You could not have witnessed, perhaps, a brighter scene than that which took place on a clear October morning in the handsome Gothic church of Belize, when Julian Ritherdon and Beatrix Spranger became man and wife.
Space has not permitted for the introduction of the reader to several other sweet young English maidens whose parents' affairs have led to their residences in the colony; yet such maidens there are in Honduras--as the inquiring traveller may see for himself, if he chooses--and of these fair exiles some were, this morning, bridesmaids. They, you may be sure, lent brightness and brilliancy to the scene, and so did the uniforms of several young officers of her Majesty's navy, these gentlemen having been impressed into the ceremony For, as luck would have it, not a week before, H.M.S. Cerberus (twin-screw cruiser, first-class, armoured) had anchored, off Belize, and, as those acquainted with the Royal navy are aware, no officer of that noble service can come into contact with any ship belonging to it (as Julian Ritherdon soon did) without finding therein old friends and comrades. Be very sure also, therefore, that George Hope, George Potter, John Hamilton, that most illustrious of naval doctors, "Jock" Lyons, and many others dear to friends both in and out of the service, all came ashore in the bravery of their full dress--epaulettes, cocked hats, and so forth--while the Padré "stood by" to lend a hand to the local clergyman in performing the ceremony. While, too, the path from the churchyard gates to the church door was lined by bluejackets who, of course, were here clad in their "whites" and straw hats.
But, because rumour ever runneth swift of foot, even in so small a colony as this--where, naturally, its feet have not so much ground to cover--and in so small a capital as Belize, with its six thousand inhabitants, the church was also filled with many others drawn from the various races, mixed and pure, who dwell therein. For, by now, there was scarcely a person in either the colony or capital to whose ears there had not come the news that the handsome young officer who was in a few moments to become the husband of Miss Spranger, was, in truth, the rightful owner of Desolada. Likewise, all knew that Sebastian had never been that owner, but that he was the son of Carmaux, who had perished by the fangs of the tommy-goff, and of the dark, mysterious beauty who had come among them as Miriam Gardelle and had married him. And they knew, too, that this marriage was to be the reward and crown of dangers run by Julian, of more than one attempt upon his life, as well as that it was the outcome of a deep fraud perpetrated and kept dark for many years.
Paz was there, too, his eyes glistening with rapture at the sound of the Wedding March, his weird soul being ever stirred by music; so, also, was Monsieur Lemaire, grave, dignified, and calm as became a French gentleman in exile, and with, about him as ever, that flavour of one who ought by right to have walked in the gardens of Versailles two hundred years ago, and have basked in the smiles of the Great Monarch.
And so they were married, nor can it be doubted that they will live happy ever afterward--to use the sweet, old-time expression of the storybooks of our infancy. Married--she given away by her father; he supported by his oldest friend in the Cerberus--and both passing happy! Married, and going forth along the path of life, he most probably to distinction in his calling, she to the duties of an honest English wife. Married and happy. What more was needed?
"I come," he said to her that afternoon, when already the steamer was leaving Honduras far astern, and they were travelling by the new route toward Kingstown on their road to England--"I came to Honduras to find perhaps a father, perhaps an inheritance. Neither was to be granted to me, but, instead, something five thousand times more precious--a wife five thousand times more dear than any parent or any possession."
"And," she asked, her pure, earnest eyes gazing into his, "you are contented? You are sure that that will make you happy?"
To which he replied--as--well! as, perhaps--if a man--you would have replied yourself.