When Louis awoke to recollection, he found himself lying on a mat, on a stone floor, and in a dark apartment. A strange mingling of heavy sounds murmured in his ear, as, with a confused sense of suffering and of misery, he strove to recall past events. Such shades are of speedy conjuration. Where he was, he could not guess; but he soon remembered where he last knew consciousness: he too well remembered the last scene which had met his eyes. Almost believing himself in some Moorish dungeon, he turned his languid frame, in the resignation of utter hopelessness. His hand touched a human face. He raised himself on his arm, and found some one extended onthe bare ground, near him, and, by the hard breathing, in a profound sleep.
"Some unhappy wretch, like myself!" murmured he, and fell back upon his bed. Whether he slumbered, or mused, he knew not; but he continued to lie in a quiet, dreamy consciousness of irremedible misery.
A sound creaked in the darkness. He turned towards it and saw a door opened at the extremity of the apartment by a shadowy figure, which put its hand in for something that hung against the wall, and then withdrew. A faint light glimmered from under the now open portal. For some minutes, he could discern nothing distinctly; but the light suddenly became vivid, and he had a clear, though transitory view of the adjoining chamber. It seemed vaulted; and a number of men and women were seated on the floor, round a heap of burning logs. Some smoked segars; others spoke in whispers; some chanted low and dirge-liketunes; while the rest silently applied to their flaggons, or fed the fire with broken boughs. A high wind raged without; which, making its way through the ill-contrived fastenings of this rugged abode, blew the ashes and live embers over the wild group. Some had dropped asleep, and lay in various attitudes, with their heads on their knees, or leaning against the nearest substance for a pillow. The women, whose figures were huge as their male companions, were apparently more robust, for they did not seem to need the same restorer of nature. When all the men were crouched down on their rocky bed, these beldames drew closely around the fire; and bending over it, as if brooding incantation, conversed with each other in low, grumbling tones. At last, they, too, successively dozed over the dying embers, till the whole was involved in total silence. The fire went perfectly out; and Louis' over-strained nerves sunk into a kind of night-mare repose.About dawn he was aroused by a stir in the next chamber. The noise had the same effect upon his companion, who awoke with a deep sigh. The person rose, and, leaving the vault, shut the door. All now was darkness; and the lumbering bustle without, mingling with the voices of men and women, gradually augmented to uproar; till, sinking by the same gradations, every sound ceased, and the whole became profoundly still.
It was indifferent to Louis what passed; tumult, or silence; whether he were still in the world, or committed to a living grave. He was not himself; for the shock he had received had fevered his brain; and he lay, as if the horrible past, and the inexplicable present, were only parts of the same irksome dream. His eyes were closed, in this carelessness of observation, when a ray gleamed through their lids. He opened them instinctively, and saw the white light of day streaming through the open door, and Lorenzobending over him. His torpid faculties aroused themselves at sight of the well-known countenance; and the faithful servant as gladly made a response, which answered the demand of where they were, though he could hardly speak for joy, at seeing his master restored from the stupor, which had immediately followed his recovery from the swoon in which Martini had committed him to his arms in the felucca.
Lorenzo related, that, without a word of explanation, his brother had ordered him to accompany the Marquis immediately back to the opposite coast; and that, though Rodrigo's vessel could not so instantly return, a comrade's boat was soon obtained, which landed them both at the place of their former embarkation. The smugglers advised, and assisted him, to carry his insensible charge up the mountain, to take a safe repose in the cavern. There, they found their wives waiting to receive them. Butthese women seemed to have nothing of the sex but the name. They saw the pale, and scarcely breathing form of the Marquis de Montemar, carried by them into the interior den, without a glance of pity. He was a Grandee! one of those, whose family had held rule in Spain; and, some day, he might be as ready as any of them, to drag to execution the very men who now gave him shelter! This passed in the minds of these women, as they joked on the great ladies who might then be weeping the unexplained absence of the handsome Cavalier; and they exulted in the idea, that not one female hand of the disdained gipsey tribe, would condescend to smooth the pillow, or bestow a look, on the object of so many courtly sighs.
As Lorenzo had marked these women, and their haughty rejection of their husbands' orders, to administer to the comfort of their guest; he feared their more active malice; and was not a little rejoiced when their whole train parted in the morning on their various trafficks, and he was left alone to convey his master from the cavern in the best way he could. Finding him restored to sensibility and speech, he did not venture to ask him the cause of his so terrible trance; for Martini had warned him, neither to make such enquiries himself; nor to satisfy the curiosity of persons in Spain, by recounting any part of the incidents in the Sierra de Ronda, nor hinting at his transitory visit to the opposite coast.
Louis listened, with a very few observations, to all that Lorenzo said. As the fresh and balmy air of the morning breathed into the cavern, his frame became braced; and, though still bewildered in his thoughts, he rose; and walking out into the dell before the cave, dispatched his companion to procure mules, for re-crossing the mountains. The animals were soon on the rock: and, with an aimless mind, he commenced his return to Madrid. A film was over every faculty, as he mechanically pursued his journey. Lorenzo watched anxiously the rayless fixture of his eye, which turned to no object, nor his ear to any sound, during their rapid posting through the champaign country. But all his haste was vain to check the fire that was preying on his master's veins; or to arrive at Madrid, where alone he could expect relief or comfort.
In the Val de Penas Louis became too ill to proceed; and, happily, the alarming symptoms seized him in sight of a monastery. Lorenzo, left him in the carriage, and went forward alone to solicit the hospitality of the Brotherhood. They were as eager to bestow, as he to ask, the benevolence required; and Louis soon found assistance under their charitable roof.
For three long weeks, he lingered between suffering and the grave. His fever was on the nerves, and attended with delirium, and every other prognostic of a speedy termination of his days. Lorenzo shared the constant vigilance of the good Fathers, in watching by his side; and at the commencement of the fourth week, the delirium left him. His present recovery to recollection was not like that in the cave, dim and distressing. He spoke with so much strength of voice, and clearness of perception, that his affectionate attendant was transported with hope; but the priest, who considered it as a last gleam from the departing soul, (which often sheds its brightest beam on the earth it leaves for ever,) bade the happy Lorenzo wait without for a few minutes, while he discoursed, as became his faith, with the restored Marquis.
When he found himself obeyed, and that he was alone with his patient, he cautiously apprised him of his approaching dissolution; and then as piously exhorted him to dedicate the sane hour which had been granted to him, in making his peace with God."I have one act to perform," said he, "before I am called into the presence of my only father. Give me writing materials."
The monk laid paper before him, but held the pen in his own hand.
"Dictate, and I will write, what, I trust will bring peace to your soul."
"No," replied Louis, "my own hand alone must record what is on my soul. And no eye, Lorenzo,"—he looked for that faithful servant, and finding him absent, requested the monk to call him in. "He must be a witness, with you Father, that the probably altered characters are mine."
Lorenzo was summoned, and the monk briefly told him the cause. He was transfixed, till the gentle voice of his master addressed him.
"Lorenzo," said he, "your fidelity to me has been more that of a brother than of a servant. I trust you with the charge of my last testament, for I know you willexecute it, as if my eye were then looking upon you."
Lorenzo did not speak, but put to his lips the trembling hand that took the pen from the friar.
Louis passed an hour in writing. Both witnesses sat at a distance; Lorenzo, with his face bent down on his knees; and the priest, marvelling within himself, at the firmness with which the dying Marquis pursued his task. His eyes receded not once from the paper, nor did his fingers relax, while, with determined truth, he related all that had passed in the Hambra between him and his father; yet in the dreadful confession, he pleaded his almost belief, that calamity had disordered the senses of his unhappy parent. On these grounds, he implored the Marquis Santa Cruz, (to whom the paper was addressed,) not only to conceal this tale of shame from every hostile eye; but by the friendship he once felt for both father and son, and by his vows of Christiancharity, to leave no means unexerted to re-call Ripperda from his apostacy.
"If I deceive myself," continued this pious son, "in believing the existence of that mental derangement, which would once have been my most fearful deprecation, but since this direful crime is now my fervent hope, many would tell me I must despair of his salvation. My trust is in an higher judgement. In him who blessed me with such zeal as your's, to be his minister to my erring parent; in him who promises pardon to the penitent; and to whom all that seems impossible to man, is as already done.
"In this faith I shall lay down my head in the grave, with perfect confidence that a way is open by which the unhappy abjurer of his Saviour's name, may yet be received to mercy. In the world to come, I may hope to embrace my father, reconciled to his God and washed from every worldly stain! Meanwhile, in this my last act, I recommend him to your sacred exhortations:—To the prayers of my saint-like uncle of Lindisfarne."
Here Louis paused, and a tear fell upon the paper. It was the first that had moistened the burning surface of his eye, since the calamity which had stretched him on that bed of death. It mingled with the ink in writing the dear and honoured name.—He resumed.
"This paper must pass from your hands, my revered friend, to his. Let those kindred eyes alone share the confidence of this sad narrative. Let him know that his nephew, the child of his nurture, dies happy! Happy in the hope that is, and that which is to come."
As he added an awful farewell to his beloved aunt and cousins, a crowd of tender recollections thronged upon his soul. He hastily addressed the packet to the Marquis Santa Cruz. Besidesthis comprehensive letter, he wrote the few brief lines which comprised his will; and the monk and Lorenzo having signed it, a seal was affixed to its cover. The abbot was summoned to dispatch the one to Madrid; and Lorenzo received the other, to convey to Lindisfarne, when his beloved master should be no more.
This duty done, Louis sunk exhausted on his pillow. But the cord on his heart was taken off. The benign image of his earliest friend, like the vision of a ministering angel, had unloosed it; and a holy dew seemed poured upon the desart of his soul. As he laid himself back on the bed whence he expected never to rise again, he thought of the only hand which he wished could have given him the last bread of life; the only hand he could have wished might have closed his eyes, when temporal life was fled. He wept at the distance which separated him from that father of his moral being; he wept, thathe must breathe his last sigh on a stranger's bosom. But his spirit was resigned; and, as his tears ceased to flow, he gently fell asleep.
During the confinement of Louis in the monastery of Val de Penas; and while the Marquis Santa Cruz, and the Queen of Spain, were alike wondering at no intelligence having arrived from him since his departure from Madrid; news of various kinds created as various perplexities in the cabinet of the King.
Two Spanish galleons had been taken by a fleet of Barbary corsairs. The coasts of the Mediterranean were filled with pirates of every-sized vessel, manœuvred with a courage and a skill that baffled every art to avoid them; and while this extraordinary accession to the Barbary marine arose on the sea like an exhalation, a Moor, under the name of Aben Humeya, as suddenlymade his appearance in Morocco, carrying all before him in the field and in the state. He possessed the confidence of Abdallah, without a rival; and, after having discomfited that monarch's rebellious kinsman Muley Hamet, was advancing at the head of his victorious army to redeem to the Emperor the possession of Ceuta:—the Gibraltar of the Spaniards on the African shore.
Hostilities were at this time hanging in the balance between Great Britain and Spain, on account of Gibraltar; and to awe the replies of the Britannic minister to its demanded restitution, an army of twenty-five thousand men, (which were on their march to Italy to effect a similar object on the duchies of Parma and Placentia,) were ordered to fall back, and make demonstrations towards the British fortress. Part of this army were in Valentia; and on a second courier arriving from Ceuta with intelligence that Aben Humeya had concluded atreaty defensive and offensive between the Moorish Emperor, and the other Barbary Powers, King Philip saw the necessity of detaching one division at least to the protection of his African dominions. He appointed Santa Cruz to the command; but on some strange inconsistent and perverse arguments of his ministers, when the Marquis appeared for his last directions, His Majesty informed him, that a thousand men were sufficient to raise the siege. If more were necessary, they should be sent; but too formidable a body at first, would only increase difficulties, by raising the consequence of a Barbarian chief in the eyes of Christian Europe. Santa Cruz saw that the jealousy of the ministers against himself was the origin of this damp on the first vigorous proposal of the King; but determined to do his own duty at least, he acquiesced, and withdrew from the royal presence. He made a rapid journey to Val del Uzedawhere he found his son just arrived from Italy; and giving him orders to hold himself in readiness to accompany any second detachment to Ceuta, he took a parental farewell of his family, and returned to Madrid. In the same evening that he alighted at his own hotel he received the packet from Louis de Montemar, and had a long and distressing conversation with the friar, who brought it.
The contents of the letter filled him with astonishment and trouble. He had no need of further investigation, to conclude who was the Aben Humeya, who was putting so new and menacing a face on every thing in Barbary; and considering that circumstances demanded the disclosure to the Queen, he hastened to the palace. A private audience was immediately granted, and the letter of the dying son of the lost Ripperda confided to Her Majesty.
Isabella read it with indignation. Ripperda's treasures had then spread the Spanish seas with depredators; his domination had concentrated the states of Barbary into one interest; his resentment had turned their whole force against the power of Spain! She had but one policy; to wrest this mighty Son of Vengeance from his passion and his influence. And, having determined it as most prudent to conceal the discovery from the King and his ministers, she gave her present counsellorcarte blanche, to reconcile Ripperda on any terms; and, should his more worthy son be found alive, she commanded that he should be made the agent with his father.
"But, should he be no more?" inquired the Marquis, with a sigh which could hardly have been deeper for his own son.
"Then," replied she, "you must chuse another embassador. I will reward him, according to his success with this formidable renegado."With this commission, though without a hope of seeing the son of Ripperda yet an inhabitant of this world, Santa Cruz took the convent in his way to the plains of Valentia. When he alighted at the gate, the Abbot met him; and answered to his fearful question, "That the Marquis de Montemar not merely breathed, but he trusted was far advanced in his recovery."
From the night in which the dispatch left him, the virulence of the fever disappeared. He felt and bewailed himself as a man; and the fiend which despair had locked within his bosom, fled with the genial flood. He remained in a state of calm that astonished himself; while it amazed all around, to see one who was a heretic, so evidently comforted by an influence from on high.
Santa Cruz sent to inform him of his arrival, and was immediately admitted to his cell. Lorenzo withdrew as the Marquis entered. Louis was dressed in his usual cloaths, but from present weakness yet lay on a couch. The window of his cell was open to admit the mountain air, which blew fresh and cheeringly over his face. That face was not to be described:—It spoke of heaven, and his whole form harmonized with the celestial witness.
Santa Cruz stopped and gazed on him; while Louis, raising himself on his arm, stretched his hand towards him with a smile that made the veteran's head bow before the youthful saint. He advanced and embraced him. Louis bent his face upon the Marquis's hand.
"You will live my son!" cried Santa Cruz, in a burst of manly sensibility; "you will recover your father to his God, and to his country!"
"I could wish to live for that purpose!" replied Louis, "but be it as heaven wills. My prayers may be effected without my own agency."
When recovered from his emotion, the Marquis communicated his present commission; and in recapitulating the tidings from Morocco, the mantling colour on the hectic cheek of Louis shewed, that he too, recognised his father in the new Aben Humeya. In narrating the rapid successes of the apostate Duke, Santa Cruz dwelt on one circumstance, which contained some antidote to the poison of the rest.
Muley Hamet, with a large army of disaffected Moors, had appeared on the plain of Marmora, about half a day's journey from the capital of Morocco. Aben Humeya assembled the household troops; and on the same day the tidings arrived, marched to oppose him. His forces were inferior in number to the enemy; but their leader gave them an example of confidence, telling them they must strictly obey his orders, and on his head he would assure them victory. Muley Hamet practised the usual Moorish stratagems, which the discipline of his adversary so completely baffled,that enraged with disappointment he dared a general engagement in the very worst position he could have chosen. Aben Humeya had drawn him into the declivities of the mountains, where the cavalry, his principal strength, could not act; and sending a detachment to block up the regress, by occupying the pass of Cedi Cassem, the rebel Prince suffered a total defeat. Every soul might have been cut off, but the new Mussulman had not yet forgotten the warfare of Christian nations. He called to his men to remember that the misguided followers of Muley Hamet were their brethren; and that after the signal chastisement they had received, it was the victor's duty to suffer the escape of the remnant. Aben Humeya pursued the same conciliatory conduct in taking Tetuan and Arzilla from the power of the rebel; and an offer of general pardon being spread amongst the refractory Moors, the troopsof Muley Hamet deserted to his adversary, and he fled to the mountains.
"This consummate policy is the Duke de Ripperda's," said the Marquis; "and the Duke in his sanest mind."
"I would draw another inference from such policy," rejoined his son, "that whether his mind be in full health or disordered, this mercy is a sure pledge, the Christian principle remains in his heart."
"There is no disordered intellect in these plans and executions;" returned Santa Cruz, "but a stretch of capacity, and an extravagant exertion of its power, which compels common minds to pause and wonder. Genius, however, may often be mistaken for madness; for it frequently acts so entirely under the influence of imagination, as to do things so utterly irrational, that if it be not the effect of an absolute want of reason, it is certainly that of a dereliction from reason,and produces the consequences of madness."
Louis knew to whom this latter remark might have too well applied, and with stifled emotion, he answered:—
"That conduct then, is most likely to be according to good judgement, which is actuated by sober experience alone."
"That conduct," replied the Marquis, "which avoids the enthusiasm of fancy and the passions, as he would the shoals and quicksands of the sea! But there is something more required than sober experience. A well regulated mind must sit in judgement upon that experience; and, my dear de Montemar," continued he, pausing, and impressively pressing his hand, "wisdom and virtue will be the issue."
Louis returned to the last act of his father upon the plains of Marmora. It obliterated the phrenzied moment of their parting; and opening his heart to adawn of hope, he took the letter of the Queen, which her own hand had addressed to the banished Ripperda, and putting it in his bosom, told his veteran friend he was ready once again to visit the African shores.
This re-animation was not transitory. Santa Cruz was to set off the following morning towards his army; and having calculated the slower progress of troops to the coast, and the usual delays in getting on board the transports, a day was fixed for Louis joining him, without any dangerous haste, at the place of embarkation.
Youth and inward vigour, with the bracing, life-inspiring air that is breathed from the lips of a friend, restored Louis to such a strength, that at the time appointed, he appeared on the quarter-deck of theTrinidada, the vessel that was to bear Santa Cruz to the Mahommedan shore.
Unconscious of the wound theyprobed, the officers of the General's staff discoursed largely on the crusade to which they were going; and descanted with unrestrained freedom on the Moorish leader. Some affirmed him to be an Arab; others a brother of the Emperor, who was so distinguished in their father's life-time, as to awaken the jealousy of Abdallah; and on his accession, the Prince suddenly disappeared. Rumour spoke of the bow-string; but hints being also spread, of a perpetual imprisonment in the seven towers of Mequinez, it was afterwards supposed that he had purchased liberty and honour by assuming a new name, and fighting the battles of his brother.
Louis could not bear these guesses; nor the invectives, (to the justice of which his own heart assented,) in which these young men indulged against the renegadoes at the court of Abdallah. Sidi Ali, a Sicilian apostate, and a celebrated engineer, was most especially the object of their anathemas; as, from his skill, they expected some protraction in the glory of repelling Aben Humeya from the walls of Ceuta. When these discussions began, Louis usually retired to a distant corner on the quarter deck, to commune with his own thoughts; and while his upright mind armed itself in its own integrity, his body derived its wonted vigour from the genial breezes of the sea.
On the night of the sixth day after they had set sail from the port of Carthagena, the little fleet entered the bay of Ceuta; and, on a wave smooth as glass, the troops stepped into boats which rowed them to the perpendicular walls of the town. Here all was deep shadow. Louis saw nothing through the universal blackness. Nor did he note the dreary splashing of the boats in the fathomless water; nor did he feel the chilling vapourwhich arose from its cold surface, withheld from evaporation by the height and closeness of the outworks. He was in the first pinnace; and had no thought, nor observation, but for the object of their landing.
An archway, and a long flight of steps in the rock between two walls, were the only egress on this side into the fortress. The boats crowded to the spot, where their crews severally leaped on the narrow platform, and ascended the stony ladder. A light heart was in every brave breast; and plumed with anticipated victory, they seemed to fly. Louis alone, whose whole soul was once as much on the wing for military atchievements, moved with a slow, but a firm step; for, against whom was the sword of his first field to be drawn?
On entering the fortress he fully understood how necessary was all this silence in gaining the shore. Count deBlas the governor, informed the Marquis Santa Cruz, that the Moors were in great force before the town. That several skirmishes had taken place between the corps of observation from the garrison, and the advanced posts of the Moresco camp. The Spaniards had been beaten in with loss; and in short, so universal a panic prevailed in the garrison, no confidence could be put in its steadiness in case of an attack. The consequence was already seen, in the audacity with which Aben Humeya was opening his trenches; and until Santa Cruz arrived, De Blas was in nightly dread of an attempt being made to storm the town. To prevent this, he suggested the advantage of the new troops surprising the Moors by an immediate sally.
Prior to Aben Humeya having taken up this position, the Count continued to say, he had reduced the whole of the rebellious Bashas to the obedience oftheir Emperor. Their leader Muley Hamet, had extended his flight from the hilly country, to the deserts of Taffilet; and Abdallah, that very morning, had sent a deputation of his royal brothers to invest Aben Humeya, with the dignity of Basha of Tetuan; and to present him with a new banner, on which was embroidered:—
"Proceed! to exceed is no longer possible!"
Santa Cruz replied to the urgency of de Blas for an immediate attack, that he had orders from his sovereign to act with peculiar circumspection. He must communicate with the Moorish general; and to do this with the necessary knowledge, he must have time to make his military observations, and to estimate their relative strength.
In the course of these investigations, in the prosecution of which Santa Cruz was always attended by Louis, the groupof observation mounted on a redoubt far to the front in the Spanish lines. The Marquis contemplated with his glass the order, and scientific precision with which the enemy's works were advancing. The Count de Blas stood near him, and expatiated with much heat, on the probable effects of the new discipline introduced into the Moorish army by its present chief.
"But these European tactics" cried he, "are engrafted on a true barbarian soil. One flag of truce, that I ventured to dispatch merely to gain time, was fired on in its return; and in attempting to make good its retreat, a party of the enemy rushed from behind yon epaulement to the left, and took the whole troop to a man. One who made his escape, informed me, the proud Aben Humeya chose to take offence at some want of official reverence in the Spanish officer's manner of quitting the camp; and that the moment he was told of it, he ordered him to be pursuedand taken; and at the same time denounced a similar fate on all who should henceforward presume to bear any Spanish flag within reach of his lines."
While the Governor was speaking, a squadron of Moors turned that very side-work, and presented themselves on the plain, glittering in all the splendid array of the Basha's peculiar suite. In the midst of the groupe, which immediately parted to short distances, Louis beheld an august figure. De Blas instantly proclaimed it to be Aben Humeya. In that clear atmosphere, no glass was necessary to note an object just without the reach of musquet shot; and to observe this, Louis's whole soul was in his eye.
At sight of the Basha, the acclamations of the Moors in the trenches were loud and incessant. He was mounted on a black horse, whose rich caparisons seemed to vie with the habit of its rider. The dress of the new Mussulman was looseof blue and gold tissue over a yellow caftan embroidered with gold. His belt, and the arms which stuck in it, were studded with jewels; and a splendid cymetar hung at his side. His turban was crested with a large jewelled crescent and heron plume. And the bridle in his hand sparkled with brilliant studs; while the magnificent housings of his horse, almost touched the ground. Aben Humeya rode forward, and again the air was rent with shouts. He bowed his head, and at the motion of his hand, the whole was respectfully silent. A flourish of wind instruments succeeded, and his suite began to play their evolutions before him, in all the various exercises of the lance and dart.
Louis could not mistake the demeanor of his father. But all this supremacy over the rest of mankind in personal dignity and grace, seemed to his virtuous son, only a garment of mockery to the fallen spirit within. It was horrible inhis eyes, and he turned silently from the vociferous observations of de Blas.
That same evening Santa Cruz ordered a flag of truce to be in readiness for the Moorish camp at day-break. At the mention of so dangerous an expedition, every motion was arrested amongst the class of officers who were usually selected for that duty. None spoke. But Santa Cruz neither addressed any, nor looked on any; for the forlorn hope on this enterprize was already chosen.
When Louis came in the morning for his last orders, he found the Governor with his General, remonstrating on the madness of exposing so distinguished a young man as the Marquis de Montemar, in so perilous a hazard. Santa Cruz repeated to his young friend, all the intimidating representations of De Blas, who added there was not a man in the garrison, who did not shrink from being his escort.
Louis bowed gratefully to the implied solicitude of the Count; but answeredthe Marquis, by requesting to have the white flag delivered to him, when he would go alone. To hamper him with cowards, Santa Cruz thought would only invite danger; and he put the flag into his hand.
Louis left the gates, with no other companion than his courage and his faith. Santa Cruz's anxious eye watched the desperate adventure. The works were crowded in every part, to witness his progress and reception. At a given spot, he halted to unfurl his white banner. Again he shot forward, waving its staff before him, to be seen by the Moorish out-posts as he advanced within their fire. A hundred turbans emerged from the nearest trenches:—while a yell of such horrid import burst from every mouth, that his horse started back on his haunches, with a strange noise from its nostrils fully descriptive of surprize and terror. Nothing, however checked its rider. He struck his spurs intothe animal, and resumed his onward speed at the moment the savage cries from below were echoed by a thousand voices from the works above;—a volley of musquetry was discharged, and Louis was lost in the smoke, from the eyes of them who watched on the walls of Ceuta. It cleared away; and the resolute bearer of the flag was yet seen galloping towards the camp. Another volley succeeded, and the plain was again obscured: vengeance alone occupied the breasts of the men upon the Spanish lines. Their courage revived with their indignation; and rushing without command from a salley port, they charged fiercely towards the point of their revenge. At sight of this sortie, a similar detachment issued from the gates of the camp. The horse of Louis was transfixed by two balls; and lay struggling on the ground. He had extricated himself from the dying animal, and was risen from its side,just as the salley-port of Ceuta opened to rescue or avenge him. When on foot, the broken ground in the plain concealed his advance to his friends until he rejoined them, and mounted a horse presented to him by his faithful Lorenzo.
This circumstance being discerned by Santa Cruz, who stood on the redoubt, the sortie was recalled, and Louis, with the troop, re-entered the garrison.
The implacable fury of this second breach of the received laws of war, inflamed the Spaniards with the most vehement indignation. There was no name, opprobrious to a man and a soldier, which they did not lavish on the fierce Aben Humeya.
Louis withdrew to the quarters of Santa Cruz. His resolution was taken; and he only awaited his sanction, to put it in execution that very night. To go by stealth into the Moorish camp, anddepend on providence for conducting him to the presence of his father.
The Marquis would not hear him to an end. He regarded this last act, of firing upon a single man, as so base a proof of Ripperda's apostacy from honour as well as from religion, that he no longer retained a hope of his return to duty:—
"No, de Montemar," said he, "we must now let that alone for ever. You would only lose yourself, without recovering him."
"I should lose myself indeed," replied he, "were I to abandon the only purpose for which I came to this country; the only purpose for which, I believe my life is lengthened. He will not imbrue his hands in the blood of his own son; and, who in that camp, will dare to touch the man, of whom he will say—Let his life be protected!"
"This is delusion, de Montemar. He has abandoned his God. He has trampledon his honour. And, with these facts, there is no reasonable hope."
"My hope may be beyond reason; but it is not against it," replied he. "Grant me the means to fulfil my resolution; and, I dare promise myself, that you will, see me again."
"Never," returned Santa Cruz, "the blood of rashness shall never be on my head. Leave me now, and we will discourse of more rational projects to-morrow."
Louis obeyed. But that morrow might never occur to him. When he withdrew it was to pursue his determination. That night, alone, and unassisted, to seek the presence of his father.
From his observations in passing the enemy's lines, he thought it possible to throw himself into one of the trenches nearest their position; and in the disguise of a Moor, return with the workmen into the camp.
By means of his devoted Lorenzo, (who would have suffered the rack, rather than betray the confidence of his master,) he procured the accoutrements of a Moresco soldier, from a Jewish merchant in Ceuta. The aspect of the night favoured his project; and he left the Spanish fortress in company with the latest outpost. The growing shadows gave him opportunity to glide from its neighbourhood unobserved; and having his disguisepreviously hidden amongst the ruins of an old fort midway between the Moorish and Spanish works, he covered himself with the Moresco trowsers, haigue and turban; and arming his belt with the accustomed number of knives and pistols, took his pic-axe in his hand, and cautiously proceeded along the flank of the Moorish trenches, whose line he discerned, by a pale and zig-zag gleam along the surface of the ground. It was too faint to be noticeable at any distance, and arose from the low lantherns within, by whose glow-worm light, when the sky was obscured, the yet inexpert engineers performed their work.
When arrived near the verge of the excavations nearest the camp, he listened breathlessly to the clash of cymbals, which announced an exchange of workmen. Now was his moment. He slid down the bank into the vacant fosse, and stood close in its angle, shrouded bycomplete darkness. The lamps did not extend beyond the place of immediate labour. He had hardly taken his station, when an iron gate opened into the trench, the cymbals ceased, and an advance of numerous feet from the camp sounded towards him. It was answered by a similar approach from the lines. He drew himself closer into the angle, as the latter passed him in enfilade; and observing that each man as he marched by a particular officer, cried aloud, "Lahilla Lah!" and was then counted by him, he saw the danger of being the last in the file; and stepping in between the rapid step of one soldier in turning the angle, and the halting approach of another, he repeated the expected response, and moved forward unmolested. He entered the camp without impediment; and the Moors parting to their different quarters, he turned quickly in a direction which he thought from the descriptionof the escaped Spaniard, would bring him to the pavilion of its commander.
Excepting the words he had repeated as the parole of the night, and of the meaning of which he was entirely ignorant, he knew not a word of the Moresco tongue. The camp was partially lighted; and near the Basha's quarters the lamps became thicker, until the platform around his tent was one blaze of illumination.
Several Moorish officers were walking to and fro, as if waiting for orders; and the ample circle in which the pavilion stood, was hemmed round by the body guards of the Basha. These men were Negroes of huge proportions, and equipped in the most formidable array of Barbaric arms. They sat on the ground in the Moorish style, with each his hand on his drawn cymetar.
Louis drew into the comparative obscurity of one of the tented streets diverging from the platform; and, with a scrutinizing eye, resolved how he shouldpass this excluding circle. While he looked from man to man, the curtained entrance of the pavilion was drawn back by two slaves, and a blaze of flambeaux issued forth. In the midst of it was a military figure in a splendid Moorish dress. But it was not his father.
By one act, all the Negroes bent forward, and struck their foreheads to the ground; even the officers made the same abasement to this personage; who, graciously bowing his head, passed on, followed by a procession of flambeaux. But still the light was glaring as noon-day, around the tent. It was only by stratagem he could enter it, and his life must be set on the hazard.
After watching nearly an hour, to afford opportunity for some favourable accident to open him a way, without the desperate expedient he revolved, he retreated through a cross passage of dark tents, that led into the great illuminated avenue before the pavilion; and, havingwrapped his mother's picture, which he always wore round his neck, in a silk handkerchief he had about him, he put it in his bosom, and then boldly plunging from the darkened street into the full light of the platform, moved direct to the curtained entrance.
In an instant a host of cymetars were at his breast. But he stood erect before them all, and exclaiming
"Aben Humeya!"
took the handkerchief from his breast, and held it forth with a commanding air towards the tent. He had not even repelled the weapons with his hand, so firm did he stand in apparent inward dignity. It awed the negroes, who stood for a moment gazing on each other; Louis profited by their suspended faculties, and was passing on, when one in the dress of an officer intercepted him. He addressed the intruder in a barbarous attempt at the Moresco language, but really in a jargon, comprised of every tongue on the Mediterranean shores; and saluting Louis by the opprobrious appellation of slave, demanded, with other viler epithets, how he presumed to violate that sacred threshold.
Louis saw the miserable soul of some base renegado of the Balearic Isles, in this insolent attack; and answering him at once in Spanish, warned him in laconic, but haughty language, to beware how he insulted a man who came in the face of three hundred cymetars, to lay the spoil of a brave Spaniard at the feet of Aben Humeya.
"Conduct me to his presence;" continued he, "or know, that he who can speak Spanish like his native tongue, is not less able to prove a Moorish sword his native weapon!"
The renegado eyed the speaker with a trembling suspicion. His head might pay the forfeit, should he introduce an improper person into the pavilion; andshould his perverseness exclude one on whom the Basha conferred confidence, he would incur equal jeopardy. He now wished he had left the responsibility of this egress to the negroes; but he had interposed, and must proceed.
"Your name?" said he.
"That the Basha will know when he sees me."
The officer feared to hesitate, and he preceded him to the first range of the pavilion. Like the outer-court, it was lined with guards. The renegado in a tone of some respect, told Louis he must stop in this vestibule until his credentials in the handkerchief were delivered to Aben Humeya. The alcaide of the guard, who carried it in, returned in a few minutes with consternation in his countenance; and beckoning Louis to follow him, passed through several chambers before they arrived at the sacred inclosure; within whose sacred vestment none durst penetrate without an especial summons from the Basha.The officer drew aside the curtain, and pointing in silence to the door, Louis entered alone. The Basha stood by a Moorish couch, directly under a lamp in the centre of the place. A table was near him, on which lay a naked cymetar, and an open casket containing the koran. He had the picture in his hand.
Louis's face was overshadowed by the dark folds of his turban; and as he did not assume the usual position of all who (less than of equal rank,) approached the august presence, the Basha fell back a step and exclaimed!
"Who art thou, that darest so to approach Aben Humeya?"
Louis with clasped hands, bowed his head upon his breast, but could not immediately answer. It was his Father's voice, and he had not ventured his life in vain!
"Whence came this Christian spoil?" demanded Ripperda, "was it taken from the living or the dead?"The voice was firm. But the tension with which he grasped the picture, was sufficient assurance that an exerted nerve was necessary to enable him to put the question with the steadiness of one indifferent to the owner's fate.
"I took it from the living!" replied Louis, "To pass me into the presence of him who gave me life."
An inarticulate sound burst from the lips of his father; he moved a few hasty steps towards him; but as suddenly starting back;
"Presumptuous boy!" cried he, "what do you promise yourself by this temerity? Are you not aware that the act which made me a Mussulman, separated me from all former relations; and that in Louis de Montemar, I can see no other than a Spanish spy?"
"No act of man," replied Louis, "can cut asunder the bands of nature; can separate the unity of Son and Father, in the great objects of time and eternity:And in that faith, I appear again before you, on a second mission from your religion and your country."
"This told me a braver story!" returned Ripperda, sternly putting the picture into the hand of his Son; "But speak your errand, that I may dismiss the messenger."
Louis bore the taunt without reply; and with brevity, but energetic persuasion, he repeated to his gloomily listening Father, the new proposals from the Queen. They assured the banished Duke that the decree of his exile was not merely recalled, and the King ready to publicly declare the charges his enemies had alleged against him, to be false; but His Majesty would grant him a general amnesty for his present proceedings in Africa; and on his return to Spain, invest him with a new and extraordinary trust at court, to the confusion of his rivals, and the assertion of his character in the minds of all men. The churchtoo, should open its arms to receive him; for Isabella would obtain an absolution from the Pope for the brief apostacy; while that dark deed obliterated by penitence, might remain as totally unknown to the world at large, as his son trusted, it would then be blotted out from the book of God.
"Louis," replied the Duke, "have you known me so long by the best proofs of man—his actions! and are yet to be told, that my religion consists wholly of the prosperity of the country I serve? and that my country is that which best knows the value of my services?"
"Then," returned his son, not wishing to comprehend the whole of this speech; "that country is now Spain. Read the letter of Isabella, and you will find the prayer of the nation in every line. She is, as a Mother petitioning a beloved Son to spare his Brothers. Oh, my Father; listen to the native magnanimity of your soul, rather than to this new and unnatural pride; and resume at once the patriot and the Christian. None, excepting the King and Queen, and the Marquis Santa Cruz, know that Aben Humeya and Ripperda are the same; and having been spared that open stigma, your religion and your country may yet be that of Spain."
Ripperda grasped the still un-read letter of the Queen; "De Montemar!" said he, "and is it you that can think I would live under shelter of any shrouded act? No; I have dared to be a Mussulman! To resume the name of my Moorish ancestors; to tread in the unreceding steps of Julian and de Valor. What I am, I am; and my banners, here, and in Spain, shall proclaim to all the world, that Ripperda's injuries are in the breast of Aben Humeya."
Again Louis urged him to read the last appeal of his former Sovereigns, contained in the packet he held in his hand; andthen trample on his country and them, if vengeance must yet have place, with such ample restitution.
"Restitution!" repeated the Duke, and broke the seal. He read the letter, and threw it from him; but not with the same equanimity with which he began the contents. In the offered pardon, and the promised honours, all his imputed transgressions were recapitulated, to enhance the merit of the amnesty; all the accusations of a vain woman's jealousy, poured forth in extenuation of her share in his fall; and the whole was wound up in a passion of reproaches, and entreaties, in which the chains which had formerly bound him to her feet, were so apparent, that his incensed spirit rose with every line; and he cast the letter from him.
Louis trembled at this unexpected issue, from what he had hoped would have made some softening impression on his Father's implacable revenge; but with afirm voice, he asked, what was his reply to that petition from a Queen and a woman?
Ripperda turned on him a penetrating and contemptuous look.
"Have you read that petition?"
"No, my Father; but I know it is to ratify all that I have assured you."
"I know not what it would ratify!" cried the Duke, stung by a sudden recollection, and snatching up the letter, he tore it in pieces. "It shall never be witness, that any one dared tamper with my honour; that he who once commanded nations—But no more. I will answer this letter to-morrow, on that field; and they who survive, may bear the writing to their Queen."
"My Father!" exclaimed Louis.
"I have said it, young man," interrupted Ripperda in a voice of thunder; "go, and tell them so—and it shall be finished."
"No;" returned Louis, "for in thatfield, you would have to meet your own people, and your own son! You would drench your hands in the blood you have so often sworn to cherish; you would give the last blow to the name and race of Ripperda; and what will be your reward? The fetters of a barbarian!"
The string had been touched, which vibrated to madness in the brain of Ripperda. His apprehension became confused, and with terrific solemnity he approached his son.
"Hitherto," said he, "I have heard you with patience! I read your Queen's letter with patience; I received her General's flag of truce with patience. But her letter was an insidious blazonry of all my false accusers; and he who brought the flag of truce, whispered at my gates, that Aben Humeya was a Spanish traitor. This is their truth, their amnesty; this, my sheltered honour! And you appear the minister of such an embassy! De Montemar," cried hegrasping his arm; "are you aware to what you move me? But I will not reason farther. Tell your Sovereign, it is my will to be his enemy! That is my final answer."
Ripperda walked haughtily away: but Louis followed him, with all the energy of a man determined to prevail. His father turned fiercely on his filial eloquence.
"Silence," cried he, "my whole nature rejects the treacherous influence. I am not to be betrayed a second time, by the arms which once deserted me. You would sell me; but I am not to be bought. These limbs shall never wither in a dungeon, closed by my own son! This head shall never welter on a scaffold his hands have reared!"
His eye was fixed on the sword on the table. The expression was portentous; and he moved towards it, muttering to himself the names of de Paz and Wharton.Louis saw the urging demon; and clasping his hands, while he tore his gaze from that ever revered face, he threw himself between his father and the table.
"Parricide," cried Ripperda, "I am not at your mercy;" and with the word, he made a stroke at the breast of his son. Louis seized the frantic arm.
"Duke de Ripperda," said he, "I may fall by your slaves; but your own hand shall not kill your son. If you indeed believe, that he who has twice hazarded his life to recall you to your honour and your God, can be leagued with falsehood to betray you, summon your guards to dispatch me!"
Ripperda glared on him, as he firmly grasped the hand that held the dagger. Louis's eyes were not less rivetted on those of his father.
"De Montemar," cried he, relaxing his hold on the weapon; "on the perdition of us both, leave my presence; andsee that we never meet again. Your father is not what he was."
He struck his hand upon his burning forehead; and, trembling from head to foot, sunk into a seat.
Louis observed him for a few minutes in silence; but his soul was then prostrate before the only Being who could restore that noble mind; his heart was at the feet of his father; and, falling on his knees beside him, he put that now unarmed hand to his lips.
Ripperda had still enough of human tenderness to understand this appeal; but his distempered imagination would not apprehend its truth; and, starting from his position, he exclaimed:—
"Impossible! The world and your ingratitude have undone me. You are no more a son to a rebel and a renegade. I, no more a father to him whose treasons reduced me to this extremity!—Away, and by that path," added he, pointing to a passage in the back of thepavilion.—"If we ever meet again, you must finish your commission; or I blot from the earth the dishonoured name of Ripperda!"
Louis was still on his knee, when his father hastily advanced to the curtain and called aloud: A mute appeared; and the Basha, with an instant recovery of composed dignity, commanded him to see that Moor, (pointing to Louis,) to the outside of the camp towards the hill, and leave him there.
Ripperda quitted the apartment as he spoke; and, with desolation in his heart, Louis rose and followed his conductor.
The Moorish slave passed without obstacle to the rear of the camp; and, making his mute salam to his equally silent charge, quitted him in a recess between the hills. Louis found his way back to the Spanish lines, by keeping close to the sea-coast; and, throwing off his disguise, proceeded close under the wall of Ceuta, till he arrived at the draw-bridge, which he crossed at day-break.
He employed some hours in self collection before it was necessary to inform the Marquis Santa Cruz of the interview he had sought in the Moorish camp; and that the result destroyed his every hope of inducing the unhappy renegade to forego his scheme of vengeance.
Santa Cruz too much respected the filial devotion of Louis, in what he had done, to reprimand the rashness of the experiment.
"But there let it cease," said he. "You now owe a duty elsewhere, and must preserve the loyalty of that name in yourself, which he so determinately abandons."
"I shall attempt it," replied Louis, as he moved to leave the apartment. "Allow me to serve in your army as a volunteer, and I will do my best not to disgrace your confidence."
"De Montemar, I can never doubtyou."
Louis sighed at the emphasis his veteran friend laid upon the word you; and, with feelings which only a son in his situation can know, he replied:—
"When my father has fallen from his proud height of virtue, who dare think he stands?"
Santa Cruz understood the response;and, with a voice of parental tenderness, made answer:
"He fell, because his virtue was proud. It is not so with you. Therefore, let not the lowliness of a wounded spirit, mourning the transgressions of others, lessen your faith in the power God has given you to be, what you believed your Father was. Stand erect in your own virtue, for it is the panoply of heaven; and do not allow infidelity, even in the shape of a parent, to suppose it can bow a head so armed."
Louis kissed the hand that grasped his, in the zeal of the exhortation; and without further observation withdrew.
During their conversation, and while the Marquis expressed his satisfaction at finding that the alleged violation of the first flag of truce was produced by the outrageous conduct of the Spanish officer, and not a dishonourable breach of military law on the side of Ripperda,—he explained to Louis, why the suppositionof so base an act had appeared fuller of despair in his eyes, than even the bold derelictions of apostacy and treason. To a daring crime of the latter complexion, a man may be impelled by a sudden passion; and though he deserve the punishment of his offence, yet remorse may follow the transgression, and he will as bravely acknowledge the justice of his sentence, and, to the utmost, make restitution, as he had before desperately incurred the penalty of the great moral law. But a mean, over-reaching, treacherous action, proves cowardice of soul; and he who performs it has never courage to look it in the face; or if it be pressed upon him, still he crouches under his load of infamy, or impudently affects ignorance of its existence, while he feels in his own heart that he has not spirit to retrace his path to reputation by confession and amendment. Hence, as desertion of honour is the vice of cowards, it is hopeless in its nature; and society canoffer no terms to him who has so entirely abandoned himself.
Louis had no idea of military glory, when he volunteered his services to the Spanish arms. His aim was to guard his father's head in the day of battle; while he hoped to prove to Spain, and to the world, (should it ever hear of him more,) that he behaved with fidelity to the country to which that father had constrained him to swear allegiance. Life's aspect was changed to him. He had hardly entered the morn of his days; and the clouds were gathered over the opening prospect; at least, all his dearest objects were snatched from his sight;—the lofty consciousness of public duties, the race of glory, and the fame of future ages!—Even at the starting post, he had reached the goal; and his hardly-risen sun went instant down in darkness.—
"How many before me, and how many that come after me, have destinies directly the reverse of mine! Nay, theirday of brightness is even lengthened like that of Joshua in the field of Gibeon, till all in their heart be atchieved [typo for achieved?]."
The draught was a bitter one, which Louis found in his cup of trial; but he was resolved to drink it to the dregs;—"And there," cried he, "I shall find it has some sweetness."
The observations he could not help making in passing through the Moorish camp, shewed him the strength of the enemy; and from the discipline and number of the troops, he did not doubt that the slender garrison of Ceuta would be lost, should his father determine on attacking it by storm. The fortifications were in so bad a state, that Santa Cruz set all hands to work to bring them into order; and, meanwhile, sent to the lines before San Roque for a reinforcement of engineers, and as many troops as they could spare.
During these preparations, the Basha was seen visiting his works every day,surrounded by a guard of horsemen; who, however, in contempt of the Spaniards, amused themselves in scampering about, throwing the gerid, and firing at each other in sport, between their own parallels. It was evident that Ripperda wished to provoke Santa Cruz to a battle, or to induce him to believe that such was his motive; for he ventured insulting detachments, even under the fire of the Spanish forts. But he had another point in view;—to seize the fortified town of Larach. By retaining possession of that place, the Spaniards might command the whole of the Atlantic coast of the empire of Morocco. Larach on the Atlantic, and Ceuta on the Mediterranean, were now all that remained to Philip in Africa; and the new Aben Humeya was aware, that while the Moors were making these hostile demonstrations before the one, the other would consider itself secure; and, therefore, the more easily fall into his hands. A large bodyof men were marching from Mequinez, to complete the army with which he meant to crush the whole Spanish power, both in Morocco and Algiers; and this reinforcement, by his orders, was now halted in the vallies of Benzeroel. On such information, he quitted his camp; and leaving directions with Sidi Ali how to proceed in his absence, proceeded to the head of this second army, and to the surprise of Larach.
He was well acquainted with the character of the military governor, Don Juan d'Orendayn; a vain and ignorant brother of the no less insolent and vain Count de Paz, his most inveterate enemy at the Spanish court. But it was not to revenge himself on any individual, that Ripperda would have moved a single step. It was against the whole Spanish nation he had sworn vengeance; and high or low, declared enemies, or professing friends, all were alike to him:—They were Spaniards, and he drew an unsparing sword.
All the revenge that he took personally on the kinsman of de Paz, was to make his vanity the cause of his destruction; and sending a renegade Jew into the town, the pretended deserter informed d'Orendayn, that Aben Humeya was encamped with a few troops on the banks of the river on his way to the siege of Ceuta. He added, the fears of these raw recruits were so great, of Don Juan discovering they were in his neighbourhood, they had drawn the line of their camp to a fictitious length, to deceive him with regard to their numbers; and that Aben Humeya, not being able to place any dependance on these timid men, was under apprehensions like their own, till he could excite their courage by mingling them with the veterans before Ceuta. The Jew found himself believed; and was vehemently seconded by the younger officers in the garrison, when he advised a sudden sallyfrom Larach, and promised to Don Juan the glory of making Aben Humeya his prisoner.
Cowardice and ambition contended in the breast of d'Orendayn. The same day he dispatched a corps of observation, to ascertain the truth of the deserter; and on its bearing witness that the pavilion of the Basha stood in the midst of a line of tents, which could not contain more than four or five hundred men; hesitation was at an end, and the eager governor gave orders for a sortie that very night; when he hoped to steal an easy victory.
Ripperda had disposed the strength of his army amongst the numerous dells and recesses at the foot of the mountains. On one side of his visible front, was a thick wood; on the other, a small branch of the river Lecus. His cavalry was posted behind the wood; and his own little camp, which consisted of six hundred of his best disciplined men,lay on their arms within their lines. These were nothing more than a range of hurdles; but so disposed, as to be a sufficient screen for the assailed to form behind them.
D'Orendayn, believing the whole of the Basha's present force was contained in that small boundary, came boldly forward with two-thirds of his own garrison; and with a furious discharge of musquetry, fell upon the Moorish camp. The night was bright, and seemed to favour the exploit. After making a shew of some resistance; the attacked gave ground, and soon after fled towards the mountain. The Spanish commander blew a summons for the rest of the garrison to join him in the chace; for he saw that victory over so inconsiderable a body, would yield him little honour, unless he could secure the person of its formidable leader. When the pursuers appeared to gain ground upon the fugitives which surrounded the banner of Aben Humeya; and Orendayn thought he had already countless rewards in his possession, for this masterly atchievement; he was advanced into the ambuscade. The Basha, facing suddenly round, cried aloud:—
"Lahillah Lah, Mahometh ressoul Allah!"
A thousand voices echoed the sound; showers of arrows poured from the incumbent heights; and, from every opening in the hills, Moorish infantry rushed upon the astonished victors, while the cavalry from the wood charged them in the rear.
No Spaniard returned to tell the story. Larach received a Moorish garrison; and the crescent of Mohammed was flying on its walls, when a little row-boat, manned by a few Christian merchants who escaped during the confusion in the town, made the best of its way to reach the Spanish coast.
The acclamations which followed thereturn of Aben Humeya to his camp before Ceuta, were heard in the Spanish fortress; and, soon after, there was a rumor amongst the Jews in the town, of what had befallen Larach.
Santa Cruz was confounded when he found the report true. He had received so insufficient an accession to his force, that it appeared mere mockery. No artillery was sent, for which he had particularly dispatched his messenger; and he perceived a spirit of contradiction to him, in all the orders which the war-minister gave out for the prosecution of the African campaign. Besides this, the Count de Patinos came direct from Seville, with a peremptory command from the Queen, for Santa Cruz to join her there.
An exchange of brides between the royal heirs of Spain and Portugal was the ostensible reason for the journey of the Court towards the Spanish frontiers; but the real motive, was a desire of the King's to view, with his own eyes, thelines he was planning at San Roque, to shut out the fortress of Gibraltar from all communication with his people; and to facilitate his operations on that place, in any future siege. Previous to his visiting this scene of anticipated glory, he became indisposed, and the court halted at Seville. His illness wore so dangerous an aspect, Isabella became alarmed; and thought it prudent to know personally from Santa Cruz, what was likely to be the persistance of Ripperda, before she should disarm herself, by dispatching those troops to Africa, which the death of Philip might render necessary to the maintenance of her son's claims elsewhere.
The small detachment which had been granted, arrived under the command of Don Joseph de Pinel;—Don Ferdinand d'Osorio was on his staff; and the young soldier eagerly joined his father, where he longed to obliterate the memory of his youthful follies, by a conduct worthyof his hopes. In Lindisfarne, he had regarded the peculiar endowments of Louis de Montemar with jealousy and dislike, till the ingenuous character of their possessor compelled him to esteem the object of his antipathy. But he only envied him, as far as he believed those admirable qualities had made an impression on the heart his own wished to attach. When Alice acknowledged her love, this jealousy was no more; and with it vanished his dislike of her cousin.
During Ferdinand's stay at Val del Uzeda, his mother talked down the night, in praise of the filial perseverance of the Marquis de Montemar; in describing his ingenuous and elevated deportment; in imagining all the various treasures of his yet more elevated mind. Her son listened with no other feeling than that of emulation, to merit similar encomiums; and Marcella, answered his enquiries respecting heropinion of Louis, by a melancholy smile.
"Were I called hence;" said she, "and in my altered state, might chuse my ministry, I would say, let me be guardian angel to that virtuous young man!"
"Indeed!" replied Ferdinand, drawing his own inferences from the innocent reply of his sister. She spoke it from the dictates of a pure and pious heart; and did not blush when she answered his smiling remark;—"That she had chosen a work of supererogation; for a virtuous character needed no ministration: It was sufficient to itself."
"No Ferdinand," returned she, "virtue is not apathy. It feels under the rack; it bleeds under the axe. But where the weakness of corrupted nature would shrink and fly, it is steadfast, and combats, or sustains to the end. Virtue is not an Heathen idol; a block, or a stone. It is a Christian spirit in a humanbody; and comfort may wipe the drops from its suffering brow."
Ferdinand was reproved, and did not venture again to sport with a sentiment, which suited so well with the vestal state he still hoped to induce her to make the price of his happiness with Alice. But there his arguments failed. Marcella recapitulated the simple principles of religious belief she had imbibed from her Protestant governess; and shed tears, as she asserted the impossibility of her taking monastic vows in a church, against the peculiar tenets of which her soul revolted.