Silently the bearers rest the bier upon the green platform of grass before the cave.
Then Pelayo advances to the front, and putting back with his hands the thickly trailing thorns that impede the opening, the bier is placed within under the shadows of an overlapping stone.
Not a word has been spoken, but many streams murmur as they go bubbling in the sun, and the splash of the distant waterfalls answers, and the sighing of the wind passes with hollow sound. Only the shrill cry of an eagle catches the ear as it swoops upon its prey, unconscious of the presence of man.
By a common instinct the Gothic chiefs gather before the cave, the lofty figure of Pelayo towering above them all. These men represent a nation conquered, fugitive, helpless, but still a nation which will never die, but live to bring forth long lines of kings in succeeding centuries to rule over two hemispheres.
They know it, these Gothic chiefs, the prophecy is in them—a solemn faith in the justice of their cause, which tells them the hordes of unbelievers shall not prevail.
And as they wait, by other paths, invisible to the eye but known to the fugitives, emerge the dark forms of other brothers-in-arms, who now join the group.
Every eye seeks Pelayo, by whose invincible courage, wisdom, and endurance this small remnant has been saved. Every eye seeks his as he stands aside leaning against a rock, insensible, as it seems, to all but his own affliction.
Then Friula, nearest in kinship to the royal line, speaks:
“The time is come, brothers, that we must choose a chief. Long has the noble Pelayo led us. He has now another vengeance to fulfil. The moment is opportune. Onesinda is dead. The butcher Kerim has been summoned to Cordoba. The garrison of Gijon lacks a defender. Let him lead us there as king.”
“As king,” comes ringing from every side of the shrouded summits, which catch the words and bear them from hollow, spanless depths to wild, yawning gorges among the black cliffs, down which green waters pour from the gloomy precincts of the cave where rest the remains of Onesinda.
“Let him be king!” sounds in many tones like a chant of freedom, intoned by these Asturian wilds, which never had felt the foot of mortal foe.
As the voices die away amid a thousand echoes, Pelayo turns and raises his steel helmet, showing the careworn lines of his deeply wrinkled face lit up by no gleam of triumph. Ere he speaks he raises his hand, and points to the deep shadow of the cave.
“We are in the presence of the dead. The shade of Onesinda yet lingers in that body she died to save. Before her corpse, speak softly. Let the dead rest in peace.”
“Then in her presence let us crown him!” cries Friula, taking up the word. “For her sake let the vengeance of the Goths not tarry.”
“We are but as a handful against a nation,” says Recesvinto, “numberless as the sands of the desert; but we will fight for Pelayo and for Spain.”
“For Pelayo and for Spain!” again thunders round. Even the tiny streamlet which cleaves the grass they stand on seems to snatch the words, and goes dancing downwards, bearing them to the world.
“My friends and brothers,” cries Pelayo, rousing himself from the cloud of sorrow into which the death of his sister has plunged him, “I accept your trust. We have been together in many a hard-fought day since the rout of the Guadalete sent us to these wilds. It is no crown I crave, even were it the glorious iron circlet which bound the brows of Alaric, but to lead you in danger and in toil. For this I will be your king. God willing, I will cut off the Moors to the depth of my hatred, root and branch. They shall learn to curse the day when Pelayo was proclaimed. At the cave of Cavadonga a new nation commences, which, with God’s help, shall exceed the old. In the name of Onesinda we will triumph.”
A burst of joyful enthusiasm follows this address. He speaks with a dignity and confidence which inspires his followers with the reckless courage he feels within his breast.
The Gothic chiefs gather round him as the sheep round the faithful shepherd when the howl of the wolf is borne upon the wind. No lack of valour is visible upon their dark brows, and looks of deadly defiance shoot from eye to eye as they hasten to bind the shields they carry together, place Pelayo on them, and bear him three times round the face of the cave of Cavadonga, the rest following with bare heads and naked swords.
The Moslems of Gijon, when they heard that the fugitive Goths had elected a king in the Asturian mountains, laughed with scorn. But he soon made his presence felt by frequent incursions, causing great havoc among the Moors.
At length he collected a sufficient force to meet them in a pitched battle. The great victory of Caincas followed, and ere the eighteen years were passed during which Pelayo ruled over the Goths, the garrison of Gijon surrendered, and El Conde de Gijon was one of the titles he bore upon his shield.
In the solitude of the Asturias the cave of Cavadonga is still to be found; the very spot or campo before it on which Pelayo was carried on the shields of his followers, is somewhat vulgarised by a commemorative obelisk erected by the Duc de Montpensier. The valley, a perfect cul-de-sac, ascends abruptly to the site. Pelayo lies within the small church of Saint Eulalia, near at hand at Abaima. A simple stone is engraved with his name and a carved sword of Roman pattern.
It was he who dealt the first serious blow to the invaders. From that time they grew cautious in their approaches to the north.
Again the Goths became a name in the old kingdom. At Oviedo, south of Gijon, the new dynasty took root, concealed at first in the obscure reigns of Friula, Orelio, Ramiro, and Ordoño, calling themselves Kings of Galicia and Oviedo, up to Alonso the Second, surnamed “the Chaste,” 791, when Leon came to be both the court and capital of the kingdom of the Goths.
THE city of Leon is a very ancient place, old even in the days of the Romans. Around it circles the line of walls spared by Witica when he levelled the defences throughout Spain.
It is entered by four gates opening into four wide streets, crossing each other at right angles. Many have been the changes, but there still stand the city walls, substantially the same, the huge stones worked into coarse rubble, capped by frequent towers with tapia turrets from which the eye ranges over the leafy plains of mountain-bound Galicia.
The houses are low-roofed and homely, as befits the rough climate of the north; the streets narrow and grey. Red-brown and sepia is the colouring against the sky, with whiffs of chill air from the mountains and the scent of fields and flowers, the shelter of green thickets and verdant banks, sown with tall poplars, beside purling streams.
A homelike and pleasant place, despised by the Moors after the African fantasies of the south, but absolute luxury to the Spaniards, as so much larger and nobler than their late capital, Oviedo.
Alonso, surnamed “the Chaste,” second of that name, passing to the conclusion of a long and prosperous reign, finds much that is congenial to his monkish prejudices and austere life in the simplicity of the nature around.
That Alonso’s habits are more of a friar than of a king may be explained by the aspect of the times. As successor to the pious “Il Diacono,” and as a protest against Mauregato, his kinsman, who, for the assistance given him by the Moors, agreed to pay them what is often mentioned in history as the “Maiden Tribute,” a hundred Christian maidens to be sent to the Caliph at Cordoba for his harem, fifty rich and fifty poor, a shameful agreement faithfully fulfilled until the reign of Ramiro in 866.
This specially develops in Alonso a sentiment of religious protest in the form of a rigid chastity, not only enforced in his own person, but in all those about him. As he grows older these ideas take more and more hold upon him, and increase to such a degree as actually to pervert his judgment. Obviously it is the interest of the Church to encourage them, and for this reason he seeks his companions among priests and monks.
What care his subjects that Alonso is called “the Chaste,” or that his wife, Queen Berta, lives like a nun? The royal claims to sanctity are utterly thrown away upon a sarcastic, laughter-loving court, especially as Doña Ximena, his sister, a buxom dame, with the fair amplitude of her Gothic ancestors, has so far strayed from the fold as to become the mother of a boy!
Imagine the scandal! She is promptly ordered off to a cloister for life, and her lover, the heroic Conde de Saldaña, imprisoned in the castle of Luna, where, more gothicum, he is deprived of sight; Alonso fasting, and scourging himself until nature well-nigh gives way, and Berta, the Queen, bathed in tears, doing nothing but confess, although she has nothing to say except that she has lived in company with such a sinner as Ximena!
But the boy thrives apace, a very lusty and proper child, with no notion of dying or care as to who are his parents, provided he has enough to eat and playmates to amuse him, horses to ride and dogs to follow him about the court, where, with singular inconsistency, Alonso allows him to remain and bear the name of Bernardo del Carpio.
Not that he is acknowledged by the king—heaven forfend! Though one of those secrets known to every one, Bernardo himself was never told how he came into the world, but accepted himself in ignorance as one standing alone, not in arrogance and pride, but out of the simplicity of his heart, which prompted him to be second to none, seeing that he had already given good proofs of his valour in tilts and tourneys and in continual encounters with the Moors, pressing hard on the little Christian kingdom, so narrow against the sea.
It is a gusty morning in the month of June; a mass of black clouds rides up from the west, portending a coming storm. Distant thunder rumbles between snatches of fitful sunshine, lighting up the inner court of the royal palace where the Roman prefects once ruled—a plain edifice, built of stone, with open arcades running round supported by pilasters of coarsely grained marble.
In and out there is an air of unusual bustle and movement. Sturdy Goths are hurrying to and fro, their long, unkempt hair hanging on their shoulders, and others of a slighter mould, in outlandish draperies and white turbans, whose finer features betray an Eastern origin; for, as was often the case, African captives in battle gladly accepted, as slaves, the more peaceful service of the Christians, when no necessity was imposed on them of fighting their Moslem brethren.
In the countenances of all there is a look of surprise as they hurry by, carrying such golden utensils as served for the celebration of the Mass, jewelled cups, golden patens, embroidered cushions, and rich folds of arras and tapestry worked in Algerian looms, with which the chapel walls are decorated on high occasions of state.
A master of the ceremonies, or Jefe, bearing an ivory wand, stands in the centre of the court directing the servants. His flat Castilian cap of a bright colour, and dark manto lined with fur, sharp aquiline features and piercing eyes proclaim him a native-born Spaniard of the old type.
“Is it that foreign palmer,” he mutters between his teeth, “arrived from Navarre, or that Gallic knight who flies the fleur-de-lis with such heavy armour and delicate forms of speech? I warrant me he is a hypocrite to the core, as he comes from the Frankish king. One or both, they have bewitched our master. The palmer, with his sandalled feet and cockle-shell, an ill-favoured fellow one scents a mile off, dirt being, I am told, a quality next to holiness—but I like it not, the odour of garlic is strong enough for me—is shut up with my lord in his private closet. Anyway, the king has encountered the foul fiend somewhere, that he is tempted to risk his crown. Now they have been singing a laudamus in the chapel for the safe arrival of the French king, whom the devil confound as a stranger and an invader! Well-a-day! The Holy Virgin of Saragossa help us! We can die but once! Here, Poilo, Poilo!” he shouts at the top of his voice, to a rough, wolfish-looking dog which has precipitated itself with an angry growl and clenched teeth into the arcade.
“Fie upon you for an ill-mannered brute. Leave the king’s guests alone.”
Doffing his scarlet cap, the Jefe at once assumes the humble aspect of his condition, as two personages, evidently of importance, emerge from the arcade, taking no notice of his repeated low salutations or of the snarls of the dog which he now holds by a silver collar, as they walk up and down the court in eager conversation.
“Was the like ever heard?” exclaims one of them, a tall figure of martial aspect, attired in a rich robe trimmed at neck and shoulder with miniver, and secured on the breast with a huge gold brooch.
“Let Alonso forfeit his crown if he please,” is the answer, “but I will never consent to cut my own throat.”
“Nor I, Favila,” replies the other, a younger man, who holds the office of Chamberlain, wearing a heavy gold chain about his neck, his slight figure set off by a coquettishness in the fashion of the time—a close-fitting tunic of dark green, with a hood attached reaching to his waist, and a plume fixed by a jewel in a small cap poised on one ear.
“I, for one, will stoutly defend my castle and shake off all allegiance to Alonso. I would rather join the Moors, treacherous as they are and ready to pounce on us at every corner, than submit to an inroad of new enemies to overrun the land we have rescued with so much blood. Bad enough to have Charlemagne for a neighbour, without bringing him here to rule over us with the king’s leave. They say he and his paladins are already on the march. Why cannot the king be content to name his sister’s son his successor? Whom will he find better than the son of Saldaña and a royal infanta? I love Bernardo with all my heart.”
“That Alonso will never do,” rejoins the older man, “in face of his obstinate refusal to admit the legality of the marriage of Doña Ximena to the Count of Saldaña. They say he has destroyed the documents, and that Bernardo can never prove himself his father’s son.”
“He has no notion of trying,” answers Don Ricardo, “as far as I can see. He is strangely indifferent to name and position.”
“But is the reason of the king’s strange perversity known?” asked Don Favila.
“In part it is. First there is in his head this maggot of chastity.”
“He will not find that virtue among the Gallic monks he is so fond of harbouring,” Don Favila observes, twirling his black moustache. “Of all the hoary sinners——”
“No matter,” interrupts Don Ricardo, “that is not to the point. You question me of the reason—if he has any tangible one and is not mad—that Alonso treats Bernardo as he does. Chastity in the first place. The propagation of his royal race offends him. He glories in the name of ‘the Chaste.’ He would have all his family the same.”
“Fool,” mutters Don Favila, but he offers no further interruption.
“Doña Ximena, his only sister, was destined to
become the Abbess of the great Convent of San Marcos, outside the gate of Leon, which he is building. So averse to love is he himself——”
“Then why in the foul fiend’s name did he marry Queen Berta?” puts in the younger man, evidently of an impatient temperament, but Don Ricardo passes the question by as irrelevant and proceeds:
“When he found that the Infanta preferred a mortal to an immortal spouse, and had actually gone the length of bearing him a child, he fell into such a state of blind rage that he declared she had never married, and shut her up with such rigour that she died.”
“By Santiago, a most barbarous act,” is the response; “but saints are always cruel.”
“About as barbarous,” answers Don Ricardo, “as calling in to inherit the Gothic throne a foreigner, Charlemagne, a Frank, to whom he offers the succession, when his own sister’s child is beside him branded with infamy.”
“If this is the Church’s teaching, I would fain be a Mussulman. What will Bernardo say when he hears of it?”
“Who speaks of me?” cries a clear young voice, coming from a more distant part of the patio where an arched gateway led out into the place of arms in which the Spanish knights and soldiers exercised themselves. A knight’s chain and spurs of gold show out from under a manto of dark velvet, which he throws on the ground, and which is instantly, with every sign of reverence, picked up by the Jefe, with difficulty holding Poilo back, who with sharp, quick barks and yells of delight seeks to precipitate itself on the young knight, much too preoccupied to observe it, save that with a quick wave of the hand he dismisses both the dog and the Jefe.
Bernardo’s somewhat short and sturdy figure is clothed in linked mail which rattles as he hastens forward to join Favila and Ricardo, at the moment that a louder and nearer clap of thunder is audible and a deeper shadow falls.
“Favila, Ricardo, you have heard this cursed news? I see it in your faces. By the blood of Saint Isidore, is the king distraught that he disposes of the kingdom of Leon as though he were a churl chaffering away his field? Can it be true? I am just come from the mountains, where I have met with sport both of men and beasts, for the Moor Kirza has planted himself at Selagon, and sends out detachments to the foot of the Asturias. Tell me, friends, can it be true?”
Both bow their heads.
“We will never submit,” said Favila, “to the Frankish king. Many are already gone from the court to place their castles in a state of defence.”
“What!” exclaims Bernardo, whose cheeks are flushing scarlet and the veins in his forehead swelling with growing passion. “What! give away the whole kingdom of Leon, with its warriors and nobles, to a foreigner, as if we were a flock of sheep? I am of no illustrious race myself”—at these words a significant look passes between his two companions, who turn their eyes on the ground. “Faith! I know not of what race I am,” with a short laugh, “nor do I care while the king continues his favour to me, but I am a Spaniard; I will sell my living to no man.”
“The king has no heir,” observes Favila, in a dry tone, raising curious eyes on Bernardo. “He says he desires to settle the succession before his death.”
“True,” answers Ricardo, “no legal heir,” and he, in his turn, shot a significant glance at Bernardo, who does not in the least observe it. “He may fear that some one of his blood might take his place that he would not approve.”
“Sir, you speak in riddles,” cries Bernardo, cutting in. “Who is there that the king fears will step into his place? Marry for me I know not, nor do I care. Confusion to his surname of ‘the Chaste,’ if Alonso brings in Charlemagne and his paladins into the hard-won land that the noble Pelayo wrested from the Moor. By the memory of the cave of Cavadonga and the sacred oath our ancestors swore among the savage rocks of the Asturias” (at these words, Bernardo raises his steel cap from his head, and stands with open brow and glistening eyes full in the glory of the fitful sunshine), “I pledge myself never to sheathe my unworthy sword until every invader, be he enemy or friend, Frank, Berber, or Moor, be driven out of the limits of Leon. I swear it,” he adds in a deep tone, laying his right hand on his breast, where, on a laced front of velvet, was embroidered the cognizance he had received from the king. “You are witnesses, my friends?” At which Don Favila and Don Ricardo incline their heads, and Bernardo replaces the helmet on his head from which floated a sombre plume, then adding, with a light laugh, “Let Alonso play the anchorite if he will, but all of us are not blest with his virtues.”
“Mock not, profane youth, the saintly name of our master. There is no danger that your virtues will reach the height of his excellency. His pure soul lives more in heaven than on earth,” says the voice of an older man, an ancient Jefe much honoured by the king, advancing to join the group, which has moved, in the energy of talk, higher up towards the stone border of a fountain which rises from the base of a Roman statue overgrown with moss and weeds.
“Your challenge, Bernardo, comes too late. Charlemagne is already near the Pyrenees, with all his knights and vassals, the renowned Roland among them; they will soon touch the soil of Leon, to accept the inheritance our gracious king has given him. Once arrived in Leon, you dare not, presumptuous boy, who judge your betters by yourself, draw your sword upon the guest of Alonso.”
“He shall never be his guest,” shouts Bernardo, fire flashing from his eyes; “neither Charlemagne nor his peers, his knights or paladins, Roland and the rest shall set their feet in Leon. I, Bernardo del Carpio, will bar the way.” A laugh of derision comes from the old chamberlain, at what he considers such madness. Even Favila and Ricardo smile, so vain it seems that this youth could stay the advance of the greatest monarch in Christendom.
“You laugh!” cries Bernardo, turning fiercely round, his glittering eyes aglow. “You deem I boast? Be it so. Time will show. I speak not of Divine help, Santiago on his milk-white charger armed cap-à-pie in radiant steel interposing, or other monkish tales. If deeds are the language of the brave, words lie with fools. Was it with words Pelayo revenged his sister’s death and raised the Gothic standard against the great Abdurraman? Excuse me, good sir,” he adds, breaking off suddenly, the inspired look passing from his countenance as he addresses the older man, whose sarcastic countenance is still sharpened to a sneer—“if I who am so young, speak my mind. I go to the king to remonstrate.”
“You would do better to forbear,” hastily interrupts the old courtier. “The king is at his devotions, assisted by a learned monk lately arrived from Navarre.”
“I care not, though the air breed monks as thick as flies; you stay me not, Sir Chamberlain.”
BERNARDO hastily passed the court with swift, straight strides, his form in shadow defined against the light. A heavy peal of thunder sounded overhead as he turned to the right, where a marble stair, with a sculptured balustrade, guarded by soldiers, led to the royal apartments on the first floor, under a flat roof.
“ ‘Tis indeed a foul shame,” said Don Favila, looking after him, as he and his companions took shelter under the arcade from the now thickly falling rain, “that our king, who loves him well, does not grant him the honours of his birth and name him his successor. He guesses not who he is. You noted his words?” turning to Ricardo, who nodded.
“What! a bastard!” exclaimed the aged chamberlain; “a braggart and a bastard, instead of the victorious Charlemagne? Good gentlemen, you are distraught. Would you have a sovereign, the pureness of whose life will pass as an example in all time, forget so far his principles as to countenance his sister’s shame? The king, my master, has done right to protect his kingdom from such reproach.”
Meanwhile Bernardo passes the alguazils who knew him well, his mailed feet resounding on the marble floor as step by step he reaches a door before which a heavy panel of tapestry is displayed, bearing a royal crown, and beneath, the arms of Leon and Oviedo, bound by an inscription in old Gothic letters.
The first chamber, lined with wooden wainscot and a groined oaken roof, is bare of other furniture, save some rudely carved benches, on which meanly attired attendants sit or lounge.
These Bernardo passes with a hasty salute, which they respectfully return, then on into another and another chamber floored with coloured Moorish tiles, into the last, a hugely proportioned hall, the carved roof supported by lofty pillars. This hall, through the window of which the lightning plays, though void of furniture, is far more ornate than the rest, seeing that at the farther end, on a raised platform, surmounted by a dusty canopy, is a throne, on which a royal chair is placed, used on such rare occasions as when Alonso receives his compañeros and knights in state.
Nothing can exceed the neglect of this primitive apartment, now seen in the deep shadow of the coming storm. Trophies of early Gothic armour are fixed on hangings of once embroidered damask; but so little care has been taken that the nails have given way, the tapestry has fallen, and the mortar which knit together the solid blocks of stone is visible.
Before the throne stands a long wooden table, on which rests a rich enamelled crucifix, set with jewels, and huge candelabra of silver, holding waxen torches such as are used in churches to light up the shrines of saints, a rude attempt at splendour which leaves the rest more bare. Seats there are with time-stained leather coverings, and a royal chair inlaid with ivory, as was also the curiously formed footstool. Two low doors open in a recess behind the throne into two opposite turrets, one leading to the private apartments of the king, who lives alone—Queen Berta being relegated to a distant part of the palace, which formed three sides of a square, fronting the cathedral, where there is an array of delicately carved saints and martyrs niched round the deep curves of three arched portals under two turreted towers;—the other door opening into a small chapel, where King Alonso, kneeling on the bare stones, passes a great part of the day and often of the night, in ecstatic prayer and meditation.
Not for a moment did Bernardo hesitate. As he knocked on the oaken panels interspersed with heavy nails, which opened to the chapel, the latch yielded to his hand, and he entered as a blinding flash of lightning gleamed bright and strong and the thunder broke loudly overhead. An instant after, all had darkened into so profound a gloom
that at first nothing was visible, except the dim outline of a gilt retablo behind the altar, on which a light burned day and night before the ever-present host and such sacred bones and relics as had been saved from desecration by the Moors.
“Who dares to break in on my devotions?” cried a harsh voice, speaking as it were from the depths of sudden night before a shrine concealed in the sunken curvings of the wall. “Begone! leave me to commune with the saints.”
“It is in their name I come, O King, to defend the land they love,” answered Bernardo, bending his knee, in a voice so young and fresh, life and youth seemed to waft with it into the gloom.
There was a moment of silence.
“Not now, Bernardo, not now, my boy. Leave me. I have vowed a novena to the Virgin of Saragossa, whose favour I specially implore, with that of the Holy Santiago and Saint Isidore our patrons, on a great project I have in hand. Not now.”
“Yes, now,” in a stern voice came from Bernardo, fronting the king, who had turned reluctantly towards him. “What I have to say brooks not a moment’s delay.” Another crash from without interrupts him, and a wild whirl of hail and rain rattle outside on the casement. “Oh, my lord,” he continues, “are there no valiant knights in Leon that you should betray your kingdom into the hands of a strange king?”
“Betray? you dare to say betray, after the long and prosperous reign heaven has vouchsafed me?” cried Alonso, rising up from where he was kneeling as a subdued ray of light lit the sunken features of his emaciated face, with long white hair and beard, the natural fairness of his skin turned by time into a yellow tinge; his eyes full and grey, with thin imperceptible eyebrows, and cheeks deeply lined with wrinkles which collected on his high forehead under a silken cap. A noble face, once full of manly beauty, but with an expression of coldness and fickleness in the wandering eye, and weakness in the thin-lined mouth which marred it. Then in a louder tone he continued: “It ill becomes your slender years, Bernardo, and your lack of experience, to question the wisdom of your sovereign.”
“But to sell us to a foreigner, my lord, to give us over into the hands of the Frankish wolf! This can never be. A courage equal to Charlemagne’s beats in a thousand Spanish breasts, and I, Bernardo, will lead them. Not secretly and treacherously, but in the light of day. Therefore I am come to warn you against yourself. For by no unbiassed will of your own have you done this thing.”
“Silence, rash boy,” answered Alonso, roused into unwonted passion by these stinging words, “you presume upon my constant favour to insult me.”
“Never, oh never! All that I know of kindness is from you,” and Bernardo cast himself at Alonso’s feet and seized his hands. “You are my king and master. I forget none of your bounties to a friendless boy” (at this word Alonso started, and laid his hand tenderly on Bernardo’s head, but presently withdrew it with a sigh); “but neither the crown you wear nor your bounties, had they been ten times greater, would make me a traitor to the land.”
AS Bernardo knelt upon the steps of the darkened altar, on which the outline of a saint with a dim glory seemed to bless him with outstretched arms, something in the ardent auburn of his hair, relieved from the pressure of his cap of steel, which he had removed before entering, his open manly brow and honest eyes fixed on him with such pleading warmth, touched some subtle chord of tenderness within the King.
His sister Ximena in her youth rose up and gazed at him in Bernardo’s eyes. Deep down in his cold heart a thrill of human affection throbbed as he recalled their games as children and a thousand ties of girlish love she had woven about his heart. Alas! how he had loved her! How he still mourned her, and importuned Heaven with constant prayers, spite of what he considered the deadly sin of her apostasy in forming an adulterous union which shut out her son from the legal pale of kinship! Therefore he had destroyed all record of the marriage, ever, in the consideration of the Church, a sacrilegious act.
That the son of his sister should inherit the crown had ever been to him a horror and a dread. Indeed, in the ramifications of his strangely mixed nature, this fear had mainly influenced him in the choice he had made of Charlemagne.
Now, by a sudden revulsion of feeling, the very boldness of Bernardo, his open-handed valour and the fiery words in which he pleaded, invested him with something sacred as the utterance of the true and rightful defender of his people. From that moment a tardy remorse began to possess him, and doubts of the rightfulness of his act in destroying the proofs of his legitimacy.
“Too late, too late,” he murmured, gazing sorrowfully into the depths of Bernardo’s clear blue eyes, and unconsciously passing his fingers through the beads of an agate rosary suspended at his waist, as if to invoke the assistance of the saints to maintain the steadfastness of his resolve—then shook his head, which sank upon his breast.
All this time the war of the elements was raging without. Thunder, lightning, wind, and rain had burst forth in one of those sudden tempests which sweep down from the mountains even in the midst of summer. The walls of the old palace seemed to rock, and at times the voices of the speakers were barely audible.
“My lord, you answer not,” pleaded Bernardo, rising to his feet, offended at the long silence, as a gleam of vivid lightning at the same moment swept over him. “Hark! The very powers of nature protest against your act. At least before you made us over as vassals to Charlemagne you might have called the Cortes together, and heard what the nation had to say. But let me tell you, Don Alonso, you have made a promise you can never keep. Instead of the crown of Leon, Charlemagne will have to face a nation in arms. Every man that bears the name of Castilian will rise and water the soil with his blood rather than yield, and I, Bernardo del Carpio, will lead them!”
For an instant the fury within him overtopped all control, but he checked himself as Alonso answered:
“Bernardo, Bernardo! Again I warn you not to overstep the respect you owe me. Your words are sharp, but there is a ring of truth in them, I admit. Bethink you, my boy,” and Alonso’s voice fell suddenly into a feeble tone, “Charlemagne is a Christian king, and a great warrior, whose power has always curbed the Moor. To exterminate the Moslem is the duty of sovereigns who love the saints. Who is so strong as he? Wage no war on Christians, but keep your sword for the vile Infidels who press round the limits of our land.”
“Christian or Moslem, my lord, Charlemagne shall never lead the knights of Leon,” cried Bernardo. “But before I go”—(and again he bowed his knee before the king, who had now seated himself in an arched niche, a silver lamp suspended over his head among the rich details of garlands and shields, crowns and badges at moments visible
in startling distinctness in the rapidly succeeding sheets of lightning)—“tell me, I pray you, what name I bear, and from whom I am sprung? I crave it as a boon. Men call me Bernardo del Carpio, by the name of the castle you bestowed upon me. When I question further they turn aside and smile. But a knight in such a battle as I go to lead against the Franks must wear his own escutcheon on his shield, not one granted him by favour.”
Had a viper suddenly fixed its sharpest fangs upon his flesh Alonso could not have started with greater horror. His glassy eyes fixed themselves on the unconscious Bernardo, who eagerly awaited his answer to be gone, with an expression of mingled dread and terror, eyeing him as if the foul fiend himself had crossed his path, while a tremendous explosion of thunder overhead rattled around, and flash after flash of lightning quivered upon the walls. At length, out of his mouth came inarticulate words, mixed with broken phrases, but spoken so low in the uproar created by the storm no sense came to Bernardo.
“Begone, bastard!” cried the king at length, every feature in his face working with the violence of his passion. “Have I harboured you so many years to open the wound of my dishonour? Is this the return you make for all my care? Neither name nor kindred have you, so get you gone. The sight of you offends me.”
“Oh, my lord!” answered Bernardo, whose open countenance had grown very white, deep lines forming on mouth and brow with a sudden look of age the course of years could not have wrought, “had any man but you spoken thus to me, he would not have lived to draw another breath. Your words point to some hideous secret, some foul crime, in which you share. Great God! whence am I sprung? The very beasts have dams that suckle them, and is Bernardo alone deprived of the common claims of nature?”
No answer came from the king; no sign, no yielding. Bernardo’s question had struck him to the quick.
“As you pray for mercy, sire, speak one word,” urged Bernardo, the trembling of his lips telling what he suffered. “Are father and mother dead?”
“Both to me,” was the stern answer. “The mortal spark of life can never reanimate the soul dead in sin. Question me no more, audacious youth. And think not, because my blood runs in your veins that I will favour your ambition. Rather have I called in the stranger to occupy the throne. Now you know my mind. Were I dead, my spirit would stand as with a flaming sword to shut you out.”
“Then sweeter far than life and honour and glory, come death!” exclaimed Bernardo, throwing up his arms. “From this day I am a desperate man. My sword is to me the staff of life; bloodshed and carnage the food on which I live. Come now over the grey heights of the mountains the Frankish host and I will meet them as never mortal did his country’s foes. Come, great Charlemagne and all your peers; iron-fisted Guarinos, good Ferragol, Oliver, Gayferos, and Roland, bravest of paladins. Come all. Despair, dishonour are the keen edges to the weapon which I draw for your destruction. An unknown knight, degraded from my place, I will leave a name behind me that shall be honoured as long as Spain cleaves the seas. Adieu, my lord,” turning to the king, “you have forgotten your duty to the land you rule, come to you inch by inch, bathed in Gothic blood. I, Bernardo del Carpio, the nameless outcast, go forth to defend it. You have planted a dagger in my heart not hecatombs of the enemy can draw forth. Adieu!”
“Now stay, my boy,” cried the king, laying his hand on his shoulder as he turned to go. “Spite of the past, my heart warms to you. Take the lion of Leon and place it on your shield; and when men ask you by what right, answer, ‘By order of the King.’ ”
At this moment the tempest seemed to have reached its climax; a loud and hollow reverberation, like the sound of a blow upon a brass timbrel, shook the palace to its foundations and the whole firmament pulsated with flame. But Bernardo heeded not: with his features locked in a cold, impassive silence, he passed out.
THE day is warm and genial, the landscape flushed with green, and such homely blossoms as hawthorne and elder, briony and honeysuckle, flourish in the fields.
An immense plain spreads around, verdant with pastures, gardens and huertas full of fruit-trees and clumps of planes and oaks, while across it, flung like a silver ribbon, flows the current of the Torio River. Hayfields, ploughed land, and squares of maize and yellowing rye, follow each other in its course, divided by groves and wooded hedgerows rich in roadside flowers—Canterbury bells, pink willow-wand, the humble star daisy, and the wild rose.
Behind rise the turrets and spires of Leon, ruddy in colour, on a gentle slope crowned by the cathedral backed by a waving line of hills fading into the darkness of fantastic rocks, rising to the giddy heights of the Asturian mountains capped with snow.
Nor is the fairness of the earth less than the brilliancy of the sky. Not a cloud floats on the horizon to mar the view,—winding in and out among the trees, the dazzle of glittering helmets in the sun; sleek war-horses, cased in armour, curveting gaily spite of the heavy weight laid on them; flags and emblazoned shields breaking through masses of bright lances held aloft, battle-axes and broadswords—each knight as he passes, followed by his esquire, trumpeter and page, riding forth on the sacred mission, led by Bernardo del Carpio.
As one man the city follows him as he rides forth from the gate on a white charger, the banner of Leon waving before him, a gold lion rampant on a field of red. “It is the standard of Leon,” say those around. “The king allows him to bear it—a high honour to a nameless knight who, men say, never came legally into the world.”
Now cries of “Bernardo! Bernardo!” rend the air; the brazen trumpets sound, the shrill clarion calls to arms—and as he hears the warlike sound, the peasant quits his team to grasp a spear, the shepherd watching his flock by running streams flings down his crook and rushes forward, the youth whose limbs have never felt the weight of armour, the old men who sit at home at ease—all swell the crowd, as mountain torrents receive neighbouring rills.
“We are born free,” they say, “and free we will remain. No Frankish king shall rule over Leon. Anointed cravens may barter the land, but under the lion who bathes his paws in blood we will fight for ‘our land.’ ”
Three thousand men follow Bernardo to the field, all animated with the spirit of their chief. The secret infamy which hangs over his birth he dares not fathom, nor why his father is concealed, or in what manner he is connected with the king! Some foul injustice has clearly been done him. The thought of it rankles deeply in his soul. With this feeling comes a growing hatred to Alonso, who at least has been privy to this concealment, if not the cause.
Then, ashamed of permitting his own private griefs to intrude on the noble mission he has in hand, Bernardo calls to Don Favila to ride beside him.
“What will the king say to this armament, amigo?” are his first words. “Surely he will now understand the vainness of his purpose! In what disposition did you leave him?”
“I think he is much shaken,” is the reply, “but there are secret reasons. You, my lord, best know his mind.”
Bernardo heaves a deep sigh.
“Talk not to me of him,” he exclaims, “he is a hypocrite, unworthy of an honest man’s regard.” Then, seeing the look of amazement on Don Favila’s face, “Yes! by Santiago! such is my mind, and I will fling my mailed glove into his cursed face and tell him so, if I return from the present adventure.”
More and more amazed, Don Favila listens. “If it were not so early in the day, good Bernardo, I should think you had quaffed too many beakers of wine to our success.”
“Do I look like a man who has wine in him?” answers Bernardo, bitterly. “If wine would drown my care, I would drink a sack.”
“Tell me,” continues Favila, burning with curiosity, “by our long friendship, what is there amiss between you and King Alonso? You were wont to love him well.”
“Then it is past,” replies Bernardo, chafing under the questioning. “I hate him now. It is possible you can judge of the reason better than I. I pray you, good Favila, ask me no more; it is useless looking back.”
Don Favila, as a prudent man, held his peace. Although of a gentle and courteous nature, there was that in Bernardo that no one dared to cross. A look of sullen wrath is on his face he has never seen before. Has he at last discovered the secret of his birth and the cruelty of the chaste king?
Now the little army, passing by pleasant hedgerows and fertile fields, reaches the borders of the Ordega, crossed by a wooden bridge so narrow that much time is occupied by the passage of the troops.
A sound of the approach of many horsemen, galloping rapidly, comes from the road they have just traversed, and clouds of dust from the dry soil sweep to the height of the tree-tops. Voices are heard, and the roll of drums and the call of trumpets, but nothing as yet is seen.
“We are set upon by foes,” shouts Don Ricardo, hastily seeking out Bernardo, who, with a set white face, watches, immovable in the saddle, the passage of the knights across the bridge.
“Foes,” answers Bernardo, with a mocking laugh; “methinks, Ricardo, you are suddenly grown blind not to recognise your countrymen. These are no foes, but our own townsmen come out to join us.”
As he speaks, nearer and nearer comes the clamour, and louder and louder upon the breeze rises the cry, “El Rey, El Rey,” echoing back from a thousand voices along the line.
“Yes, it is he,” says Bernardo to those around. “I know him by his helmet, set with gems, and the fur collar over his corselet. By the rood, it is well he acknowledges his wrong.”
And as he turns his eyes upon Don Alonso, such a loathing possesses him, nothing but the cause he has in hand keeps his hand from his weapon to avenge his wrong.
Meanwhile the king’s arrival in face of the army is greeted by a shout so long and loud mountain and hill ring with it.
In the tall, thin warrior, with a long white beard, nobly wearing a regal diadem about his burnished helmet, no one would recognise the emaciated anchorite who scourged and starved himself. The words of Bernardo have stung him to the quick. He has cast off the delusions which filled his brain; the French monks have been sent whence they came, the armed messenger dismissed, the pledges given to Charlemagne have been withdrawn. Even the horror of his sister’s sin in the person of Bernardo has yielded to the nobleness of his conduct, and like a man distraught suddenly restored to his right senses, he has ridden out to join him.
The shouts of the crowd (for the distance from Leon has not prevented many of the citizens following the soldiers) for a time drowns every other sound.
Again and again King Alonso bows to the saddle-bow, and again and again from three thousand voices comes the cry, “Viva el Rey! Leon! Leon to the rescue!”
Nor, in this moment of triumph, as he lingers on the brink of the river, proudly contemplating the gallant body of knights, who crowd round him to touch, if possible, the nobler charger which bears him, his mailed hands, his rich saddle-cloth, and the royal standard borne before him, does he forget Bernardo.
Calling to him in a loud voice he commands him to leave the van of the army and place himself at his side.
Then raising the crossed hilt of his jewelled sword before his face, he utters a brief prayer, and turns towards the thousands of eager visages upraised to his.
“O men of Leon,” are his words, contemplating them with moistening eyes, “to this brave knight—Bernardo del Carpio—I confide the land. Where he leads, follow!”
IN front of the many valleys opening out from under the dark range of the Pyrenees, they met—the Gaul and the Spaniard. The Emperor Charlemagne with good cause curses the fickleness of the King of Leon, who had invited him to inherit his kingdom, and instead came out to offer him battle. Personally, he is not mentioned as taking part in the battle—indeed, it is said he was encamped eight miles off, near Fontarabia, but he sent forward the flower of his chivalry, those doughty paladins, to be sung by the romanceros and troubadours to all time: Guarinos, ferocious Ferragol, Sir Oliver the Gentle, handsome Gayferos, and Roland the Brave, who went mad for the love of Angelica, mounted on a powerful steed, which bounds and caracoles as if preparing for a tourney, firmly ruled with one hand, while with the other he carried aloft his famous sword Durindana, followed by his vassals and retainers, in short hauberks and upright caps, with round targets like the Moors.
The two armies met on undulating ground, descending from the chain of the Pyrenees in front of the Pass of Roncesvalles—through which the French had marched into Spain confident of victory—a close and terrible defile, narrow and deep, cleft into precipitous cliffs following from St. Jean de Luz and the defile of Guvarni on the French side, among almost impassable gorges, which back the city of Pampeluna close on the province of Cantabria, the land of Pelayo.
As a forest of lances and spears set on a plain of gold did the glittering helmets look from afar in the radiance of the sunshine, darkened by clouds of arrows, and the blades of javelins and lances cutting the light of day as the ranks closed in deadly strife of quivering spears and flying pennons falling round wounded horses, the blast of trumpets and cries of dying men.
And gallantly did the King of Leon bear himself, the jewelled crown on his morion shining out in the thick of the battle, Favila and Ricardo fighting by his side, when lo! a company of Gallic lords bore down with such force as to leave the king alone, face to face with a knight in dark armour, taller than the rest, a steel helmet pressing on his fiery eyes, and the bars of his vizor raised that all might know him, as he brandished a sword no other man could wield.
“Where,” cries this terrible paladin known as Sir Roland the Brave, flashing fire as he whirls his good sword Durindana in the air, “is that perjured Goth, Alonso of Leon, who bids strangers to his land and seeks to slay them?”
“If you mean me,” answers Alonso, spurring forward, “I am here to answer the charge.”
“Then make short shrift, false king,” cries Roland, “for traitor and felon you are to Charlemagne, and as such you shall die.”
In courage the king is not wanting, but he stands almost alone; several of the knights about him are dismounted, and swarms of the enemy are gathering about them where they lie. Already the swords strike fire, but he is soon in evil plight; Durindana has cleft the crown on his head-piece and wounded his good charger. The weakness of his blows show that he is no match for such an antagonist. Alonso staggers in the saddle, when Bernardo, pounding through the centre of the Gothic knights as with the shock of a thunderbolt, spurs forward.
“Shame on you, Sir Paladin,” he shouts, “as a craven. Are you blind, that you see not the king’s arm is stiff with age? Turn now the fury of your weapon on me, Bernardo del Carpio.”
“I know you not, vain boy,” is the reply, eyeing Bernardo with disdain. “Get you a beard upon your chin before you feel the steel of Durindana.”
“Come on!” shouts Bernardo, glaring at him through the bars of his helmet. “I promise you, you shall know me all too soon for your glory. I am a man in search of death.”
The onslaught is so furious that blood flows in the first encounter; the horses are disabled by the shock. To extricate themselves is the work of a moment, and on their feet they fight.
Then Bernardo, round whose head the good sword Durindana flashes dangerously near, seizes a battle-axe from the hands of a warrior lying lifeless at his feet, and gathering all his strength, deals such a blow on Sir Roland that the steel pierces down upon his neck, and stretches him, mortally wounded, on the ground.
Smitten to death, like a pious Christian he prepares to yield up his soul to God. But first, collecting all his strength, he clutches his faithful sword and thus addresses it: “O sword of unparalleled brightness, fair Durindana, with hilt of ivory and cross of gold, on which is graven the name of God—whom now wilt thou call master? He that possessed thee was never conquered before; nor daunted by foes, nor appalled by phantoms. O happy sword, never was a fellow made like thee! That thou shalt never fall into the hands of a craven or an infidel, I will smite thee on a rock in twain.” And so he did, in the throes of death as he was, cleaving the weapon in twain and flinging it afar. The “Breach of Roland,” in the Pyrenees, is noted from that day. Then, raising the horn slung over his corselet to his lips, with fast-ebbing breath he blew a blast so shrill that the sound reached even to Charlemagne’s camp, who, ignorant of the great disaster, lay in