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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (March 6, 1904)
The Husband of Donna Eugenia f A- V- HE ITerltor rived In the most beau tiful house In the city of TTorta. He was a merchant of great dis tinction and much wealth. lie held more slaves than anyone in the city, and he was feared by everybody. On an October afternoon in 1824 people who were passing his house heard shrieks and curses. A crowd gathered, wondering what It all meant Presently the Heritor himself came from the house. In his hand he held a cat-o'-ttlne-talls, and as he came into the street he cursed the crowd for their curiosity. "Get out, all of you!" he commanded. The crowd melted away, and then came renewed cries. The Heritor turned and shook his whip. "Bark as much as you like dog!" he shouted. "The lesson will do you good. Tou will not dare for some time to tell ree that you are free! Free! For what did I spend my good money in buying youT Rubbish!" With the Heritor was a monk of most brutal appearance, and, hearing the cries from the house, he approached. "What is all this, senhor? You are provoked?" "What would you have? Thee are devils who come from Ilrazll. They are impu dent. That one in there Is mad today be cause I gave her son some kicks a .scamp of four years who appeared I don't know from where, or to whom he belongs." The monk seemed to wish to change the conversation, but the Heritor continued: "And to tell me that I must not touch the mulatto again, because he as well as herself should be free." "This Is what the senhor marqufij of. Pombnl has don," added the monk scnten tiously, "with his foolishness as to the passage to the equator. It Is a good thing the devil has had him In his grip for the last forty-two years. We nil have the date In our memories. It was in 17S2." "Equator be hanged!" broke In the Heri tor. "It Is whipping which teaches brutes. Everything else Is nonsense. Let her say anything more to me and I will take the skin off her." "The Senhor Heritor," said the seemingly best-Informed spectator in the group, "is perfectly within his rights. The slave Is his property. She belongs to him and he must teach her whatever he thinks fit. No ono has n right to Interfere." "I don't want the same to happen to me that befell the husband of Donna Eugenla, sald. another. "That was a case in which nobody was to blame. The Senhor Heritor knows well enough that the mulatto was fojmd in the morning locked In as usual." "And who told you that he had not tho artfulness of the devil," and the priest crossed himself, "the artfulness of the devil to deceive everybody and cheat Jus tice? What I don't understand is how the Senhor Corregedor can leave that mulatto going about free." "I have heard that !t was a fit the master had." "Fables! The husband of Donna Eu genia, every night before going to bed. was In the hnblt of locking the mulntto In a room at the bottom of the staircase to keep him more safely. Perhaps it was because he was already suspicious of what he was capable of doing." "Well. If on the following morning they found him In the middle of the stone stair case, with only his shirt on. covered with blood, with his head under his body snd the key still in his hand, nlthough the mulntto was shut up snd the door locked on the outside. It is plain It was he who was the cause of It all. Is it not so?" "Rut how?" "How can I know how? Those beasts are cunning and know charms. They be witch everything. If they were not useful fn otir families I should never wish to gee another. One has to he very patient." "Like Job " broke In the priest. "Exactly. Father Chaplain. Job's pa tience," said the Heritor. "Hut I with a deuehter and son, both demented, who could I get to put up with them? .Only Tiegroes. I,et u now go and see what Tomlngas has got ready for supper." "It is time Spnhor Heritor, for I am al ready feeling knngry." "Come then. Father." Oood bye, friends. May you have fcenlth." "Ood be with the Wnhor Heritor, and may he have more rest." Five minutes afterward the street was deserted and the Heritor and the priest at well garnished table were supping freely, whl'e from the middle of the board Etood out an enormous bottle of good Pico wine, grown by the owner of the house under the shadow of the mountain. Thus far goe the tale of Ernesto Re bello, the Islander, as wrts told to the listeners under the mountain side. IT. There had been another Eugenia once, but she. poor girl, had di"d of the fever In Rio In the very year that the little daughter ct.me to her, and when, three years later, it was said that there could be no escape If the people staid In their houses In Nlchtheroy, the captain took the second Eugenia upon a voyage with him, that the fever might not take her, too, away. 80 it came about that for years and years, or until Eugenia, was fourteen, she went with her father in his groat tshlp over strange seas and to the lands of which she dreamed afterward and peopled with queer looking men of hex own Imagina tion for in her voyaging she had but little glimpses of tho real life and of the men themselves who dwelt In the far uway countries. And this waa the way of her education: She waa taught all that her father knew of books. She knew all that he could teach her of the manner in which ships are guided over trackless oceans. Some times, when the weather was not too rough, she used to stand at the stern of the gig and repeat the orders of the cap- after a time, together with the wrecking and whaling, he came to be one of tho powers of tho city and was a very rich man. It was during tho long nights and the long days when he was watching for tho ships to come Into port that Eugenia was loft much alone, and it was during that time that Amilio came to love her, for across the street he worked as a law stu dent In the ofllce of Dom Jao Aqulla, and each day she came into her balcony hooded to be sure and gladdened him. Within the year after he had come to know the law he was made corregedor at the election, which was held in the church on tho Sunday following Easter. There ho did Justice to tho islanders who ap peared in the court after the manner as it is written in the law which was made when Philip was king of Portugal. Than, one day Sebaatiao waa found dead days when the sun came glowing Into tha Itua Huo Joao. She had said "bom dla," perhaps no more than that, ever. Sometimes they hud seen her lem-e the house, but always with Jose and Carmen, the maid, and always hooded with tho great capote. Amlllo had known her, yes. He hud seen her go Into the shops on days of the feasts, when she would have sweet meats and perhaps an extra ribbon or two for tho gown which she wore, sometimes to the theater -vhen the players came from Lisbon, and made music in tho little Juy houso down below the convent In the square. That waa all. He had spoken to her when she came Into the street and then only to say "bom dla!" Only once she had rained her hood. No, he could tell no more. Then they called the Donna Eugenia. When she came to the stand the corre gedor questioned her as to when the Senhor SHR FLASHED HRU HAND KItOM HER DARK C1AJSK. tain, her father, to the men forward, and they obeyed her, these great brawny sail ors, and gav her the nam of the admiral. They built for her wonderful model rhlps, and carved marvelous things out of cocoa nut shells and out of the calabash. Then when the slave trade of the Afri can coast became the best business in which a merchant ship could engage, the captain brought negroes to Brazil and to Cuba and to America, and became a very rloh man. All the money that lie made In the slaving he left to Eugenia when he died, but this was not until she had been married for a year to S ba.sllao, and had gone with all the slaves which her hus band owned to live in Horta, which is la tho Inland of Fayal. For a year all went well enough. Be bastiao had his business to watch, and his business was of a curious nature, for ho had to do with the ships which came un expectedly Into tho Porto Pim. Tou must know that the Porto Pim Is a bay, a round bay, which sots In from the sea and makes a deep Indentation into the coast line of the island. Here in the old days the Bhips came when they were wrecked, or had been wrecked, for some times the skippers who hud an eye for the dollars and little feeling for the crew and for their lives, used to take their .'hips to sea sometimes from Southampton or 1.13 bon or Valencia and when they were rear the Island they would' cruls-e up and down, up and down for days off the coas:. Then, when the fogs came, and the clouds came down over the sea from Pico and from Caldeira, they would run them rharp Into Porto Pim, and there would tho boats lie wrecked on the jagged rocks which rite sullenly almost to the very surface of tho water. And today, even after a century, if one comes down from the Monte da Gula, roun 1 by the Spanish forts, and looks out through tho city gate, he may still see the timbers and the sea washing through them. And when these ships were wrecked the men who had written the Insurance would lose much of money, and the skippers and those who were in their favor would make an equal sum icrliaj s a bit less, for mouths may be closed by money but still it served. That, then was the business in which Sebastiao traded. He wrecked ships and on the stairs which led Info his dwelling. Blood waa everywhere. On the stone stair way and on the walls, and on the door which led Into the room where the Donna Eugenia slept. In the closet at the foot of the stairs Jose was found locked in, the key turned from the outside. Such a day wus never seen In all Horta. Not even when the Donna Curltn was found crushed on the stones outside the convent of Sao Joao. Then there was no mstery. Every one knew that the officer from tho English ship had been on shore the night before, and had helped to hold the blanket which si.ould catch her when she Jumped from the window. Hut this, the mystery of the murder of Senhor Sebastiao, was another matter. There had been but one other so tragic, and that was when the Donna Amelia had died of a sudden In the convent of I .a Concelcao, but that Is not a part of this story and will be told at another time. So the senhor was rtesd. Jose, the only man who had entrance to the house, other than the senhor himself, had been locked in his dungeon at the foot of the stairs The Donna Eugenia was In her room, sleeping. No other living soul had been seen near the house upon the evening ol the murder. That he had been murdered there could be no duubt. Lying near him was found n sharp axe, such as the wreckers use when a ship breaks on the rocks of Porto Pim. It was covered with blood, in his head was a great wound which showed how the axf had cleaved Into his very brain. Then came a trial. It had been necesary for the officials to call Jose, but he hud told simply how he had been locked In the closet early in tho evening, and how, afterward, he had heard, even through the thick walls, the loud words of the senhor and the Donna Eugenia. No; he could tell no more. Thai was all. Then the street watchman was called. H had passed the house at the regular time, but ho had heard nothing. Neither had Carmen, the maid whe had found the bid cf the senhor In the morning, (Tlearly noth ing was to be learned from them. Tho neighbors were"' called and examined. They knew the Donna-Eugenia, because they had aeen'her In the balcony In the Sabastlao hnd come homo, and If there had been a quuVrel. "Yes, there was a quarrel," she raid. "There was a quarrel. Ho struck me with his whip so " und the Donna Eugenia flashed her hand from her dark cloak. As she did so, her great capote fell from her head, and the long, blue cloak dropped to the floor, leaving her standing clear-cut. white, against the darkness of the coming evening. "And then?" questioned the corregedor. "And then, that was nil. I asked him to fetch the water from the Jar In the gar den." "Rut Jose? What do you know- of hlmT" asked tho corregedor. "Jose was locked In his closet." "He was locked In early in the evening?" "Yes, the Senhor Sebastiao locked him In." "Hut he must have been let out from the closet" "One must believe that." "When?" "Surely it must have ben after tho Sen hor Scbastiuo hnd gone to the garden." A hush fell over the dreary old court room. The Donna Eugenia had not moved since her cloak fell to the floor. The Cor regedor Amlllo gazed squarely Into her eyes. They fell before his iook, and a flush came under her olive skin. "And it has liec n raid that the Senhor Sebastiao struck you blows with a whip. Is that the truth?" "Not once, but many times did he beat me thus. The sear across my check Is from such a blow." The Dcxina Eugenia turned to face the light. Across the brow, and extending downward toward her ear thero was a livid mark, as of u wound. The spectators shiv ered. "Maria mla!" said one. Then the corregedor continued. "And you have had Joso with you many years us a servant?" "Yes. He was the husband of my nune In Nlchtheroy. Ho has been with my fam ily ever since I wus born." "You could trust him?" "I would trust him with my life." "Yet how should one explain how ho escaped from the closet after he had beon (Continued on Page Fifteen.)