Stanhope's indignation was as vehement, as it was sincere, at what had been done; and, to every one of the royal ministers, separately and collectively, he spoke his mind with corresponding boldness. Indeed, his remonstrances were so strong and what he urged in the Duke's favour, so powerful; that, as it came repeatedly before the King, they began to fear the issue.—Difficulties in substantiating their various allegations against Ripperda, were starting up every hour, and the charge of poisoning, was completely disproved. From all these considerations, they saw the necessity of keeping the ruined minister from any chance of gaining the royal ear; which, they augured, could hardly be prevented,when his son should arrive; whose high character, notwithstanding the aspersions of his enemies, was whispered about, from the representations of Sinzendorff. Indeed, those who had seen Louis, and knew the foibles of the Queen, were afraid, that should she see him, she might transfer that notice to the son, personal jealousy had alone withdrawn from the father. Impelled by these apprehensions, they moved every engine to convict the Duke of heresy, before Louis could arrive; and in that case, should the Inquisition once claim him as their victim, they knew the bigotry of Philip would abandon his former favourite without another question.
While these machinations were going on at Madrid, Ripperda found the Alcazar at Segovia answer every purpose of his malignant rivals, but that of subduing his spirit. They had placed him in charge of a creature of their own. And though the noble prisoner lay for several days insuch extremity, that for as many nights his faithful servant despaired of his ever seeing the light of another morning, yet no physician was permitted to enter those dismal walls. A dungeon was his chamber; and the coarsest fare, his support. The men, who would not dare to administer poison or strangulation, calculated without remorse on this way of ridding themselves of an obnoxious life. When they thought him sufficiently reduced by sickness and bodily hardships, they put his soul to the torture, by sending a well-tutored priest to extort a confession of his crimes. The demand was backed by an insulting assurance, that, on such a proof of penitence, he should be allowed the indulgence of the state apartments, and the range of the garden for exercise.
Ripperda rejected these insidious proffers, with indignation. Sometimes the language of his Inquisitor provoked him beyond self-controul and, between the delirium of illness, and the phrenzy of despair, he, more than once, was left raving, or insensible, in the arms of his servant. As time wore away, and no tidings of Louis or Lorenzo arrived, his enemies took advantage of this circumstance; and on Martini incautiously dropping a hint of the young Marquis's future revenge on the injurers of his father, the priest intimated that Louis was in too good an understanding with his own interests, to unite them again with a discarded traitor, though he were his parent.
This imputation on his son was too much for the small remnant of patience that remained to the Duke. He was now reduced to a maddening state of mental irritation; to an exasperated hatred of human nature; and denouncing Austria and Spain in one wide malediction, he fiercely commanded their agent to leave his presence. The man, however, sat unmoved in soul or in countenance, whileMartini looked with anguish on his master; as on a noble galley he had lately seen proudly stemming its steady way through the raging sea, but now beheld bereft of rudder and compass, and at the mercy of every wind.
The malignant priest waited for a momentary calm, and then threw out some dark hints, that in a few days Ripperda would be removed to a surer durance; and on a double charge of having secretly maintained the principles of heresy in himself; and entrusted the interests of His Catholic Majesty to his son, whom he knew to be a professed heretic. The Duke listened to this in gloomy silence; but when the subtle agent proceeded to say, that this son had offered his evidence to witness the same, Ripperda started from his chair. He now knew no bounds to his wrath; and he proclaimed it in such a manner, that the terrified priest flew before him. Insult and outrage seemed tohave given that bodily vigour to Ripperda, which medicine and surgery had taken no pains to restore.
"Revenge is within me, like a new principle of life!" cried he, to Martini; "I will free myself. And then they shall feel the strength that lies in this single arm!"
Martini learnt from the servants of the prison, that the priest's denunciation was no vain threat; for preparations were silently making for the Duke's removal to the Inquisition, as soon as the King could be brought to sign the warrant. All knew that such a warrant was the signal of death; and of such a death, that human nature shuddered at the bare idea of its horrors. Martini hastened to his master with the intelligence. He found him leaning over a map of the world, which lay on the table before him. Ripperda attended to all he said, with profound attention. When he had finished speaking, he commanded him to withdraw for an hour; after which time, he would tell him his resolution.
It was two hours, before the Duke called him in from the anti-chamber, which was his usual station as his master's guard; and then he calmly told him that it was his determination to effect his own escape, and to take his revenge from the pillars of Hercules. As he spoke, he pointed with his finger to the spot on the map which marked the Rock of Gibraltar. Martini readily came into all his master's plans; and gladly heard him discuss them, with all his former sobriety of manner, and decision of command.
"But," asked the faithful servant, "should the Marquis visit this prison when we are gone, how is he to know where to follow you?"
"My actions shall proclaim to him and to the world where to follow me!" replied the Duke; "If he be the parricide these people represent, he will then repent the poor part he has nowtaken; and see the policy, if not the duty, of being true to the fortunes of such a father. But, if these wretches have slandered him, and he be indeed my son,—then I will make that England, which fostered him, what I would have made this ungrateful, ruined country!"
Martini saw that a temporary mist clouded the mind of his master; but that noble nature had been so smitten by universal ingratitude, he did not wonder it should doubt every dubious appearance. He, however, had seen enough of Louis, to admire and to love him; and he zealously exerted himself to overthrow the suspicions against him which occasionally arose in the mind of his father. Something influenced by his reasoning, Ripperda employed the greatest part of the day in writing a large packet for his son. He inclosed it under a cover to the Marquis Santa Cruz, who had a villa in the neighbourhood. Martini delivered it the samenight into the hands of the Marchioness, her husband being still in Sardinia; but she assured the faithful servant of her care of its contents.
Ripperda's attention was next directed to put his plan of escape, in train for execution. It was modelled by the difficult situation of the Alcazar. This state prison stands on the summit of a huge rock, overlooking the city of Segovia on one side; and on the other, which is nearly perpendicular, and covered with matted underwood to a thickness almost impenetrable, it precipitates down to a fosse, filled from the river Atayada. The castle was erected by the Moors; and is fortified according to their ancient mode. The large old square towers are bound round their battlements with a heavy stone-work of chains, proclaiming from afar the subjection in which the Moresco princes formerly held the Spanish land. This once formidable fortress,like their banished race, was, in many parts, in a state of decay; and, in others, totally destroyed. Some of the buttresses were mouldering away; and, where one of the towers had fallen, its ruins dammed up part of the ditch; at least it raised a causeway under the water, so high that a person acquainted with its direction, might pass over very safely, knee-deep in the stream.
In a dungeon of the corresponding tower, on this side of the castle, was the prison of Ripperda.
Martini prepared a couple of stout mules, and concealed them amongst the thickets on the opposite side of the fosse. In that part, it was little better than a morass, from the occasional overflowing of the waters at the rainy seasons. He also procured the habits of muleteers, for the Duke and himself; and a ladder of ropes, to descend from the window of the prison to the top of the rock; whencethey were to scramble their way down its declivity to the edge of the ditch.
Every thing was prepared for the momentous attempt; but on the very morning of the day fixed on for the escape, Ripperda was visited by a Jesuit of rank; who came on a special commission from the Marquis de Paz, to apprize him that the King had signed his warrant for the Inquisition; and to mock him with the assurance, that nothing could now save him from the extremest vengeance of the offended church, but a full acknowledgement of all his heretical and political iniquities. The gracious message then was, that in such a case he should be represented to the Pope, and possibly might be pardoned.
The Jesuit expatiated on the curse of heaven, which now manifested itself on the head of the Duke in every relation of his life. Whether in its public or private circumstances, all bore the marks of universalexcommunication. His son had deserted him; and the fortunes on which he leaned as on a rock, were now sinking in the ocean; or becoming the prey of corsairs, to swell the iniquity of infidels like himself. All this circumlocution only informed Ripperda of a misfortune, unworthy of his attention at the present moment: the loss of his Levant merchantmen; part, in the late heavy storms; and part, taken by the pirates of Barbary.
To impose upon this new emissary, he had received him, lying on his bed, where he affected to have sustained a relapse of his illness; and, during the whole discourse kept a stern silence. At last, being vehemently urged for some reply to the proposition respecting a penitential appeal to the Pope, Ripperda raised himself on his arm; and with eyes glaring on his visitor, like the roused lion from his lair, he fiercely replied:—
"Tell your employers, that beforethey again lay hands on the Duke de Ripperda, he will have made his appeal to a tribunal which shall make them tremble! And for your arguments! I too, studied in the Jesuits' college, and am not to be ensnared!"
The priest supposed the infuriated Duke anticipated his own death, and meant the tribunal of heaven; and shaking his head, while he pronounced the words "reprobate!" and "accursed!" he left the apartment.
Martini urged that nothing should delay their departure that night; for, after the information which the Jesuit brought, he saw the approach ofa Familiarin every shadow that flitted across the dungeon wall.
Ripperda sat a long time, absorbed in thought. He heard no word of Martini's; he saw nothing of his busy arrangements for their flight. The corsairs of Barbary, his own Moorish ancestors, and the banishment of part of their race,while his own line remained great lords in Spain; were all before his mind's eye, in fearful, prompting apparition. His warlike progenitor, Don Valor de Ripperda, two hundred years ago, had married the only daughter of the Moresco King of Granada.
His son, the renowned Don Ferdinand de Valor shook the Christian kingdoms of Spain to their centre, when the dark policy of Philip II. issued his edict to expel the Moorish descendants from their ancient seats in Spain. Aben-Humeya was the name of the Granada princes. De Valor resumed it, when he raised the rebel standard on the Alpuxara mountains.
"Another Philip shall hear that name again!" cried Ripperda to himself; and covering his face with his hands, to prevent any outward circumstance disturbing the current of his meditations, he sat without word or motion, till the dungeon became wrappedin total darkness, and the hour of his attempt drew near.
Martini had furnished himself with gold from his master's villa in the neighbourhood; which he had visited secretly by the Duke's directions, through ways known only to himself; and to a treasury under ground, which had escaped the scrutiny of the police, and was abundant in jewels and ingots. The wealth, which Ripperda deemed necessary for his expedition, was sewed into various parts of their muleteer garments. Martini appeared from his little anti-room, with a lamp in his hand, as the prison clock struck ten. It was a rough autumnal night; a bright moon, at times shewed her head through the flying clouds; and at others was totally obscured under a mass of billowy vapours, rolling over each other, and descending till they touched the hills.
The goaler had locked his prisoners in, and retired to rest. The sentinels wereplanted at their posts; each on the ramparts of the curtain that ran between the towers. Ripperda roused himself from his portentous trance, and arrayed his noble figure in the rugged habiliments of the muleteer. In vain he dyed his visage with the bista-nut; in vain he shrouded himself in the leathern jerkin, unshapely boots, and huge Sierra-bonnet; still the grandeur of his air, and the grace of his person, proclaimed the descendant of princes; and he who was used to command, and be obeyed.
The light Italian looked what he assumed; a brisk, active muleteer, full of life and merriment.
Their belts were filled with loaded pistols, which they covered from observation by the fringes of their vests; a poniard was in each well-guarded bosom; and a trusty sword by their sides. Being fully equipped, Ripperda looked around him on the walls of his dungeon. It was still in the verge of possibility thathis son might seek his father in that dismal chamber. He paused; and hastily wrote a few lines, to say that parent still lived, and would yet proclaim himself with honour to the world. He directed the brief letter to the Marquis de Montemar, and left it on the table.
Martini threw up his hooked-rope; which catching on the iron stanchel of the window, he drew himself by it to the top, and dislodged the bars from their slight holding. A few days before, he had filed away their firm adhesion to their sockets. Having made open way for his master, he fastened the rope-ladder to the opposite side of the window, and dropping it out, slid down its sides till he reached the bottom. Here he drove its spiked extremity into the earth. By that time the Duke had mounted by the same means to the window; and drawing up the rope by which he had ascended, remained seated on the stone casement, till Martinihad fixed all right below. It was no sooner accomplished, than Ripperda was on the top of the ladder, and in a few seconds by his side.
The sentinel was singing a sequedilla above; and its notes came to them with the wailing blast. The moon was now full upon them, and Martini putting out his head a little from the wall distinctly saw the musket and waving feather of the soldier as he walked to and fro at his post. Their garments, however, were dark; and they moved cautiously along amongst the bushes at the bottom of the curtain, till they reached the ruined tower whose fallen masses lessened the perpendicular of the descent. Like the rest, it was covered with thicket; and they clambered down from bush to bush and projecting roots of trees now no more, till they arrived at the brink of the fosse.
Martini had tried the ford the night before; and plunging in, which exampleRipperda followed, both found a firm footing in the water. They crossed in safety; and Martini, taking up a fragment of the ruin, rolled the Duke's sumptuous garments round it, and also his own, and sunk it in the ditch. This was to prevent the suspicion of their having changed their usual dresses, when they fled. Martini then turned aside to seek the mules. The moon again shone out from the black clouds.
"Fortune favours me!" cried Ripperda, as he looked up to her bright orb, and to the frowning battlements he had left. "Thy ensign may light me back to this castle in a different garb from that in which I leave it! When Spain sees me again, it will not be as a benefactor."
He turned into the thickets to follow Martini, and was soon lost in the darkness.
The second night after Louis had left the port of Genoa, the vessel which contained him was blown to sea by the severity of the weather; and drove about, contending with the tempest, far from the coasts of Spain, for one and twenty days. Each succeeding day seemed an age, to the heart of a son, impatient to console and cheer a suffering parent under his undeserved misfortunes; and sleep seldom closed those vigilant eyes that were ever watchful for a change in the wind; or for some repose in the turbulent element, which bore him along with unstemmable fury from the shores he sought.
Again and again he questioned Lorenzo on every particular of what hadoccurred, propitious or adverse, during his father's administration; and on what befel him after his most atrocious overthrow. Sometimes his anxiety to join him became so uncontroulable, he was ready to throw himself into the waves, to breast their torrent towards the Spanish shores; at other times, he called upon himself to endure the hard trial Providence had laid upon his filial patience; and to await its good time of bringing him to the side of his father.
At last the storms changed their direction; and though equally boisterous, blew the little vessel with velocity towards the Balearic Isles. To persist in stretching for Barcelona would have been madness in such desperate weather; the commander, therefore, determined to make the nearest Spanish port. As the ship approached the coast, and Louis for the first time beheld that land, which had so long been the bourn of all his wishes; first, as the theatre ofhis father's fame, and the stage where himself was to contend for the same deathless prize! then as the spot that contained that father, stripped of every outward honour, and excluded from all hope, but in the dutiful devotedness of his son! He gazed on it in a strange tumult of mind. It was the land of his forefathers; and with what views, with what feelings, was he first to set his foot upon its shores!
Its high and abrupt outline cut the horizon between sea and sky, like a superb citadel of mountains, guarding its rich Hesperian vales. When he saw the golden clouds rolling from the sides of those stupendous natural bulwarks, as the descending car of day plunged into the refulgent main, he thought of his father's setting sun; of his last beams gilding the country he loved; of that fair country, opening before himself; as he had anticipated, luminous in glory, like the unfolding gates ofparadise! But even while he gazed, and mused, and felt a pleased augury in the splendid show, the golden hues faded from the ethereal amphitheatre; the clouds, darkening in their shapes, collected around the headlands; and in grey and sombrous masses rested on their tops, till a fierce and eddying wind from the south-east, dispersed them in one wide and obscuring mist over the whole scene. Louis drew a deep sigh, and turned from the side of the vessel.
Next morning it anchored in the bay of Valencia. The business of disembarking and of resuming his journey by land, direct to Madrid, prevented all particular reflection, till he got into the carriage. Lorenzo deemed it prudent not to say, at any of the post-houses, or towns he passed through, who was his companion; and, though Louis felt he was stealing into the country of his ancestors like a stranger and a spy; yet, by this discretion, they travelled rapidlytowards the capital of Castile, without any unusual impediment, or even the knowledge that Ripperda had been removed from the protection of the British ambassador.
Whether he were passing over plain or mountain, cultivated fields, or barren tracts, all were the same to Louis, while his eye was fixed alone on the one object of his journey. He entered the barriers of Madrid at midnight; but nothing could prevent him driving immediately through the city and the northern gate, to the British residence.
When the carriage drew up to the portico, another had just driven away; and through the yet open door, Lorenzo saw the Ambassador passing through the hall. In a moment he was out of the carriage, and Louis followed him. The porter was asked by Lorenzo, to conduct the Marquis de Montemar to his Excellency. General Stanhope had just entered his saloon when Louis was announced. Stanhope started at the name, knowing it was that of the son of Ripperda. Louis approached him; his hat was in his hand; and with hardly articulate accents, instead of what he meant to say, he could only utter the agitated words—
"My father——"
That countenance could never be once looked upon by an unprejudiced eye, without making an immediate interest in the heart. Though now worn and pallid, Stanhope felt its power. He saw all the son in its haggard lines; he heard all the son, in those few indistinct sounds.
"You expect to find your father, here, Sir?" replied the General.
By the manner of this question, Louis apprehended something of what had happened, and with inexpressible alarm, he replied:
"And where is my father?"
"To the eternal disgrace of the cabinetof Spain," returned the minister, "its orders violated the sanctuary of my house; and by an outrageous execution of a most unjust decree, tore him from his bed, and immured him in the Alcazar of Segovia!"—
Louis did not stagger under the shock of this intelligence; he firmly replied;
"I am to understand from this, he is in prison?—On what pretence?"
"Treason against the state," returned Stanhope; "but they cannot make their charges good. Visible facts outweigh false swearing; and though Duke Wharton has been their counsellor night and day, nothing can be proved against your father, but that he once was a heretic, and that you are the same."
"Duke Wharton?" repeated Louis.
"Yes;" rejoined the ambassador, "he made a shew of rescuing the Duke de Ripperda from the fury of the populace; but it was only to betray him to the ministry. He left him in my house, andthen drove to Grimaldo, to tell him where to find him."
Louis sunk into a seat; and remained, with his hands locked, and his teeth fixed in aiguish death-like coldness, while the ambassador continued his account of the affair.
He assured his agonized auditor, that notwithstanding the circumspection of the present ministers, to conceal their correspondence with the English Duke, he had ascertained the fact of its having preceded the fall of Ripperda several months; and that it was Wharton's task to draw Ripperda into all the situations, which had been wrested to his disadvantage. In consequence of such manœuvres, it was represented to the King, that Ripperda had privately conferred with Wharton in a pass of the Carinthian mountains; and that at some other place, an affair of secrecy was discussed between them, at which Richelieu the French ambassadorwas present. These things were told to Stanhope by an authority he could not dispute, but must not mention; and the same informant added, that whatever were the objects Ripperda coalesced in with Wharton, the cause of James Stuart was not one; for, it was in resentment of Ripperda's refusing to embrace his views there, that Wharton betrayed his correspondence with the Duke, and alleged against him treasons of other, and terrible tendencies.
Stanhope observed, that from some of the present ministers being secretly inclined to the Stuart cause, he well understood why Duke Wharton had abandoned all bonds of honour to maintain them in their seats. But could he have found any signs of a changing principle in Ripperda, it was not to be doubted that he would have preferred a single auxiliary of such mental strength, to any combination of more feeble powers. Before Stanhope thought proper to repeat to the fallen minister, whathad been confided to him respecting his pretended deliverer; Ripperda had spoken of Wharton's conduct in his rescue, as a deed of generosity that left him no words in which to express his admiration. Stanhope then disclosed the relation of his secret informant; and ended with denominating the alleged previous meetings, as either falsehoods of his enemies, or, the confession of them, an unexampled instance of perfidy in the English Duke. Ripperda, at first listened incredulously to the charges against his deliverer; but when the rencounter amongst the Carinthian mountains was mentioned, and some other corroborating circumstances followed that disclosure, the Duke abruptly exclaimed,
"It is all perfidy, for the facts are true!"
At this part of the narrative, Louis turned his powerful eyes upon the ambassador. Stanhope thought he read their suspicions.
"Hear me to an end," continued he,"and you will find the whole perfidy belongs to the Duke of Wharton."
Louis dropped his heavy eye-lids over those scathed eyes, which he would have been glad to have closed in death; and bowed without a word. General Stanhope then repeated to him, all that the impassioned resentment of Ripperda had excited him to avow. He declared his ancient and inexorable hatred of Wharton and his politics; he boasted that the transaction to which the Duke de Richelieu was privy, had been one of mutual vengeance; that he quarrelled with Wharton at the Cardinal's table, and the same night took his revenge with the sword.
Louis put his hand upon his burning forehead.
"I failed of reaching his heart," said Ripperda, "but my sword went so near it, we believed him slain. He was taken up for dead; and Richelieu and the Cardinal conjured me to hush the affair. I obliged them; and heard no more ofhim, till like my evil genius, he appeared in the very mountains he speaks of; and under the darkness of night, returned to me the dispatches, which, I doubt not, his own emissaries had taken from my courier. I did not know it was him till several hours after his departure. The mantle the supposed outlaw had worn, was then brought to me; and I recognized it to be that of the Cardinal, in which I saw him wrap the senseless, body. His blood was on it.—Stanhope, we were enemies!—always mortal enemies. Think then, what must have been the revulsion in my breast, when he I had assailed to such extremity, rescued me from the murderous rabble, and brought me to the unquestionable refuge of your house!"
Stanhope subscribed to the reasonableness of the Duke's first impressions, as the immediate effect of such supposed generosity. But since it was proved that Wharton was actuated by the reverse ofa generous motive; that he had busied himself in the secret counsels of Ripperda's public enemies; and had gained the ear of the Queen, so far as to influence the rejection of every letter from her once prime favourite: and not satisfied with these treacheries, had even had recourse to representing circumstances which contained no offence in themselves, under colours so invidious, as to wear whatever treasonable shape he chose they should assume.
"What," asked Stanhope of the Duke de Ripperda, "what are you to think of such a man?"
"As the most accomplished villain that ever disgraced the name of man," cried the Duke.
And then, without further hesitation, he opened out the whole of Wharton's converse with him, during the half hour they were alone together in the British residence. It was to urge him to revenge himself on his implacable foes inSpain and Austria, by immediately embracing the Bavarian and Stuart claims. He argued, that should he take this step, France and Prussia, three parts of Germany, and all Italy, would contend for his guiding hand.
"In short, his persuasions were such," added Stanhope, "that your father owned to me, did he not connect honour with revenge, he would have been tempted to accept his offers; but, he said, he had determined to die as he had lived, by his principles; and he rejected all. The consequence was, the disappointed emissary of these double treasons, immediately accused him of his own crimes. And, that he might never meet a second chastisement from the man he had betrayed, it was he that urged Grimaldo to hold your father in perpetual imprisonment."
The substance of Wharton's proffers to his father were so like those he had made to himself; and their rejection having been followed up by the very conduct he had threatened in the chateau garden,—"Ripperda and de Montemar shall find what it is to have Wharton for an enemy!" Louis could not doubt this treacherous vengeance being a fact; and crying within his soul, against him who had perpetrated so black a revenge, he started from his seat. The expression of his face was terrific; the image of sweet humanity seemed blotted from it; and with a burning eye, and a complexion of death, he turned from Stanhope; and totally forgetful of his presence, took a pistol from his belt.
The Englishman grasped his arm.
"Marquis, what do you intend?"
Louis scarcely moved his head as he replied:—
"To seek Duke Wharton."
Stanhope laid his hand gently, but firmly on the pistol.
"Give me this useless weapon," said he, "the treacherous Duke is already hidden from your vengeance. He passedlast night in private conference with the triumvirate; and this morning, at day-break, he left Madrid, but in what direction he is gone, no one can guess."
Louis yielded his pistol to the demand of Stanhope, relaxing his fingers from the iron grasp in which he held it, and trembling from head to foot, he leaned on the sympathising representative of his maternal country. At that moment the crime and inefficacy of bloodshed, in avenging injuries like his, or any injuries, struck upon his soul. The venerable form of Mr. Athelstone appeared before him, and turning from the supporting arm of General Stanhope, he buried his face in his hands, and stood immoveable, lost in the multitude and agonies of his thoughts.
The ambassador left him to recover alone. When he re-entered he found him walking up and down the room, with a composed step. Louis advanced to his friendly host."Will you pardon all that you have just seen of my weakness, and assist me to join my father instantly?"
Anticipating this request, during his absence Stanhope had dispatched two messengers to the Count de Grimaldo, (who he knew was not yet gone, from council, though the hour was so late,) to obtain an order to the warden of the Alcazar at Segovia, for the admission of the Marquis de Montemar to the imprisoned Duke. To the first messenger the Count gave a civil refusal; adding, that such permission would be a dangerous instance of indulgence to so signal a criminal as the Duke de Ripperda; and the enterprizing spirit of the son might be feared. Stanhope sent his secretary back, with a strong remonstrance against the justice of this refusal; adding, that should it be repeated, he must consider the act as a personal insult to himself: it was hostile to every principle of an Englishman; and, he had hoped, to every principle in civilized man. "In England, (said he) law and equity war against crime, not against nature. There, the criminal, under sentence of death for the worst offences, is suffered to see those near and dear to him. Humanity must bench with justice; or punishment itself becomes crime, and degenerates into revenge. The Marquis de Montemar, though he bear a Spanish title, has had a British education. He may be willing to avenge himself of his father's enemies; but as neither plot nor treachery are taught in a British school, trust his father's captivity to his honour, and you cannot hold him in stronger bonds."
The Spanish minister did not deem it politic to repulse a second request from the English Ambassador on such a subject, and with a polite excuse for his former refusal, he dispatched the signed order for the admission of Ripperda's son.
In the course of half an hour Louiswas re-seated in his travelling carriage, with four fresh horses, furnished from General Stanhope's stables; and accompanied by Lorenzo, (having left his servants at the ambassador's) he set forward to Segovia.
The sun had risen, when the equipage that contained Louis de Montemar, ascended the mountainous heights of the Guadarama. From a rocky valley, diverging down to the eastern horizon, and shaded with every umbrageous tree and shrub of that luxuriant climate, a distant view of the Escurial was visible. The rays of the ascending sun were bright upon it: and the superb palace of the Spanish kings shone in its fullest splendour.
Lorenzo looked round on Louis. His countenance was still the same as when he entered the carriage; and the page did not venture to call his attention to the magnificent view before him. League after league was traversed. St. Ildefonso's gilded pinnacles next presented themselves on the declivity of a beautiful hill. Its fountains and its ambrosial vistas rivalled those of Versailles; in emulation of whose regal elegancies, the grandson of Louis XIV. had caused it to be erected. But here, again, Lorenzo was silent; and glittering domes, and sparkling fountains, lowly cottages, and gliding rivulets; all were alike passed, by the abstracted eye of Louis, without note or cognizance.
The chesnut woods of Antero de Herrares opened their enamelled glades before the travellers. They crossed a marble bridge, whose pillared arches and light ballustrades clasped the broadest arm of the river Atayada, which here flowed in a deep and pellucid stream. A little onward was a range of Ionic colonades of the same spotless material, diverging on each side from a triple gate of gilded iron-work surmounted by arches, whose classic architraves werewrought in Italy. A golden eagle, the armorial ensign of the Ripperda family, crested the centre arch. Within were the park and the deer, and the mansion rearing its brilliant columns amidst the redundant groves of a Spanish autumn. The orange, the citron, and the pomegranate, formed the luxuriant avenue; and where fruit bloomed on the branches, the fragrance of the blossom mingled with the breath of the countless flowers beneath, and filled the air with perfume.
The same feeling which had chained the tongue of Lorenzo, while passing indifferent objects, however note-worthy, now precipitated him to speak, and he exclaimed:
"Here, my Lord, is the Duke's Segovian villa!—all the windows are shut up; and not a soul stirring, where we were once so many, and so gay!"
Louis glanced on what might have been his home; and the flying horsesshot by those splendid gates, to find their owner in a prison! He did not answer Lorenzo, not even with a sigh; but looked steadily forward, till the dark towers of the Alcazar appeared over the intervening woods. He read their name, in their blackness and their chains; but he neither groaned nor shut his eyes on the dismal abode to which his father was transferred.
After ascending a long and winding road, they passed through the oldest quarter of the town of Segovia, still upon an ascent, till, on crossing the rattling timbers of a draw-bridge, the carriage stopped beneath a massy archway. Several sentinels drew around the vehicle, with demands whence it came, and what was the object of the persons it contained. Lorenzo, being most ready in the language of the questions, abruptly answered:
"We bear an order from the Count Grimaldo to the warden of the Alcazar, for admittance to the Duke de Ripperda."
An officer from the warden appeared, to receive and examine the passport. Louis alighted, and presented the order. The deputy bowed respectfully, when he read the name of the Marquis de Montemar, and requested him to follow him "to the prison of the Duke."
"The prison of my father!" said he to himself.
"But what is in the sound of a word, when the fact is already present."
With unbreathing silence, and a heart into which all that was man within him was summoned, he followed his conductor. They reached a heavy door, studded with iron, and traversed with massy bars. The deputy drew a huge key from his breast, and opened it.
As it grated horribly in the guards of the lock, and the damp and dreariness of the passages struck on the shudderingsenses of Lorenzo, the affectionate youth exclaimed:
"Oh, my honoured Lord! Is it in such a place I find you!"
Louis turned at the exclamation, and looked on the faithful servant; but no tear was in his eye, no sound on his lip.
The door was opened; and the deputy stood back, while the son of the Duke entered the vestibule of the prison. The unoccupied pallet of Martini lay in one corner of this miserable anti-room. Louis saw nothing but the door that led to the interior apartment; and passing through the vestibule with one step, though with an awful sense of his father's fallen dignity, and of the dignity whose affliction even a son must not break on too abruptly; he gently pushed forward the half-open door, and found himself in a large and dripping dungeon. He started, and gazed around; for all was horrible, but all was solitude."Where is my father?"
"In his bed," cried the deputy, who now entered, "He is ill."
Louis hastily, but with a light tread, passed across the pavement to the mattrass, which lay behind a woollen curtain in a low vaulted part of the cell. The officer, with less delicacy of attention to the supposed slumbers of an invalid, followed him. Lorenzo glided in also; and at the very moment in which the deputy had pressed before Louis, to announce to the sleeping Ripperda, the arrival of his son, the page's eye fell on a letter which lay on the table. In the instant the officer's appalled ejaculation proclaimed that no Duke was in the bed, Lorenzo saw it was directed to the Marquis de Montemar, and snatching it up, put it in his breast.
"Then, where is he?" exclaimed Louis, throwing himself between the door and the deputy, who was hastily moving towards it; "You pass not here,till you tell me, to what deeper dungeon you have removed him; for no power on earth shall keep me from my father."
The man stood still, and the consternation in his countenance, more than his asseverations of total ignorance on the subject, convinced Louis that whatever was become of his father, this person was innocent of his fate. He therefore demanded to see the warden, declaring, while he insisted on his demand, that the order he had presented, was from the minister to admit him to the Duke where-ever he might be; and on the authority of that order, he would force his way to his presence against every opposition.
The officer affirmed, that the warden could know nothing of the Duke's strange absence; for that he, the deputy, had himself secured the doors on the prisoner and his servant the preceding night; and no one else, not even the warden, possessed a duplicate key to that dungeon.While he continued to speak with vehemence, and in manifest terror of punishment for what had happened, the determined son of Ripperda repeated his demands to have the warden summoned; for he would not leave the spot till he was convinced that both officers were ignorant of the cause of his father's disappearance.
The deputy being now suffered to go to the dungeon door, called a sentinel from the end of the stone gallery, and briefly told the man to remain with the Marquis till he should return. But as he withdrew, he had the precaution to turn the key of the dungeon on those it contained.
The sentinel stood with fixed arms where his employer had left him, and Lorenzo glided silently round the dismal apartment, prying into every thing. Having found the letter, (which he yet kept carefully concealed, till he could safely shew it to his master,) he thoughthe might possibly discover some other memorandum from Martini to himself; and, not doubting that the Duke and his brother had made their escape, he left no nook or crevice unexplored.
Louis remained seated against the table, with his arms folded, and gazing intently on the open window. But it was the gaze of concentrated thought, not of observation. Indeed it could hardly have seemed possible to him, that the Duke could have withdrawn himself through that aperture. It was not only eighteen feet above the bottom of the dungeon, but from the shadows in the depth of the wall, appeared a mere crenille, too narrow for any man to pass through. These objections would have occurred to Louis, against the supposition of this having been the way of his father's escape; had the idea of an escape once presented itself to his mind. But he repelled the first intimation from the deputy of such a suspicion."From what," said he, "should my father fly? Justice must speak at last, and acquit him with honour!"
In his own person, he felt that he would sooner be condemned in the face of day by an iniquitous sentence, than incur the stigma of conscious guilt by flying from the trial it was his right to demand.
"No," cried he, "the Duke de Ripperda would not so desert himself!"
While he believed this, his heart died within him at the thought of his father's endless captivity in some remote prison, where he might never hear the voice of consolation, or see the face of a comforter; and then the spectre of midnight murder suddenly presented itself. His eye hastily scanned the flinty pavement, but there were no traces of blood; all was clear, and all was orderly in the wretched apartment, without any traces of struggle.
In the midst of these reflections, the throng of hurry and alarm was heard inthe gallery, the great key once more turned in its guards; and the hinges grating roughly as the door was pushed open, a crowd of soldiers, preceded by the warden and the deputy, poured into the dungeon.
Louis stood to receive them. The warden, holding the order of the Marquis de Montemar's admittance in his hand, in the disorder of his consternation hastily advanced to him and exclaimed,
"Marquis, where is the Duke, your father?"
"That is my demand of you," replied Louis, pointing to the order; "the Count Grimaldo expected I should find him here. Here he is not. And you are answerable for his safety, and his appearance."
In glancing round the dungeon, from the floor to the cieling, the warden's eye was quicker than the deputy's; and without attending to the reply of Louis, he exclaimed,"He has escaped through the window!"
"Impossible!" cried the deputy, "he could not reach it."
"Who reached it to take out the bars?" returned his superior, "he is gone, and by that way. Round, soldiers, to the ditch!"
Louis stood in wordless astonishment at this confirmation of what he too had thought impossible, though the impossibility to him had rested on the mind of the Duke, not on the means of escape: but when he saw the men withdraw with fixed bayonets, to hunt his father's life, (for he knew his resolution too well to believe, that after having once chosen the alternative of flight, he would submit to be re-taken;) all his father's danger rushed upon him; and conscious to no other impulse than that of defending him, he turned impetuously to throw himself before the soldiers.
The warden saw the movement, andguessed the intention. He was a man of gigantic muscle, and seizing the arm of Louis, called aloud to bar the egress.
"What violence is this?" demanded Louis, forcibly extricating himself and rushing towards the door. But the sentinel without had thrust the bolt into its guard.
"You must be my prisoner, Marquis," returned the warden, "until those men have searched the neighbourhood.
"On your peril!" exclaimed Louis; "I demand to be released!—In the name of your sovereign, and of your laws, I demand it!—You have no right to imprison an unoffending man, who came hither under the safe conduct of your minister's signet."
As he spoke, he heard the report of a carbine; and desperate with apprehension for his father, he snatched his only remaining pistol from his belt. "Open that door, warden," cried he, "orI will make a passage through your heart!"
The wary Spaniard did not stop to answer, but striking aside the arm that held the pistol, it went off; and the ball lodged in the opposite wall. Louis then felt for his sword. His athletic opponent was on the watch; and seizing him round the body.
"Marquis," cried he, "these outrages can only undo yourself. If the Duke de Ripperda be found, he must be taken alive, at the risk of those who seek him. Kill me, and you are no less a prisoner; for the door is fastened, beyond your strength to burst."
Louis was alone with this powerful man; for Lorenzo, with the same intentions as his master, had rushed out with the soldiers. While he stood, apparently quiescent, in the clutch of his adversary, he still held his hand on his sword. He discredited the pledge for Ripperda's safety, and resolutely replied."If my father have fallen, there shall be life for life!"
And with the word, he suddenly wrenched himself from the warden's grasp, and as suddenly drawing out his sword, stood with his back against the door.—"I am here, till I know the issue of this search; but I am not, a second time to be disarmed. Repeat to the sentinel without, your command respecting my father's safety; and demand of him, the cause of the firing of that carbine!"
The warden had no weapons, but his bodily strength; and finding that the nerve of his young antagonist, when braced by despair, was equal to his own; and seeing that desperation was in his eyes, and a sword in his hand; he thought it prudent to comply; and he called to the sentinel to dispatch a man round with the demands of the Marquis.
Never, since the hour of his birth, did Louis find himself in so terrible a situation.He was hearkening to the distant voices of them, he believed were his father's murderers, and he found it impossible to get to his rescue! He was, himself, acting the part of a man of violence, to one who was only performing his hard, but cruel duty! As he stood, gloomily lost in the horror of the moment, another carbine was fired, accompanied by shouts from the soldiers. He thought he heard a groan follow the report, and that it issued from below the window.
Without a word, or almost a thought, he threw his sword from him, and springing on the opposite wall, found that he had not climbed the perpendicular cliffs of Lindisfarne in vain. The stones were rough; and giving short but sufficient hold to his hand and foot, he gained the deep recess of the window before he scarcely knew he had left the ground. The act seemed but one spring, to the amazed warden. Louis had no sooner reached the window, than he would havethrown himself from the flinty butments upon the top of the precipice. Happily the voice of Lorenzo, from the rock beneath, arrested him.
To descend on this side, by clambering, was impossible; the outer part of the wall being worn inward in great and abrupt hollows, till that part of the tower where the window was excavated, hung over the rock in a shelving state.
"The Duke cannot be found!" cried Lorenzo.—"For his sake, and for God's do not attempt quitting the dungeon by that window! The soldiers have just shot away this rope-ladder, by which he must have escaped."
While he spoke, he lifted it from the ground. The soldiers had spied it at a distance, hanging loose from the wall; and as they scrambled through the matted brambles towards the point, one of them took aim, and it fell. Lorenzo, had made his approach, before; to see what farther evidence of Ripperda's flightmight be found there; and while the echoes rang with the men's shouts, at so poor an achievement; he fortunately saved Louis further danger, by shewing him the trophy,
"But another carbine was fired?" demanded Louis.
"A soldier slipped his foot, and his piece went off," replied Lorenzo. "Discard me, kill me; but believe me true!" cried the page, aware of his master's surmises, and seeing his hand ready to leave its grasp; "quit that perilous place, I conjure you. The pursuers are gone round, to say the Duke has escaped beyond their recovery!"
Louis was satisfied; and turning towards the dungeon, the entering soldiers doubly assured him; and dropping from the window, inward, he sprung upon the floor.
The men gave a hurried account of their fruitless search.
"Marquis," said the warden, "youmust excuse me, that I do not restore a sword which has menaced an officer of the crown; but the door is open, and you may now pass hence. My employers will properly notice the violence of the son, when they have information of the flight of the father."
"Sir," returned Louis, "if I have injured you, in my struggles for the liberty that was my right, I regret it; and if you know either a father's or a son's heart, you will not reject my apology."
"Soldiers, attend the Marquis de Montemar to the gates," coldly replied the warden.
Louis doubted. He might yet be deceived. He knew not where to seek his father. The enlargement that was now offered him, re-awakened his suspicions; and without noticing the order of the warden, he stood still. Lorenzo was more present to himself. He had entered with a second groupe of soldiers; and putting his hand gently on his master's arm, almost unconsciously drew him out of the dungeon. On the threshold, he whispered:—
"If you are to succour the Duke, we must not linger here!"
The words were a talisman on the benumbed faculties of Louis; he hastened forward, and threw himself into the carriage.
"Back to the British ambassador's," cried Lorenzo to the postilions. The rapid vehicle once more passed over the draw-bridge and wheeled down the declivity through the town. On a rising knoll, Louis caught another glimpse of the dismal towers in which he had endured such variety of mental agony, in the course of so few hours! He drew his eyes from them, and the carriage plunged into the long avenue of aloes which led to the wooded heights of Antero de Herrares.
Lorenzo pulled up the windows, and let drop the silken blinds. He then putone hand in his bosom, and laid the other on his master's arm.
"My dear Lord," cried he, "here is a letter from your father!"
Louis started; "Lorenzo?" and snatched the letter that was held to him. It was his father's hand-writing on the address! While he tore open the seal, Lorenzo told him where he had found it. It was not necessary to explain why he had concealed it until this moment. Louis read as follows:—
"If my son have not abandoned me, he will probably visit my prison, and find this. In such a case, he may go to the house of the noble Spaniard who was his uncle's guest at Lindisfarne. He has a packet in his possession, that will inform Louis de Montemar of the fate of his father."William, Duke de Ripperda."
"If my son have not abandoned me, he will probably visit my prison, and find this. In such a case, he may go to the house of the noble Spaniard who was his uncle's guest at Lindisfarne. He has a packet in his possession, that will inform Louis de Montemar of the fate of his father.
"William, Duke de Ripperda."
There was a thousand daggers in thefew first words of this brief epistle.If my son have not abandoned me.To be suspected by his father of such parricide, was almost more than he could bear. He clenched the letter against his bursting heart, and fell back in the seat.
"My master! my dear master!" exclaimed the pitying Lorenzo, as he saw the fearful changes in his countenance, and opened a window to give him air. Louis unclosed his eye-lids; and those once cheering and radiant eyes, which used to break from under them like the morning star from the tender shades of night, turned on his faithful servant, bloodshot and dimmed with bitterest anguish.
"What does my Lord say, in that cruel letter," demanded the affectionate youth, "that can have affected you thus?"
Louis put the letter into his hands. It was not needful to point to the lineswhich had barbed him so severely; and Lorenzo read them with a bleeding heart, both for father and son. He remarked, that outraged as the Duke had been by the ingratitude of all the world, the extraordinary length of their voyage might have driven him to some misconception regarding their detention.
"It is hard," continued he, "to be entirely just ourselves, when every body about us treats us with injustice; and the Duke, though a great and a good man, is yet a man; and must share some of our infirmities. You, my Lord, will seek an opportunity to obey him immediately; and then, all these too natural suspicions must be destroyed."
Louis looked at the affectionate speaker.
"Excellent Lorenzo!" said he, "my father has found one faithful in your brother. If you too adhere to me, I shall not be quite alone in this desert universe!—I may yet find my father," murmured he to himself, "and die before him! My life, my life, is all I may now have, to prove my soul's integrity!" Much of this, and more, of the sad wanderings of a spirit overtasked, and wounded in its most susceptible nerve, passed in the mind, and on the half-uttering lips of Louis.
"But where," asked Lorenzo, "are we to seek this friend of Lindisfarne?"
"It is the Marquis Santa Cruz," replied Louis; "General Stanhope will probably tell me where to find him."
"The Marquis has a villa in the Val del Uzeda, between St. Ildefonso and the Escurial," replied Lorenzo, "and there, I know, his family usually resides, as the Marchioness is sometimes in attendance on the Queen."
"Then," cried Louis, "direct the postillions to drive thither. If the Marquis be there, I may yet see my father before another night englooms me in this direful Spain!"
It was noon, when Louis again passed the marble gates of the Palacio del Atayada, the deserted mansion of his father; and after journeying over many a league of Arcadian landscape abundant in the olive and the vine; and waving with harvests, which the paternal policy of Ripperda had spread over hill and dale, the heights of Uzeda re-opened to him the distant and transverse vallies of St. Ildefonso and the Escurial.
His carriage turned into a cleft of the hills, overhung with every species of umbrageous trees; and out of whose verdant sides innumerable rills poured themselves over the refreshened earth, from the urns of sculptured nymphs and river-gods reposing in the shade. In thebosom of this green recess stood the villa of Santa Cruz. All around spoke of elegance and taste. The carriage drove under the light portico; and the servants, who thronged round, gave earnest of the hospitable temper of the owner.
Lorenzo questioned them, whether their lord were at the villa. They replied in the negative, but that his lady was there.
"Then I must see the Marchioness," returned Louis; and he sprang from the carriage, the door of which a servant had already opened. Lorenzo remained below for further orders, while his master was conducted up stairs into a splendid saloon, whose capacious sides were hung with the finest pictures of the Italian and Flemish schools. But no object could displace from the vision of Louis, the dungeon which had contained his father.
He had written his name with pencil upon a leaf which he tore from hispocket-book, and sent it to the Marchioness. It was some time before a reply was returned to him, or, indeed, any person re-appeared. His anxiety became insufferable. He paced the room with impatience, and a sickening heart. For he knew not but the delay of first one ten minutes, and then of another, before he could follow the track he expected to find in the packet he sought, might, by leaving his father undefended in all the personal dangers of a pursuit, be the very means of allowing him to be retaken.
In the midst of these harassing fears, the door opened, and a young lady entered, who, by her air, could not be mistaken for other than one of the noble members of the family, though her dress was that of areligieuse. It was all of spotless white, with a long black rosary hanging from her breast. Her face was mild and pale; but it was the transparent hue of the virgin flower of spring,clad in her veiling leaves. It was Marcella.
Her mother had received the name of the Marquis de Montemar in her chamber. She was an invalid; but remembering the reception his family had given to her son in Lindisfarne, she sent her daughter to bid him welcome.
When Marcella entered, she drew back a moment, on beholding so different a person from the one she had expected to see in the son of the Duke de Ripperda. He had been reported by the ladies of Vienna as "the glass of fashion, and the mold of form!" Her brother had described him as gay and volant; full of the rich glow of health, and animated with a joyous life, that made the sense ache to follow it through all its wild excursiveness. The Spaniards, on returning from Vienna, spoke of him as vain or proud, a coxcomb or a cynic, just as their envy or their prejudices prevailed. But Sinzendorff, her revered uncle, had written of him as one whom all the women loved, while he loved only honour. His letters had given the Marchioness an account of the young minister's entanglement and release from the woman who had laid similar snares for her son; and he dwelt with encomium on his unshaken firmness through every change of fortune. As Marcella passed from her mother's chamber, these recollections crowded upon her; and all were calculated to increase the timidity of her approach. She was going to present herself, and alone, to an admired young man, proud in conscious dignity, whose lustre calamity could not dim, and whose spirit was exasperated by oppression!
But instead of this lofty Marquis de Montemar, gallant in attire, and resplendent in manly beauty; stern in resentful virtue; and upholding in his own high port, all the threatened honours of his race; she beheld a youthful, and afine form indeed, but in a neglected dress covered with dust. The jewels of his hat were broken away; and its disordered plumage darkly shaded his colourless cheek and eyes, whence every ray of joy had fled. Beauty was there; but it was the beauty of sadness; it was the crushed ruin of what might once have been bright and aspiring.
Marcella wondered, for a moment, at the change which grief must have made; and with a very different sentiment from that with which she entered, she approached the son of Ripperda. She held a packet in her hand. Louis's heart bounded towards it, and he hastily advanced.
"From my father, Madam!"
"It was left with my mother two nights ago, by the Duke de Ripperda's servant;" replied she; "and he informed her, that the envelope directed to my father, contained a letter for the Marquis de Montemar. My mother would notdetain it from you till she could present it herself; being only now preparing to leave her chamber, and therefore she confided its delivery to me."
As she spoke, she put the packet into his hand. By these words he found he was in the presence of the Marquis Santa Cruz's daughter; and, expressing his thanks, he begged permission to peruse it before he quitted the house. She answered politely in the affirmative, and immediately withdrew.
Louis had observed nothing of her face or figure, to distinguish her again from the next stranger who might enter the room. The novelty of her dress, however, could not escape even his possessed eye; and in the moment he learnt who she was, he thought of Ferdinand and Alice, and of their future union; of which her assumption of that garb seemed a promise. But as soon as she disappeared, he forgot both, and every accompanying circumstance, and evenwhere he was, in his eagerness to make himself master of the contents of the packet.
On breaking the seal, a letter at the top of a bundle of papers presented itself. He seized it, and began to read it with avidity. It was written by Ripperda under all the exasperation of his mind, when he believed himself not merely the object of the world's ingratitude, but abandoned by his own and only son. Yet he forebore to specify his injuries; saying, that to name them, would be to stigmatize the whole human race. He had hitherto lived for universal man:—his days should terminate on a different principle. He would yet confound his enemies, and astonish Europe. But it should not be by embracing revenge through the treasons, whose arms were extended to receive and to avenge him. He would maintain his integrity to the last; and from the heights of Gibraltar assert the honour ofa name, whose last glories might die with him, but never should wane in his person till he set in the grave.
Louis would not think twice on the implied suspicions against himself, which every sentence of the letter contained. They were bitterness to his heart; but he knew his innocence. He now knew the point to which his father was gone; and thither he determined to follow him.
The papers in the packet contained schedules of the vast properties of the Duke, that were cast over the face of Spain, in landed estates, immense manufactories, and countless avenues of merchandize.
"I bestow them all on my son;" was written by Ripperda on the envelope which contained the catalogue; "they may give power and consequence to the Marquis de Montemar, when he has forgotten that the Duke de Ripperda was his father."
A memorandum of his territories inSpanish America was bound up with the others; and brief directions added on each head, how his son was to secure his rights in them all.
Louis ran over these lists and their explications, that he might not leave a single word unnoted; but when he had finished, he closed up all that related to pecuniary affairs, and laying them aside in the packet, again turned to the letter. It alone would be his study and business, till he should reach Gibraltar, and prove to his father, that by his side, in poverty or disgrace, it was his determination to live or die.
He was yet leaning over the letter, perusing it a second time, when he heard the door open behind him. He looked round, and saw the daughter of Santa Cruz re-enter, supporting on her arm an elderly lady of a noble air, who appeared an invalid. He guessed her to be the Marchioness; and rising instantly, approached her."Marquis," said she, "I come, thus in my sick attire, to welcome the son of the Duke de Ripperda, to the house of my husband. I know his respect for your father; also his esteem of yourself; and whatever may have been the misrepresentations of evil tongues, my brother the Count Sinzendorff has not left the character of the Marquis de Montemar without an advocate."
The Marchioness observed a brilliant flush shoot over the face of her auditor, as he bowed his head to her last words. She added, in a still more respectful tone, softened even to tenderness by the sentiment of pity; "The machinations of these enemies have been too successful against the Duke. Indeed, I doubt not, that packet has spared me the pain of saying, you must seek your noble father in the Alcazar of Segovia."
Louis briefly related the events of the last six hours; and presented her thenote to read, which his servant had found on the table in the prison, and which had referred him to the Marquis Santa Cruz. The Marchioness had seated herself, and placed her guest beside her. She read the note; and looked with maternal sympathy upon the distressful countenance of the duteous son to whom it addressed so cutting a reproach. Her commiserating questions, and the knowledge she shewed of all the virtues of his father; added to the information, that her husband was hastening from Italy, to interest himself in his cause; seemed to demand from Louis his fullest confidence. He revealed to her the substance of what his father had written in the packet; and declared his intention to follow him immediately to Gibraltar.
The Marchioness approved of his reunion with his father, but resisted his quitting her house, till he had taken the repose she saw he so much needed. Louis would have been unmoved in hisresolve to commence his journey that very night, had she not suggested, that, severely as the Duke had been used before his flight, should he be retaken, his treatment would be yet more rigorous; and, therefore, his son must be careful not to be himself the guide to so fearful a catastrophe. She assured Louis, that now ministers knew of his arrival, all his movements would be watched; and that above all things, his pursuing the direct route of his father, must be avoided. She urged, that a rash step at this crisis, might be fatal; and, therefore, conjured him to remain that night at least, under her roof; where he might consider and reconder his future plans, and take the rest that was necessary to support him through the trials he might yet have to sustain.
There was so much good sense and precaution in this counsel, that Louis no longer found an argument to oppose it; and adopting her advice of turning in a direction from Gibraltar, rather than towards it, proposed going to Cadiz, and thence hiring a vessel to take him by sea to the British fortress. This being sanctioned by her approbation, he no longer hesitated to pass the remainder of the day, and the night, under her friendly shelter; and while she retired with her daughter, he followed a page to an apartment, where every comfort was provided, that could refresh the weary traveller.