spoken well and n.o.bly, and that the young Alvarado, whom we have seen in places that try men's souls to the extreme, hath always comported himself as a Spanish gentleman should.

This may be a lie. But if it is true, his old a.s.sociation with you and yours, and some humor of courage and fidelity and gentleness that I doubt not his mother gave him, have washed out the taint. Will you not reconsider your words? Give the maiden to the man. I am an old soldier, sir, and have done you some service. I would cheerfully stake my life to maintain his honor and his gentleness at the sword's point."

"He speaks well, Don Alvaro," cried Captain Gayoso, another veteran soldier. "I join my plea to that of my comrade, Don Caesar."

"And I add my word, sir."

"And I, mine."

"And I, too," came from the other men of the suite.

"Gentlemen, I thank you," said Alvarado, gratefully looking at the little group; "this is one sweet use of my adversity. I knew not I was so befriended----"

"You hear, you hear, my father, what these n.o.ble gentlemen say?"

interrupted Mercedes.

"But," continued Alvarado sadly, "it is not meet that the blood of the princely de Laras should be mingled with mine. Rather the ancient house should fall with all its honors upon it than be kept alive by degradation. I thank you, but it can not be."

"Your Excellency, we humbly press you for an answer," persisted Agramonte.

"Gentlemen--and you have indeed proven yourselves generous and gentle soldiers--I appreciate what you say. Your words touch me profoundly. I know how you feel, but Alvarado is right. I swear to you that I would rather let my line perish than keep it in existence by such means.

Rather anything than that my daughter should marry--forgive me, lad--the b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of a pirate and buccaneer, a wicked monster, like that man!"

"Sir," exclaimed a thin, faint old voice from the outskirts of the room, "no base blood runs in the veins of that young man. You are all mistaken."

"Death and fury!" shouted Morgan, who was nearer to him, "it is the priest! Art alive? Scuttle me, I struck you down--I do not usually need to give a second blow."

"Who is this?" asked de Lara. "Back, gentlemen, and give him access to our person."

The excited men made way for a tall, pale, gaunt figure of a man clad in the habit of a Dominican. As he crossed his thin hands on his breast and bowed low before the Viceroy, the men marked a deeply scarred wound upon his shaven crown, a wound recently made, for it was still raw and open.

The man tottered as he stood there.

"'Tis the priest!" exclaimed Hornigold, who had been a silent and disappointed spectator of the scene at last. "He lives then?"

"The good father!" said Mercedes, stepping from her father's side and scanning the man eagerly. "He faints! A chair for him, gentlemen, and wine!"

"Now, sir," said the Viceroy as the priest seated himself on a stool which willing hands had placed for him, after he had partaken of a generous draught of wine, which greatly refreshed him, "your name?"

"Fra Antonio de Las Casas, your Excellency, a Dominican, from Peru, bound for Spain on the plate galleon, the _Almirante Recalde_, captured by that man. I was stricken down by his blow as I administered absolution to the mother of the young captain. I recovered and crawled into the woods for concealment, and when I saw your soldiers, your Excellency, I followed, but slowly, for I am an old man and sore wounded."

"Would that my blow had bit deeper, thou false priest!" roared Morgan in furious rage.

"Be still!" commanded the old Viceroy sternly. "Speak but another word until I give you leave and I'll have you gagged! You said strange words, Holy Father, when you came into the hall."

"I did, my lord."

"You heard----"

"Some of the conversation, sir, from which I gathered that this unfortunate man"--pointing to Morgan, who as one of the chief actors in the transaction had been placed in the front rank of the circle, although tightly bound and guarded by the grim soldiers--"claimed to be the father of the brave young soldier."

"Ay, and he hath established the claim," answered de Lara.

"Nay, my lord, that can not be."

"Why not, sir," interrupted Alvarado, stepping forward.

"Because it is not true."

"Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!" cried Alvarado. Indeed, he almost shouted in his relief.

"How know you this?" asked Mercedes.

"My lady, gentles all, I have proof irrefutable. He is not the child of that wicked man. His father is----"

"I care not who," cried Alvarado, having pa.s.sed from death unto life in the tremendous moments, "even though he were the meanest and poorest peasant, so he were an honest man."

"My lord," said the priest, "he was a n.o.ble gentleman."

"I knew it, I knew it!" cried Mercedes. "I said it must be so."

"Ay, a gentleman, a gentleman!" burst from the officers in the room.

"Your Excellency," continued the old man, turning to the Viceroy. "His blood is as n.o.ble as your own."

"His name?" said the old man, who had stood unmoved in the midst of the tumult.

"Captain Alvarado that was," cried the Dominican, with an inborn love of the dramatic in his tones, "stand forth. My lord and lady, and gentles all, I present to you Don Francisco de Guzman, the son of his excellency, the former Governor of Panama and of his wife, Isabella Zerega, a n.o.ble and virtuous lady, though of humbler walk of life and circ.u.mstance than her husband."

"De Guzman! De Guzman!" burst forth from the soldiers.

"It is a lie!" shouted Hornigold. "He is Morgan's son. He was given to me as such. I left him at Cuchillo. You found him, sir----"