I shall despair! There is no creature loves me:
And, if I die, no soul will pity me!
Nay, wherefore should they? since I myself
Find in myself no mercy to myself!”—King Richard III.
The twelfth hour of the night had already been announced from half the steeples of England’s metropolis, and the echoes of its last stroke lingered in mournful cadences among the vaulted aisles of Westminster. It was not then, as now, the season of festivity, the high-tides of the banquet and the ball, that witching time of night. No din of carriages or glare of torches disturbed the sober silence of the streets, illuminated only by the waning light of an uncertain moon; no music streamed upon the night-wind from the latticed casements of the great, who were contented, in the days of their lion-queen, to portion out their hours for toil or merriment, for action or repose, according to the ministration of those great lights which rule the heavens with an indifferent and impartial sway, and register their brief career of moments to the peer as to the peasant by one unvarying standard.
A solitary lamp burned dim and cheerlessly before a low-browed portal in St. Stephen’s; and a solitary warder, in the rich garb still preserved by the yeomen of the guard, walked to and fro with almost noiseless steps—his corslet and the broad head of his shouldered partisan flashing momentarily out from the shadow of the arch, as he passed and repassed beneath the light which indicated the royal residence—distinguished by no prouder decorations—of her before whose wrath the mightiest of Europe’s sovereigns shuddered. A pile of the clumsy fire-arms then in use, stacked beneath the eye of the sentinel, and the dark outlines of several bulky figures outstretched in slumber upon the pavement, seemed to prove that some occurrences of late had called for more than common vigilance in the guarding of the place.
The prolonged cry of the watcher, telling at each successive hour that all was well, had scarcely passed his lips, before the distant tramp of a horse, and the challenge of a sentry from the bridge, came heavily up the wind. For a moment the yeoman listened with all his senses; then, as it became evident that the rider was approaching, he stirred the nearest sleeper with the butt of his heavy halbert. “Up, Gilbert! up, man, and to your tools, ere they be wanted. What though the earl’s proud head lie low?—he hath friends and fautors enough in the city, I trow, to raise a coil whene’er it lists them!” The slumbers of the yeomen were exchanged on the instant for the guarded bustle of preparations; and, before the horseman, whose approach had caused so much excitement, drew bridle at the palace-gate, a dozen bright sparks glimmering under the dark portal, like glow-worms beneath some bushy coppice, announced the readiness of as many levelled matchlocks.
“Stand, ho! the word—”
“A post to her grace of England!” was the irregular reply, as the rider, hastily throwing himself from off his jaded hackney, advanced toward the yeoman.
“Stand there, I say!—no nearer, on your life! Shoot, Gilbert, shoot, an’ he stir but a hand-breadth!”
“Tush! friend, delay me not,” replied the intruder, halting, however, as he was required to do; “my haste is urgent, and that which I bear with me passeth ceremony—a letter to the queen! On your heads be it, if I meet impediment! See that ye pass it to her grace forthwith.”
“A letter? ha! There may be some device in this; yet pass it hitherward.” A broad parchment, secured by a fold of floss silk, with its deeply-sealed wax attached, was placed in his hand. A light was obtained from the hatch of a caliver, and the superscription, evidently too important for delay, hurried the guards to action. “The earl of Nottingham”—it ran—“to his most high and sovereign lady, Elizabeth of England. For life! for life! for life!—Ride and run—haste, haste, post-haste, till this be delivered!”
After a moment’s conference among the warders, the bearer was directed to advance; a yeoman led the panting horse away to the royal meuf; and the corporal of the guard, striking the wicket with his dagger-hilt, shortly obtained a hearing and admission from the gentleman-pensioner on duty. Within the palace no result was immediately perceived from the occurrence which had caused so much bustle outside the gates; the soldiers on duty conversed for a while in stifled whispers, then relapsed into their customary silence; the night wore on without further interruption to their watch, and ere they were relieved they had well nigh forgotten the messenger’s arrival.
Not so, however, was the letter received by the inmates of the royal residence. Ushers and pages were awakened, lights glanced, and hurried steps and whispering voices echoed through the corridors. The chamberlain, so great was considered the urgency of the matter, was summoned from his pillow; and he with no small trepidation proceeded at once to the apartment of Elizabeth. His hesitating tap at the door of the ante-chamber—occupied by the ladies whose duty it was to watch the person of their imperious mistress by night—failed indeed to excite the attention of the sleeping maidens, but caught at once the ear of the extraordinary woman whom they served.
“Without there!” she cried, in a clear, unbroken tone, although full sixty winters had passed over her head.
“Hunsdon, so please your grace, with a despatch of import from the earl of Nottingham.”
“God’s death! ye lazy wenches! hear ye not the man without, that I must rive my throat with clamoring? Up, hussies, up—or, by the soul of my father, ye shall sleep for ever!” The frightened girls sprang from their couches at the raised voice of their angry queen, like a covey of partridges at the yelp of the springer, and for a moment all was confusion.
“What now, ye fools!” she cried again, in harsh and excited accents, that reached the ears of the old earl without—“hear ye not that my chamberlain awaits an audience? Fling yonder robe of velvet o’er our person, and rid us of this night-gear—so!—the mirror now! my ruff and curch! and now—admit him!”
“Admit him! an’ it list your grace, it were scarce seemly in ladies to appear thus disarrayed—”
“Heard ye, or heard ye not? I say, admit him! Think ye old Hunsdon cares to look upon such trumpery as ye, or must I wait upon my wenches’ pleasure? God’s head, but ye grow malapert!”
The old queen’s voice had not yet ceased, before the door was opened; and although the ladies had taken the precaution of extinguishing the light, and seeking such concealment as the angles of the chamber afforded, the sturdy old earl—who, notwithstanding the queen’s assertion, had as quick an eye for beauty as many a younger gallant—could easily discover that the modesty which had demurred to the admission of a man was not by any means uncalled for or even squeamish. Had he been, however, much more inclined to linger by the way than his old-fashioned courtesy permitted, he must have been a bold man to delay; for twice, ere he could cross the floor to her chamber, did his name reach his ears in the impatient accents of Elizabeth: “Hunsdon! I say—Hunsdon! ’s death! art thou crippled, man?”
There was little of the neatness or taste of modern days displayed in the decorations of the royal chamber. Tapestries there were, and velvet hangings, carpets from Turkey, and huge mirrors of Venetian steel; but a plentiful lack of linen, and of those thousand nameless comforts, which a peasant’s dame would miss to-day, uncared for in those rude times by princesses. Huge waxen torches flared in the wind, which found its way through the ill-constructed lattice; and a greater proportion of the smoke, from the logs smouldering in the jams of a chimney wider than that of a modern kitchen, reeked upward to the blackened rafters of the unceiled roof.
Rigid and haughty, in the midst of this strange medley of negligence and splendor, sat the dreaded monarch, approached by none even of her most favored ministers save with fear and trembling. Her person, tall and slender from her earliest years, and now emaciated to almost superhuman leanness by the workings of her own restless spirit, even more than by her years, presented an aspect terrible, yet magnificent withal. It seemed as though the dauntless firmness of a more than masculine soul had won the power to support and animate a frame which it had rescued from the grave; it seemed as though the years which had blighted had failed in their efforts to destroy; it seemed as though that faded tenement of clay might yet endure, like the blasted oak, for countless years, although the summer foliage, which rendered it so beautiful of yore, had long since been scattered by the wild autumnal hurricane, or seared by the nipping frosts of winter. Her eye alone, in the general decay of her person, retained its wonted brilliancy, shining forth from her pale and withered features with a lustre so remarkable as to appear almost supernatural.
“So! give us the letter—there! Pause not for thy knee, man; give us the letter!”—and tearing the frail band by which it was secured asunder, she was in a moment entirely engrossed, as it would seem, in its contents. Her countenance waxed paler and paler as she read; and the shadows of an autumn morning flit not more changefully across the landscape, as cloud after cloud is driven over the sun’s disk, than did the varying expressions of anxiety, doubt, and sorrow, chase one another from the speaking lineaments of Elizabeth.
“Ha!” she exclaimed, after a long pause, “this must be looked to. See that our barge be manned forthwith, and tarry not for aught of state or ceremony. Thyself will go with us, and stop not thou to don thy newest-fashioned doublet: this is no matter that brooks ruffling!—’Sdeath, man! ’tis life or death! And now begone, sir! we lack our tirewoman’s service!”
An hour had not elapsed before a barge—easily distinguished as one belonging to the royal household, by its decorations, and the garb of the rowers—shot through a side arch of Westminster bridge, and passed rapidly, under sail and oar, down the swift current of the river, now almost at ebb tide. It was not, however, the barge of state, in which the progresses of the sovereign were usually made; nor was it followed by the long train of vessels, freighted with ladies of the court, guards, and musicians, which were wont to follow in its wake. In the stern-sheets sat two persons: a man advanced in years, and remarkable for an air of nobility, which could not be disguised even by the thick boat-cloak he had wrapped about him, as much perhaps to afford protection against the eyes of the inquisitive as against the dense mists of the Thames; and a lady, whose tall person was folded in wrappings so voluminous as to defy the closest scrutiny. At a short distance in the rear, another boat came sweeping along, in the crew and passengers of which it would have required a penetrating glance to discover a dozen or two of the yeomen of the guard, in their undress liveries of gray and black, without either badge or cognizance, and their carbines concealed beneath a pile of cloaks.
It was Elizabeth herself, who, in compliance with the mysterious despatch she had so lately received, was braving the cold damps of the river at an hour so unusual, and in a guise so far short of her accustomed state. The moon had already set, and the stars were feebly twinkling through the haze that rose in massive volumes from the steaming surface of the water, but no symptoms of approaching day were as yet visible in the east; the buildings on the shore were entirely shrouded from view by the fog, and the few lighters and smaller craft, moored here and there between the bridges, could scarcely be discovered in time to suffer the barge to be sheered clear of their moorings. It was perhaps on account of these obstacles that their progress was less rapid than might reasonably have been expected from the rate at which they cut the water.
Of the six stately piles which may now be seen spanning the noble stream, but two were standing at the period of which we write; and several long reaches were to be passed before the fantastic mass of London bridge, with its dwelling-houses and stalls for merchandise towering above the irregular thoroughfares of the city, loomed darkly up against the horizon. Scarcely had they threaded its narrow and cavern-like arches, before a pale and sickly light, of a faint yellow hue, more resembling the glare of torches than the blessed radiance of the sun, gilded the decreasing fog-wreaths, and glanced upon the level water. The sun had risen, and for a time hung blinking on the misty horizon, and shorn of half his beams, till a fresh breeze from the westward brushed the vapors aloft, and hurried them seaward with a velocity which shortly left the scenery to be viewed in unobscured beauty. Just as this change was wrought upon the face of nature, the royal barge was darting, with a speed that increased every instant, before the esplanade and frowning artillery of the Tower; the short waves were squabbling and splashing beneath the dark jaws and lowered portcullis of the “Traitor’s Gate,” that fatal passage through which so many of the best and bravest of England’s nobility had entered, never to return!
Brief as was the moment of their transit in front of that sad portal, Hunsdon had yet time to mark the terrible expression of misery, almost of despair, that gleamed across the features of the queen. She spoke not, but she wrung her hands with a sigh, that uttered volumes of repentance and regret, too late to be availing; and the stern old chamberlain, who felt his heart yearn at the sorrows of a mistress whom he loved no less than he revered, knew that the mute gesture and the painful sigh were extorted from that masculine bosom only by the extremity of anguish. She had not looked upon that “den of drunkards with the blood of princes” since it had been glutted with its last and noblest victim. Essex, the princely, the valiant, the generous, and the noble Essex—the favorite of the people, the admired of men, the idol, the cherished idol of Elizabeth—had gone, a few short moons before, through that abhorred gateway—had gone to die—had died by her unwilling mandate! Bitter and long had been the struggle between her wounded pride and her sincere affection; between her love for the man and her wrath against the rebel: thrice had she signed the fatal warrant, and as often consigned it to the flames; and when at length her indignation prevailed, and she affixed her name to the fell scroll—which, once executed, she never smiled again—that indignation was excited, not so much by the violence of his proceedings against her crown, as by his obstinate delay in claiming pity and pardon from an offended but indulgent mistress.
Onward, onward they went, the light boat dancing over the waves that added to its speed, the canvass fluttering merrily, and the swell which their own velocity excited laughing in their wake. It was a time and a scene to enliven every bosom, to make every English heart bound happily and proudly. Vessels-of-war, and traders, galliot, and caravel, and bark, and ship, lay moored in the centre of the pool and along the wharves, the thousand dwellings of a floating city. All this Elizabeth herself had done: the commerce of England was the fruit of her fostering; the power of her courage and sagacity; the mighty navy of her creation.
They passed below the dark broadsides and massive armaments of forty ships-of-war, some of the unwonted bulk of a thousand tons, with the victorious flags of Howard, Hawkins, Frobisher, and Drake, streaming from mast and yard; but not a smile chased the dull expression of fixed grief from the brow of her who had “marred the Armada’s pride;” nor did the slightest symptom on board her three most chosen vessels—the Speedwell, the Tryeright, or the Blak-Galley, the very models of the world for naval architecture—show that the queen and mistress of them all was gliding in such humble trim below their victorious batteries.
The limits of the city were already left far behind; green meadows and noble trees now filled the place of the crowded haunts of wealth and industry, while here and there a lordly dwelling, with its trim avenues, and terraced gardens sloping to the water’s edge, adorned the prospect. The turrets of Nottingham house, the suburban palace of that powerful peer, were soon in view; when a pageant swept along the river, stemming the ebb tide with a proud and stately motion—a pageant which, at any other period, would have been calculated, above all things else, to wake the lion-like exultation of the queen, though now it was passed in silence, and unheeded. The rover CavendishH—who, a few years before, a gentleman of wealth and worship, had dissipated his paternal fortunes, and in the southern seas and on the Spanish main had become a famous free-booter—was entering the river with his prizes in goodly triumph. The flag-ship, a caravel of a hundred and twenty tons only, led the van, close-hauled and laden almost gunwale-deep with the precious spoils of Spain. Her distended topsail flashed in the sunlight like a royal banner, a single sheet of the richest cloth of gold; her courses were of crimson damask, her mariners clad in garments of the finest silk; banners flaunted from every part of the rigging; and over all the “meteor flag of England,” the red cross of St. George, streamed rearward, as if pointing to the long train of prizes which followed. Nineteen vessels, of every size and description then in use—carracks of the western Indies, galleons of Castile and Leon, with the flag of Spain, so late the mistress of the sea, disgracefully reversed beneath the captor’s ensign—sailed on in long and even array; while in the rear of all, the remainder of the predatory squadron, two little sea-wasps of forty and sixty tons burden, presented themselves in proud contrast to their bulky prizes, the hardy crews filling the air with clamors, and the light cannon booming in feeble but proud exultation. Time was when such a sight had roused her enthusiastic spirit almost to frenzy, but now that spirit was occupied, engrossed by cares peculiarly its own. The coxswain of the royal barge, his eye kindling with patriotic pride, and presuming a little on his long and faithful services, put up the helm, as if about to run alongside of the leading galley; but a cold frown and a forward wafture of the hand repelled his ardor; and the men their oars bending to the work, the barge was at her moorings ere many minutes had elapsed, by the water-gate of Nottingham-house—and the queen made her way, unannounced and almost unattended, to the chamber of the aged countess.
H This incident, which is strictly historical, even to the smallest details, did in fact occur several years earlier; as the death of Elizabeth did not take place until the year 1603, whereas the triumphant return of Thomas Cavendish is related by Hume as having happened A. D. 1587. It is hoped that the anachronism will be pardoned, in behalf of the picture of the times afforded by its introduction.
The sick woman had been for weeks wasting away beneath a slow and painful malady; her strength had failed her, and for days her end had been almost hourly expected. Still, with that strange and unnatural tenacity through which the dying sometimes cling to earth, even after every rational hope of a day’s prolonged existence has been extinguished—she had hovered as it were on the confines of life and death, the vital flame flickering like that of a lamp whose aliment has long since been exhausted, fitfully playing about the wick which can no longer support it. Her reason, which had been partially obscured during the latter period of her malady, had been restored to its full vigor on the preceding evening; but the only fruit of its restoration was the utmost anguish of mental suffering and conscientious remorse. From the moment when the messenger, whose arrival we have already witnessed, had been despatched on his nocturnal mission, she had passed the time in fearful struggles with the last foe, wrestling as it were bodily with the dark angel; now pleading with the Almighty, and adjuring him by her sufferings and by her very sins, to spare her yet a little while; now shrieking on the name of Elizabeth, and calling her, as she valued her soul’s salvation, to make no long tarrying. In the opinion of the leeches who watched around her pillow, and of the terrified preacher who communed with his own heart and was still, her life was kept up only by this fierce and feverish excitement.
At a glance she recognised the queen, before another eye had marked her entrance. “Ha!” she groaned, in deep, sepulchral tones, “she is come, before whose coming my guilty soul had not the power to pass away! She is come to witness the damnation of an immortal spirit! to hear a tale of sin and sorrow that has no parallel! Hear my words, O queen! hear my words now, and laugh—laugh if you can; for, by Him who made us both, and is now dealing with me according to my merits, never shall you laugh again! Hereafter you shall groan, and weep, and tremble, and curse yourself, as I do! Laugh, I say, Elizabeth of England—laugh now, or never laugh again!”
For a moment the spirit of the queen, manly and strong as it was, beyond perhaps all precedent, was fairly overawed and cowed by the fierce intensity of the dying woman’s manner. Not long, however, could that proud soul quail to any created thing.
“’Fore God, woman,” she cried, “thou art bewitched, or desperately wicked! What, in the fiend’s name, mean ye?”
“In the fiend’s name truly, for he alone inspired me! Look here—and then pardon me, Elizabeth; in God’s name, pardon me!”
As she spoke, she held aloft, in her thin and bird-like fingers, a massive ring of gold, from which a sapphire of rare price gleamed brilliantly, casting a bright, dancing spark of blue reflection upon her hollow, ghastly features. “Know you,” she screamed, “this token?”
“Where got you it, woman? Speak, I say, speak, or I curse you!—where got you that same token?” The proud queen shook and shuddered as she spoke, like one in an ague-fit.
“Essex!” sighed the dying countess, through her set teeth—“the murthered Essex!”
“Murthered? God’s death, thou liest! He was a traitor—done to death! O God! O God! I know not what I say!” and a big tear-drop—the first in many a year, the first perhaps that ever had bedewed that iron cheek—slid slowly down the face of Elizabeth, and fell heavily on the brow of the glaring sufferer, who still held the ring aloft, in hands clasped close in attitude of supplication. “Speak,” she said again, in milder accents, “speak, Nottingham: what of—of Essex?”
“That ring he gave to me, to bear it to thy footstool, and to pray a gracious mistress’s favor to an erring but a grateful servant—”
“And thou, woman—thou!” absolutely shrieked the queen.
“Gave it not to thee—that Essex might die, not live!” was the steady reply. “Pardon me before I die; pardon me, as God shall pardon thee!—”
“God shall not pardon me, woman!—neither do I pardon thee! He, an’ he will, may pardon thee; but that will I do never! never!—by the life of the Eternal, NEVER!”—and, in the overpowering fury and agitation of the moment, she seized the dying sinner with an iron gripe, and shook her in the bed, till the ponderous fabric creaked and quivered. Not another word, not another sob passed the lips of the old countess: her frame was shaken by a mightier hand than that of the indignant queen; a deep, harsh rattle came from her chest; she raised one skinny arm aloft, and after the jaw had dropped, and the glaring eyeball fixed, that wretched limb stood erect, appealing as it were from a mortal to an immortal Judge!
The paroxysm was over. Speechless, and all but motionless, the miserable queen was borne by her attendants to the barge; the tide had shifted, and was still in their favor, though their course was altered. On their return, they again passed the triumphant fleet of Cavendish, bearing the mightiest sovereign of the world, the envied of all the earth—a wretched, feeble, heart-broken woman, grovelling like a crushed worm beneath the bitterest of human pangs, the agonies of self-merited misery! A few hours found her outstretched upon the floor of her chamber, giving away to anguish uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Refusing the earnest prayers of her women, and of her physicians, to suffer herself to be disrobed, and to recline upon her bed; feeding on tears and groans alone; uttering no sound but the name of Essex, in one plaintive and oft-repeated cry; mocking at all consolation; acknowledging no comforter except despair—ten long days and nights she lingered thus, in pangs a thousand times more intolerable than those which she had inflicted on her Scottish rival: and when, at length, the council of the state assembled, in her last moments, around the death-bed of a sovereign truly and not metaphorically lying in dust and ashes—she named to them, as her successor in the kingdom, the son of that same rival. Who shall say that the death of Mary Stuart went unavenged?
THE MOORISH FATHER.
A TALE OF MALAGA.
It was the morning of the day succeeding that which had beheld the terrible defeat, among the savage glens and mountain fastnesses of Axarquia, of that magnificent array of cavaliers which, not a week before, had pranced forth from the walls of Antiquera, superbly mounted on Andalusian steeds, fiery, and fleet, and fearless, with helm and shield and corslet engrailed with arabesques of gold, surcoats of velvet and rich broidery, plumes of the desert bird, and all in short that can add pomp and circumstance to the dread game of war. The strife was over in the mountain valleys; the lonely hollows on the bare hill-side, the stony channels of the torrent, the tangled thicket, and the bleak barren summit, were cumbered with the carcasses of Spain’s most noble cavaliers. War-steeds beside their riders, knights of the proudest lineage among their lowliest vassals, lay cold and grim and ghastly, each where the shaft, the stone, the assagay, had stretched beneath him, beneath the garish lustre of the broad southern sun. The Moorish foe had vanished from the field, which he had won almost without a struggle—the plunderer of the dead plied his hateful trade even to satiety, and, gorged with booty that might well satiate the wildest avarice, had left the field of slaughter to the possession of his brute comrades, the wolf, the raven, and the eagle.
It was now morning, and the broad sun, high already, was pouring down a flood of light over the giant crags, the deep precipitous defiles, and all the stern though glorious features which mark the mountain scenery of Malaga; and far beyond over the broad, luxuriant Vega, watered by its ten thousand streams of crystal, waving with olive-groves, and vineyards, and dark woodlands; and farther yet over the laughing waters of the bright Mediterranean. But one, who having found concealment during that night of wo and slaughter in some dark cave, or gully so sequestered that it had escaped the keen eyes of the Moorish mountaineers, now plied his bloody spurs almost in vain, so weary and so faint was the beautiful bay steed which bore him. He paused not to look upon the wonders of his road, tarried not to observe the play of light and shadow over that glorious plain, although by nature he was fitted to admire and to love all that she had framed of wild, of beautiful, or of romantic. Nay more, he scarcely turned his eye to gaze upon the miserable relics of some beloved comrade, who had so often revelled gayly, and in that last awful carnage had striven fearlessly and well, even when all was lost, beside him. He was a tall dark-featured youth, with a profusion of black hair clustered in short close curls about a high pale forehead; an eye that glanced like fire at every touch of passion, yet melted at the slightest claim upon his pity; an aquiline, thin nose, and mouth well cut, but compressed and closely set, completed the detail of his eminently handsome features. But the dark curls—for he had been on the preceding day unhelmed and slightly wounded—were clotted with stiff gore, matted with dust, and bleached by the hot sun under which he had for hours fought bareheaded. The keen, quick eye was dull and glazed, the haughty lineaments clouded with shame, anxiety, and grief, and the chiselled lips pale and cold as ashes. His armor, which had been splendid in the extreme, richly embossed and sculptured, was all defaced with dust and gore, broken and dinted, and in many places riven quite asunder. The surcoat which he had donned a few short days before, of azure damask, charged with the bearings of his proud ancestral race, fluttered in rags upon the morning breeze—his shield was gone, as were the mace and battle-axe which had swung from his saddle-bow—his sword, a long, cross-handled blade, and his lance, its azure pennoncelle no less than its steel head, crusted and black with blood, alone remained to him. The scabbard of his poignard was empty, and the silver hilt of his sword, ill-matched with the gilded sheath, showed plainly that it was not the weapon to which his hand was used. Yet still, though disarrayed, weary, and travel-spent, and worn with wo and watching, no eye could have looked on him without recognising in every trait, in every gesture, the undaunted knight and the accomplished noble.
Hours had passed away, since, with the first gray twilight of the dawn he had come forth from the precarious hiding-place wherein he had spent a terrible and painful night; and so far he had seen no human form, living at least, and heard no human voice! Unimpaired, save by the faintness of his reeling charger, he had ridden six long leagues over the perilous and rugged path by which, late on the previous night, the bravest of the brave, Alonzo de Aguilar, had by hard dint of hoof and spur escaped from the wild infantry of El Zagal to the far walls of Antiquera; and now from a bold and projecting summit he looked down upon the ramparts of that city, across a rich and level plain, into which sloped abruptly the steep ridge on which he stood, at less than a league’s distance. Here, for the first time, since he had set forth on his toilsome route, the knight drew up his staggering horse—for the first time a gleam of hope irradiating his wan brow—and, as a pious cavalier is ever bound to do, stretched forth his gauntleted hands to Heaven, and in a low, deep murmur breathed forth his heartfelt thanksgivings to Him, who had preserved him from the clutches of the pitiless heathen. This duty finished, with a lighter heart he wheeled his charger round an abrupt angle of the limestone-rock, and, plunging into the shade of the dense cork-woods which clothed the whole descent, followed the steep and zigzag path, by which he hoped ere long to reach his friends in safety. His horse, too, which had staggered wearily and stumbled often, as he ascended the rude hills, seemed to have gained new courage; for as he turned the corner of the rock, he pricked his ears and snorted, and the next moment uttered a long, tremulous, shrill neigh, quickening his pace—which for the last two hours he had hardly done at the solicitation of the spur—into a brisk and lively canter. Before, however, his rider had found time to debate upon the cause of this fresh vigor, the neigh was answered from below by the sharp whinny of a war-horse, which was succeeded instantly by the clatter of several hoofs, and the long barbaric blast of a Moorish horn. The first impulse of the cavalier was to quit the beaten path, and dashing into the thickets to conceal himself until his foemen should have passed by. Prudent, however, as was his determination, and promptly as he turned to execute it, he was anticipated by the appearance of at least half a score of Moorish horsemen—who, sitting erect in their deep Turkish saddles, goring the sides of their slight Arabian coursers with the edges of their broad sharp stirrups, and brandishing their long assagays above their heads, dashed forward with their loud ringing Lelilies, to charge the solitary Spaniard. Faint as he was, and in ill-plight for battle, there needed but the sight of the heathen foe to send each drop of his Castilian blood eddying in hot currents through every vein of the brave Spaniard. “St. Jago!” he cried, in clear and musical tones, “St. Jago and God aid!” and with the word he laid his long lance in the rest, and spurred his charger to the shock. It was not, however, either the usual mode of warfare with the Moors, or their intent at present to meet the shock of the impetuous and heavily armed cavalier. One of their number, it is true, dashed out as if to meet him—a spare gray-headed man, whose years, although they had worn away the soundness, and destroyed the muscular symmetry of his frame, had spared the lithe and wiry sinews; had dried up all that was superfluous of his flesh, and withered all that was comely of his aspect; but had left him erect, and strong and hardy as in his youngest days of warfare. His dress, caftan and turban both, were of that dark-green hue, which bespoke an emir, or lineal descendant of the prophet—the only order of nobility acknowledged by the Moslemin—while the rich materials of which they were composed, the jewels which bedecked the hilt and scabbard of both cimeter and yatagan, the necklaces of gold which encircled the broad glossy chest of his high-blooded black Arabian, proved as unerringly his wealth and consequence. Forth he dashed then, with the national war-cry, “La illah allah la!” brandishing in his right hand the long, light javelin, grasped by the middle, which his countrymen were wont to hurl against their adversaries, with such unerring accuracy both of hand and eye; and swinging on his left arm a light round buckler, of the tough hide of the African buffalo, studded with knobs of silver; while with his long reins flying as it would seem quite loose, by aid of his sharp Moorish curb, he wheeled his fiery horse from side to side so rapidly as quite to balk the aim of the Spaniard’s level lance. As the old mussulman advanced, fearlessly as it seemed, against the Christian knight, his comrades galloped on abreast with him, but by no means with the same steadiness of purpose, the track was indeed so narrow that three could hardly ride abreast in it; yet narrow as it was, the nearest followers of the emir did not attempt to keep it; on the contrary, giving their wild coursers the sharp edge of their stirrups, they leaped and bolted from one side to the other of the path now plunging into the open wood on either hand, and dashing furiously over rock and stone, now pressing straightforward for perhaps a hundred yards as if to bear down bodily on their antagonist. All this, it must be understood, passed in less time than it has taken to describe it; for though the enemies, when first their eyes caught sight of one another, were some five hundred yards apart, the speed of their fleet horses brought them rapidly to close quarters. And now they were upon the very point of meeting—the Spaniard bowing his unhelmed head behind his charger’s neck, to shield as best he might that vital part from the thrust of the flashing assagay with his lance projecting ten feet at the least, before the chamfront which protected the brow of his barbed war-horse, and the sheath of his twohanded broadsword clanging and rattling at every bound of the horse against the steel-plates which protected the legs of the man-at-arms!—the Moor sitting erect, nay, almost standing up in his short stirrups, with his keen, black eye glancing from beneath the shadow of his turban, and his spear poised and quivering on high. Now they were scarce a horse’s length asunder, when, with a shrill, peculiar yell, the old Moor wheeled his horse out of the road, and dashed into the wood, his balked antagonist being borne aimlessly right onward into the little knot of men who followed on the emir’s track. Not far, however, was he borne onward; for, with a second yell, even shriller than before, the moslem curbed his Arab, till he stood bolt upright, and turning sharp round, with such velocity that he seemed actually to whirl about as if upon a pivot, darted back on him, and with the speed of light hurled the long assagay. Just at that point of time the lance point of the Spaniard was within a hand’s breadth of the buckler—frail guard to the breast—of the second of those eastern warriors, but it was never doomed to pierce it. The light reed hurtled through the air, and its keen head of steel, hurled with most accurate aim, found a joint in the barbings of the war-horse. Exactly in that open and unguarded spot, which intervenes between the hip-bone and the ribs, it entered—it drove through the bright and glistening hide, through muscle, brawn, and sinew—clear through the vitals of the tortured brute, and even—with such tremendous vigor was it sent from that old arm—through the ribs on the farther side. With an appalling shriek, the agonized animal sprung up, with all his feet into the air, six feet at least in height, then plunged head foremost! Yet, strange to say, such was the masterly and splendid horsemanship, such was the cool steadiness of the European warrior, that, as his charger fell, rolling over and over, writhing and kicking in the fierce death-struggle, he alighted firmly and fairly on his feet. Without a second’s interval, for he had cast his heavy lance far from him, while his steed was yet in air, he whirled his long sword from its scabbard, and struck with the full sweep of his practised arm at the nearest of the Saracens, who were now wheeling round him, circling and yelling like a flock of sea-fowl. Full on the neck of a delicate and fine-limbed Arab, just at the juncture of the spine and skull, did the sheer blow take place; and cleaving the vertebræ asunder, and half the thickness of the muscular flesh below them, hurled the horse lifeless, and the rider stunned and senseless to the earth at his feet. A second sweep of the same ponderous blade brought down a second warrior, with his right arm half-severed from his body; a third time it was raised; but ere it fell, another javelin, launched by the same aged hand, whizzed through the air, and took effect a little way below the elbow-joint, just where the brassard and the gauntlet met, the trenchant-point pierced through between the bones, narrowly missing the great artery, and the uplifted sword sunk harmless! A dull expression of despair settled at once over the bright expressive features, which had so lately been enkindled by the fierce ardor and excitement of the conflict. His left hand dropped, as it were instinctively, to the place where it should have found the hilt of his dagger; but the sheath was empty, and the proud warrior stood, with his right arm dropping to his side, transfixed by the long lance, and streaming with dark blood, glaring, in impotent defiance, upon his now triumphant enemies. The nature of the Moorish tribes had been, it should be here observed, very materially altered, since they had crossed the straits; they were no longer the cruel, pitiless invaders offering no option to the vanquished, but of the Koran or the cimeter; but, softened by intercourse with the Christians, and having imbibed, during the lapse of ages spent in continual warfare against the most gallant and accomplished cavaliers of Europe, much of the true spirit of chivalry, they had adopted many of the best points of that singular institution. Among the principal results of this alteration in the national character was this—that they now no longer ruthlessly slaughtered unresisting foes, but, affecting to be guided by the principles of knightly courtesy, held all to mercy who were willing to confess themselves overcome. When, therefore, it was evident that any farther resistance was out of the question, the old emir leaping down from his charger’s back, with all the agility of a boy, unsheathed his Damascus cimeter, a narrow, crooked blade, with a hilt elaborately carved and jewelled, and strode slowly up to face the wounded Christian.
“Yield thee,” he said, in calm and almost courteous tones—using the lingua Franca, or mixed tongue, half Arabic, half Spanish, which formed the ordinary medium of communication between the two discordant races which at that time occupied the great peninsula of Europe—“yield thee, sir knight! thou art sore wounded, and enough hast thou done already, and enough suffered, to entitle thee to all praise of valor, to all privilege of courtesy.”
“To whom must I yield me, emir?” queried the Christian, in reply; “to whom must I yield? since yield I needs must; for, as you truly say, I can indeed resist no longer. I pray thee, of thy courtesy, inform me?”
“To me—Muley Abdallah el Zagal!”
“Nor unto nobler chief or braver warrior could any cavalier surrender. Therefore, I yield myself true captive, rescue or no rescue!” and as he spoke he handed the long silver-hilted sword, which he had so well wielded, to his captor. But the old Moor put aside the proffered weapon. “Wear it,” he said, “wear it, sir, your pledged word suffices that you will not unsheath it. Shame were it to deprive so good a cavalier of the sword he hath used so gallantly! But lo! your wound bleeds grievously. I pray you sit, and let your hurt be tended—Ho! Hamet, Hassan, lend a hand here to unarm this good gentleman. I pray you, sir, inform me of your style and title.”
“I am styled Roderigo de Narvaez,” returned the cavalier, “equerry and banner-bearer to the most noble Don Diego de Cordova, the famous count of Cabra!”
“Then be assured, Don Roderigo, of being, at my hands, entreated with all due courtesy and honor—till that the good count shall arrange for thy ransom or exchange.”
A little while sufficed to draw off the gauntlet, to cut the shaft of the lance, where the steel protruded entirely through the wounded arm, and to draw it out by main force from between the bones, which it had actually strained asunder. But so great was the violence which it was necessary to exert, and so great was the suffering which it caused, that the stout warrior actually swooned away; nor did he altogether recover his senses, although every possible means at that time known were applied for his restoration, until the blood had been stanched, and a rude, temporary litter, framed of lances bound together by the scarfs and baldrics of the emir’s retinue, and strewn with war-cloaks was prepared for him. Just as this slender vehicle was perfected and slung between the saddles of four warriors, the color returned to the pallid lips and cheeks of the brave Spaniard, and gradually animation was restored. In the meantime, the escort of El Zagal had been increased by the arrival of many bands of steel-clad warriors, returning from the pursuit of the routed Spaniards; until at length a grand host was collected, comprising several thousands of soldiery, of every species of force at that time in use—cavalry, archers, infantry, arrayed beneath hundreds of many colored banners, and marching gayly on to the blithe music of war-drum, atabal, and clarion. The direction of the route taken by this martial company was the same wild, desolate, and toilsome road, by which Don Roderigo had so nearly escaped that morning. All day long did they march beneath a burning sun and cloudless sky, the fierce heat insupportably reflected from the white limestone crags, and sandy surface of the roads; and so tremendous were its effects, that many of the horses and mules, laden with baggage, which accompanied the cavalcade, died on the wayside; while the wounded captive, between anxiety and pain, and the incessant jolting of the litter, was in a state of fever bordering nearly on delirium, during the whole of the long march.
At length, just when the sun was setting, and the soft dews of evening were falling silently on the parched and scanty herbage, the train of El Zagal reached the foot of a rugged and precipitous hill, crowned by a lofty watch-tower. Ordering his troops to bivouac as best they might, at the base of the steep acclivity, the old Moor spurred up its side with his immediate train and his enfeebled captive. Just as he reached the brow the gates flew open, and the loveliest girl that ever met a sire’s embrace, rushed forth with her attendants—the sternness melted from the old warrior’s brow, as he clasped her to his bosom, before he entered the dark portal. Within that mountain fortalice long lay the Christian warrior, struggling midway between the gates of life and death; and when at length he awoke from his appalling dreams, strange visions of dark eyes compassionately beaming upon his, soft hands that tended his worn limbs, and shapes angelically graceful floating about his pillow, were blent with the dark recollections of his hot delirium, and that too so distinctly, that he long doubted whether these too were the creations of his fevered fancy. Well had it been for him, well for one lovelier and frailer being, had they indeed been dreams; but who shall struggle against his destiny!
Hours, days, and weeks, rolled onward; and, as they fled, brought health and vigor to the body of the wounded knight; but brought no restoration to his overwrought and excited mind. The war still raged in ruthless and unsparing fury, between the politic and crafty Ferdinand, backed by the chivalry of the most puissant realm of Europe, and the ill-fated Moorish prince, who, last and least of a proud race, survived to weep the downfall of that lovely kingdom which he had lacked the energy to govern or defend. Field after field was fought, and foray followed foray, till every streamlet of Grenada had been empurpled by the mingled streams of Saracen and Christian gore, till every plain and valley had teemed with that rank verdure, which betrays a soil watered by human blood. So constant was the strife, so general the havoc, so wide the desolation, that those who fell were scarcely mourned by their surviving comrades, forgotten almost ere the life had left them. Hardly a family in Spain but had lost sire, son, husband, brother; and so fast came the tidings in, of slaughter and of death, that the ear scarce could drink one tale of sorrow, before another banished it. And thus it was with Roderigo de Narvaez. For a brief space, indeed, after the fatal day of Axarquia, his name had been syllabled by those who had escaped from the dread slaughter, with those of others as illustrious in birth, as famous in renown, and as unfortunate, for all believed that he had fallen in the catastrophe of their career. For a brief space his name had swelled the charging cry of Antiquera’s chivalry, when thirsting for revenge, and all on fire to retrieve their tarnished laurels, they burst upon their dark-complexioned foemen. A brief space, and he was forgotten! His death avenged by tenfold slaughter—his soul redeemed by many a midnight mass—his virtues celebrated, and his name recorded, even while yet he lived, on the sepulchral marble, and the bold banner-bearer was even as though he had never been. Alone, alone in the small mountain tower, he passed his weary days, his long and woful nights. Ever alone! He gazed forth from the lofty lattices over the bare and sun-scourged summits of the wild crags of Malaga, and sighed for the fair huertas, the rich vineyards, and the shadowy olives of his dear native province. He listened to the clank of harness, to the wild summons of the Moorish horn, to the thick-beating clatter of the hoofs, as with his fiery hordes old Muley el Zagal swooped like some bird of rapine from his far mountain eyry on the rich booty of the vales below; but he saw not, marked not, at least, the gorgeousness and pomp of their array; for, when he would have looked forth on their merry mustering, his heart would swell within him as though it would have burst from his proud bosom—his eyes would dazzle and grow dim, filled with unbidden tears, that his manhood vainly strove to check—his ears would be heavy with a sound, as it were of many falling waters. Thus, hour by hour, the heavy days lagged on, and though the flesh of the imprisoned knight waxed stronger still and stronger, the spirit daily flagged and faltered. The fierce old emir noted the yielding of his captive soul, noted the dimness of the eye, the absence of the high and sparkling fire, that had so won his admiration on their first encounter; he noted, and to do him justice, noted it with compassion; and ever, when he sallied forth to battle, determined that he would grasp the earliest opportunity, afforded by the capture of any one of his own stout adherents, to ransom or exchange his prisoner. But, as at times, things will fall out perversely, and, as it were, directly contrary to their accustomed course; though he lost many by the lance, the harquebus, the sword, no man of his brave followers was taken; nay more, so rancorous and savage had the war latterly become, that Moor and Spaniard now, where’er they met, charged instantly—with neither word nor parley—and fought it out with murderous fury, till one or both had fallen. And thus it chanced, that, while his friends esteemed him dead, and dropped him quietly into oblivion, and his more generous captor would, had he possessed the power, have sent him forth to liberty on easy terms of ransom, fate kept him still in thrall.
After a while, there came a change in his demeanor; the head no longer was propped listlessly from morn to noon, from noon “to dewy eve,” upon his burning hand; the cheek regained its hue, the eye its quick clear glance, keen and pervading as the falcon’s; the features beamed with their old energy of pride and valiant resolution; his movements were elastic, his step free and bold, his head erect and fearless; and the old Moor observed the change, and watched, if he perchance might fathom the mysterious cause, and queried of his menials; and yet remained long, very long, in darkness and in doubt.
And what was that mysterious cause, that sudden overmastering power, that spell, potent as the magician’s charm, which weaned the prisoner from its melancholy yearnings; which kindled his eye once again with its old fire; which roused him from his oblivious stupor, and made him bear himself once more, not as the tame heart-broken captive, but as the free, bold, dauntless, energetic champion; clothed as in arms of proof, in the complete, invulnerable panoply of a soul; proud, active, and enthusiastic, and, at a moment’s notice, prepared for every fortune? What should it be but love—the tamer of the proud and strong—the strengthener of the weak and timid—the tyrant of all minds—the change of all natures—what should it be but love?
The half-remembered images of his delirium—the strong and palpable impressions, which had so wildly floated among his feverish dreams, had been clothed with reality—the form, which he had viewed so often through the half-shut lids of agony and sickness, had stood revealed in the perfection of substantial beauty before his waking eyesight; the soft voice, which had soothed his anguish, had answered his in audible and actual converse. In truth, that form, that voice, those lineaments, were all-sufficient to have spell-bound the sternest and the coldest heart, that ever manned itself against the fascinations of the sex. Framed in the slightest and most sylph-like mould, yet of proportions exquisitely true, of symmetry most rare, of roundness most voluptuous, of grace unrivalled, Zelica was in sooth a creature, formed not so much for mortal love as for ideal adoration. Her coal-black hair, profuse almost unto redundancy, waving in natural ringlets, glossy and soft as silk—her wild, full, liquid eyes, now blazing with intolerable lustre, now melting into the veriest luxury of languor; her high, pale, intellectual brow; her delicately-chiselled lineaments, the perfect arch of her small ruby mouth, and, above all, the fleet and changeful gleams of soul that would flit over that rare face—the flash of intellect, bright and pervading as the prophet’s glance of inspiration; the sweet, soft, dream-like melancholy, half lustre and half shadow, like the transparent twilight of her own lovely skies; the beaming, soul-entrancing smiles, that laughed out from the eyes before they curled the ever-dimpling lips—these were the spells that roused the Christian captive from his dark lethargy of wo.
A first chance interview in the small garden of the fortress—for in the smallest and most iron fastnesses of the Moors of Spain, the decoration of a garden, with its dark cypresses, its orange-bowers, its marble fountains, and arabesque kiosk among its group of fan-like palms, imported with great care and cost from their far native sands, was never lacking—a first chance interview, wherein the Moorish maiden, bashful at being seen beyond the precincts of the harem unveiled, and that too by a giaour, was all tears, flutter, and dismay; while the enamored Spaniard—enamored at first sight, and recognising in the fair, trembling shape before him the ministering angel who had smoothed his feverish pillow, and flitted round his bed during those hours of dark and dread delirium—poured forth his gratitude, his love, his admiration, in a rich flood of soul-fraught and resistless eloquence: a first chance interview led by degrees, and after interchange of flowery tokens, and wavings of white kerchiefs by hands whiter yet, from latticed casements, and all those thousand nothings, which, imperceptible and nothing worth to the dull world, are to the lover confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ, to frequent meetings—meetings sweeter that they were stolen, fonder that they were brief, during the fierce heat of the noontide, when all beside were buried in the soft siesta, or by the pale light of the amorous moon, when every eye that might have spied out their clandestine interviews was sealed in deepest slumber.
Hours, days, and weeks, rolled onward, and still the Spanish cavalier remained a double captive in the lone tower of El Zagal. Captive in spirit, yet more than in the body—for, having spent the whole of his gay youth, the whole of his young, fiery manhood, in the midst of courts and cities; having from early boyhood basked in the smiles of beauty, endured unharmed the ordeal of most familiar intercourse with the most lovely maids and matrons of old Spain, and borne away a heart untouched by any passion, by any fancy, how transient or how brief soever; and having, at that period of his life when man’s passions are perhaps the strongest, and surely the most permanent, surrendered almost at first sight his affections to this wild Moorish maiden—it seemed as if he voluntarily devoted his whole energies of soul and body to this one passion; as if he purposely lay by all other wishes, hopes, pursuits; as if he made himself designedly a slave, a blinded worshipper.
It was, indeed, a singular, a wondrous subject for the contemplation of philosophy, to see the keen, cool, polished courtier, the warrior of a hundred battles, the cavalier of the most glowing courts, the bland, sagacious, wily, and perhaps cold-hearted citizen of the great world, bowing a willing slave, surrendering his very privilege of thought and action, to a mere girl, artless, and frank, and inexperienced; devoid, as it would seem, of every charm that could have wrought upon a spirit such as his; skilled in no art, possessing no accomplishment, whereby to win the field against the deep sagacity, the wily worldly-heartedness of him whom she had conquered almost without a struggle. And yet this very artlessness it was which first enchained him; this very free, clear candor, which, as a thing he never had before encountered, set all his art at nothing.
Happily fled the winged days in this sweet dream; until at length the Spaniard woke—woke to envisage his position; to take deep thought as to his future conduct; to ponder, to resolve, to execute. It needed not much of the deep knowledge of the world for which, above all else, Roderigo was so famous, to see that under no contingency would the old Moor—the fiercest foeman of Spain’s chivalry, the bitterest hater of the very name of Spaniard—consent to such a union. It needed even less to teach him that, so thoroughly had he enchained the heart, the fancy, the affections of the young Zelica, that for him she would willingly resign, not the home only, and the country, and the creed of her forefathers, but name and fame, and life itself, if such a sacrifice were called for. Fervently, passionately did the young Spaniard love—honestly too, and in all honor; nor would he, to have gained an empire, have wronged that innocent, confiding, artless being, who had set all the confidence of a young heart, which, guileless in itself, feared naught of guile from others, upon the faith and honor of her lover. At a glance he perceived that their only chance was flight. A few soft moments of persuasion prevailed with the fair girl; nor was it long ere opportunity, and bribery, and the quick wit of Roderigo, wrought on the avarice of one, the trustiest of old Muley’s followers, to plan for them an exit from the guarded walls, to furnish them with horses and a guide, the very first time the old emir should go forth to battle.
Not long had they to wait. As the month waned, and the nights grew dark and moonless, the note of preparation once again was heard in hall, and armory, and stable. Harness was buckled on, war-steeds were barbed for battle, and, for a foray destined to last three weeks, forth sallied El Zagal.
Three days they waited, waited in wild suspense, in order that the host might have advanced so far, that they should risk no interruption from the stragglers of the rear. The destined day arrived, and slowly, one by one, the weary hours lagged on. At last—at last—the skies are darkened, and Lucifer, love’s harbinger, is twinkling in the west. Three saddled barbs, of the best blood of Araby, stand in a gloomy dingle, about a bow-shot from the castle-walls, tended by one dark, turbaned servitor. Evening has passed, and midnight, dark, silent, and serene, broods o’er the sleeping world. Two figures steal down from the postern gate: one a tall, stately form, sheathed cap-à-pie in European panoply; the other a slight female figure, veiled closely, and bedecked with the rich, flowing draperies that, form the costume of all oriental nations. ’Tis Roderigo and Zelica. Now they have reached the horses; the cavalier has raised the damsel to her saddle, has vaulted to his demipique. Stealthily for a hundred yards they creep away at a foot’s pace, till they have gained the greensward, whence no loud clank will bruit abroad their progress. Now they give free head to their steeds—they spur, they gallop! Ha! whence that wild and pealing yell—“La illah, allah la!” On every side it rings—on every side—and from bush, brake, and thicket, on every side, up spring turban, and assagay, and cimeter—all the wild cavalry of El Zagal!
Resistance was vain; but, ere resistance could be offered, up strode the veteran emir. “This, then,” he said, in tones of bitter scorn, “this is a Christian’s gratitude—a Spaniard’s honor!—to bring disgrace—”
“No, sir!” thundered the Spaniard, “no disgrace! A Christian cavalier disgraces not the noblest demoiselle or dame by offer of his hand!”
“His hand?” again the old Moor interrupted him; “his hand—wouldst thou then marry—”
“Had we reached Antiquera’s walls this night, to-morrow’s dawn had seen Zelica the all-honored bride of Roderigo de Narvaez!”
“Ha! is it so, fair sir?” replied the father; “and thou, I trow, young mistress, thou too art nothing loath?” and taking her embarrassed silence for assent—“be it so!” he continued, “be it so! deep will we feast to-night, and with to-morrow’s dawn Zelica shall be the bride of Roderigo de Narvaez!”
Astonishment rendered the Spaniard mute, but ere long gratitude found words, and they returned gay, joyous, and supremely happy, to the lone fortress.
There, in the vaulted hall, the board was set, the feast was spread, the red wine flowed profusely, the old Moor on his seat of state, and right and left of him that fair young couple; and music flowed from unseen minstrels’ harps, and perfumes steamed the hall with their rich incense, and lights blazed high, and garlands glittered: but blithe as were all appliances, naught was so blithe or joyous as those young, happy hearts.
The feast was ended; and Abdallah rose, and filled a goblet to the brim—a mighty goblet, golden and richly gemmed—with the rare wine of Shiraz. “Drink,” he said, “Christian, after your country’s fashion—drink to your bride, and let her too assist in draining this your nuptial chalice.”
Roderigo seized the cup, and with a lightsome smile drank to his lovely bride—and deeply he quaffed, and passed it to Zelica; and she, too, pleased with the ominous pledge, drank as she ne’er had drank before, as never did she drink thereafter!
The goblet was drained, drained to the very dregs; and, with a fiendish sneer, Muley Abdallah uprose once again.
“Christian, I said to-morrow’s dawn should see Zelica Roderigo’s bride, and it shall—in the grave! To prayer—to prayer! if prayer may now avail ye! Lo! your last cup on earth is drained; your lives are forfeit—nay, they are gone already!”
Why dwell upon the hateful scene—the agony, the anguish, the despair? For one short hour, in all the extremities of torture, that hapless pair writhed, wretchedly convulsed, before the gloating eyes of the stern murderer! Repressing each all outward symptoms of the tortures they endured, lest they should add to the dread torments of the other—not a sigh, not a groan, not a reproach was heard! Locked in each other’s arms, they wrestled to the last with the dread venom; locked in each other’s arms, when the last moment came, they lay together on the cold floor of snowy marble—unhappy victims, fearful monuments of the dread vengeance of a Moorish father!
THE END.