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Page 30
He now sought the mansion of Don Ramiro, for the temporary flame kindled
by the bright eyes of the Alcayde's daughter had long since burnt itself
out, and his genuine passion for Serafina had revived with all its
fervor. He approached the balcony, beneath which he had so often
serenaded her. Did his eyes deceive him? No! There was Serafina herself
at the balcony. An exclamation of rapture burst from him, as he raised
his arms toward her. She cast upon him a look of indignation, and
hastily retiring, closed the casement. Could she have heard of his
flirtation with the Alcayde's daughter? He would soon dispel every doubt
of his constancy. The door was open. He rushed up-stairs, and entering
the room, threw himself at her feet. She shrank back with affright, and
took refuge in the arms of a youthful cavalier.
"What mean you, Sir," cried the latter, "by this intrusion?"
"What right have you," replied Don Fernando, "to ask the question?"
"The right of an affianced suitor!"
Don Fernando started, and turned pale. "Oh, Serafina! Serafina!" cried
he in a tone of agony, "is this thy plighted constancy?"
"Serafina?--what mean you by Serafina? If it be this young lady you
intend, her name is Maria."
"Is not this Serafina Alvarez, and is not that her portrait?" cried Don
Fernando, pointing to a picture of his mistress.
"Holy Virgin!" cried the young lady; "he is talking of my
great-grandmother!"
An explanation ensued, if that could be called an explanation, which
plunged the unfortunate Fernando into tenfold perplexity. If he might
believe his eyes, he saw before him his beloved Serafina; if he might
believe his ears, it was merely her hereditary form and features,
perpetuated in the person of her great-granddaughter.
His brain began to spin. He sought tho office of the Minister of Marine,
and made a report of his expedition, and of the Island of the Seven
Cities, which he had so fortunately discovered. No body knew any thing
of such an expedition, or such an island. He declared that he had
undertaken the enterprise under a formal contract with the crown, and
had received a regular commission, constituting him Adelantado. This
must be matter of record, and he insisted loudly, that the books of the
department should be consulted. The wordy strife at length attracted the
attention of an old, gray-headed clerk, who sat perched on a high stool,
at a high desk, with iron-rimmed spectacles on the top of a thin,
pinched nose, copying records into an enormous folio. He had wintered
and summered in the department for a great part of a century, until he
had almost grown to be a piece of the desk at which he sat; his memory
was a mere index of official facts and documents, and his brain was
little better than red tape and parchment. After peering down for a time
from his lofty perch, and ascertaining the matter in controversy, he
put his pen behind his ear, and descended. He remembered to have heard
something from his predecessor about an expedition of the kind in
question, but then it had sailed during the reign of Don Ioam II., and
he had been dead at least a hundred years. To put the matter beyond
dispute, however, the archives of the Torve do Tombo, that sepulchre of
old Portuguese documents, were diligently searched, and a record was
found of a contract between the crown and one Fernando de Ulmo, for the
discovery of the Island of the Seven Cities, and of a commission secured
to him as Adelantado of the country he might discover.
"There!" cried Don Fernando, triumphantly, "there you have proof, before
your own eyes, of what I have said. I am the Fernando de Ulmo specified
in that record. I have discovered the Island of the Seven Cities, and am
entitled to be Adelantado, according to contract."
The story of Don Fernando had certainly, what is pronounced the best
of historical foundation, documentary evidence; but when a man, in the
bloom of youth, talked of events that had taken place above a century
previously, as having happened to himself, it is no wonder that he was
set down for a mad man.
The old clerk looked at him from above and below his spectacles,
shrugged his shoulders, stroked his chin, reascended his lofty stool,
took the pen from behind his ears, and resumed his daily and eternal
task, copying records into the fiftieth volume of a series of gigantic
folios. The other clerks winked at each other shrewdly, and dispersed to
their several places, and poor Don Fernando, thus left to himself, flung
out of the office, almost driven wild by these repeated perplexities.
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