Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

148 NEW ARABIAN NIGHT3.
was Madam Mendizabal, and, at that, he seemed to me
both troubled and relieved ; that she had insulted me,
treated me as a slave (and here my father's brow began
to darken), threatened to buy me at a sale, and ques-
tioned my own servants before my face ; and that, at
last, finding myself quite helpless and exposed to these
intolerable liberties, I had fled from the house in terror,
indignation and amazement.
' Teresa,' said my father, with singular gravity of
voice, ' I must make to-day a call upon your courage ;
much must be told you, there is much that you must do
to help me ; and my daughter must prove herself a woman
by her spirit. As for this Mendizabal, what shall I say ?
or how am I to tell you what she is ? Twenty years ago,
she was the loveliest of slaves ; to-day she is what you
see her— prematurely old, disgraced by the practice of
every vice and every nefarious industry, but free, rich,
married, they say, to some reputable man, whom may
Heaven assist ! and exercising among her ancient mates,
the slaves of Cuba, an influence as unbounded as its
reason is mysterious. Horrible rites, it is supposed,
cement her empire : the rites of Hoodoo. Be that as it
may, I would have you dismiss the thought of this in-
comparable witch ; it is not from her that danger
threatens us ; and into her hands, I make bold to promise,
you shall never fall.'
' Father ! ' I cried. ' Fall ? Was there any truth,
then, in her words ? Am I — O father, tell me plain ; I
can bear anything but this suspense.'
' I will tell you,' he replied, ' with merciful bluntness.
Your mother was a slave ; it was my design, so soon as
I had saved a competence, to sail to the free land of
Britain, where the law would suffer me to marry her : a
design too long procrastinated ; for death, at the last
moment, intervened. You will now understand the
heaviness with which your mother's memory hangs about
my neck.'
I cried out aloud, in pity for my parents ; and in
seeking to console the survivor, I forgot myself.
' It matters not,' resumed my father. ' What I have