She heard the groan and ceased her song, then catching sight of the figure of a man, she stopped and turned as though to fly. I stood quite still, and wonder overcoming her fear, she drew nearer and spoke in the sweet low voice that I remembered well, saying, ‘Who wanders here so late? Is it you, John?’
Now when I heard her speak thus a new fear took me. Doubtless she was married and ‘John’ was her husband. I had found her but to lose her more completely. Of a sudden it came into my mind that I would not discover myself till I knew the truth. I advanced a pace, but not so far as to pass from the shadow of the shrubs which grow here, and taking my stand in such a fashion that the moonlight did not strike upon my face, I bowed low in the courtly Spanish fashion, and disguising my voice spoke as a Spaniard might in broken English which I will spare to write down.
‘Madam,’ I said, ‘have I the honour to speak to one who in bygone years was named the Senora Lily Bozard?’
‘That was my name,’ she answered. ‘What is your errand with me, sir?’
Now I trembled afresh, but spoke on boldly.
‘Before I answer, Madam, forgive me if I ask another question. Is this still your name?’
‘It is still my name, I am no married woman,’ she answered, and for a moment the sky seemed to reel above me and the ground to heave beneath my feet like the lava crust of Xaca. But as yet I did not reveal myself, for I wished to learn if she still loved my memory.
‘Senora,’ I said, ‘I am a Spaniard who served in the Indian wars of Cortes, of which perhaps you have heard.’
She bowed her head and I went on. ‘In those wars I met a man who was named Teule, but who had another name in former days, so he told me on his deathbed some two years ago.
‘What name?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘Thomas Wingfield.’
Now Lily moaned aloud, and in her turn caught at the pales to save herself from falling.
‘I deemed him dead these eighteen years,’ she gasped; ‘drowned in the Indian seas where his vessel foundered.’
‘I have heard say that he was shipwrecked in those seas, senora, but he escaped death and fell among the Indians, who made a god of him and gave him the daughter of their king in marriage,’ and I paused.
She shivered, then said in a hard voice, ‘Continue, sir; I listen to you.’
‘My friend Teule took the part of the Indians in the wars, as being the husband of one of their princesses he must do in honour, and fought bravely for them for many years. At length the town that he defended was captured, his one remaining child was murdered, his wife the princess slew herself for sorrow, and he himself was taken into captivity, where he languished and died.’
‘A sad tale, sir,’ she said with a little laugh–a mournful laugh that was half choked by tears.
‘A very sad tale, senora, but one which is not finished. While he lay dying, my friend told me that in his early life he had plighted troth with a certain English maid, named–‘
‘I know the name–continue.’
‘He told me that though he had been wedded, and loved his wife the princess, who was a very royal woman, that many times had risked her life for his, ay, even to lying at his side upon the stone of sacrifice and of her own free will, yet the memory of this maiden to whom he was once betrothed had companioned him through life and was strong upon him now at its close. Therefore he prayed me for our friendship’s sake to seek her out when I returned to Europe, should she still live, and to give her a message from him, and to make a prayer to her on his behalf.’
‘What message and what prayer?’ Lily whispered.
‘This: that he loved her at the end of his life as he had loved her at its beginning; that he humbly prayed her forgiveness because he had broken the troth which they two swore beneath the beech at Ditchingham.’