The siege of Ceuta was now not merely raised, but the accumulating army which had so long held it in blockade, and then beleaguered it with such enterprizing determination, was disappeared as if it had never been. Victors and vanquished were mingled in one common grave. The steed with its rider, and he who slew, by the side of him that was slain. The Spaniards performed these frightful obsequies; and he who held the mattock and the spade had often to contend with birds of prey, and ravenous dogs, howling amongst the mangled remains.
A flag of truce arrived from Adelmelek. It offered preliminaries of peace in the name of the Emperor; while the vindictive Hadge accused the defeated Aben Humeya of all the reciprocal outragescommitted during the present campaign.
Santa Cruz inquired the fate of the late Basha.
"He fled from the field of battle," replied the Moor, "and has not yet been heard of."
"Your information is false," returned the Marquis; "I myself saw him streaming with wounds and insensible, borne out of his consuming camp by a party of your own countrymen."
"I speak on the word of my commander," replied the Moor.
"You must bring me better evidence of his truth," rejoined the Marquis, "before I trust him. Return this day week to Ceuta; and, as he dissembles or fairly represents the last act of his fallen rival, I shall shape the terms my Sovereign may empower me to make to your Emperor."
Santa Cruz was not long in receiving ample credentials from the court at Seville for all he might wish to do in re-establishing the Spanish interest in Barbary. At Seville, as in Ceuta, it was believed that the Duke de Ripperda had expiated his crimes with his life; and, in answer to the evidence which Santa Cruz transmitted, of the inextinguishable loyalty of the Marquis de Montemar, the King issued a new edict, granting him the restitution of all his late father's hereditary honours and possessions. But there was a clause in this munificent investiture. The future Duke de Ripperda must avow himself of the Roman Catholic communion.
The re-opened wounds of Louis were just cicatrized; and he was leaning over the table on which he was writing to his friends in England, when the Marquis entered with the official letter from the King. He read it aloud. At the end of the catalogue of the Ripperda territories and titles, before he opened on the clause, Santa Cruz paused.
"De Montemar," said he, with solemnity, "hard trial has separated the gold from the dross in your heart; and you will not esteem the last title with which your King would invest you, the least honourable,—a true Christian!"
He then read the condition: "That all these restitutions should be ratified by the royal seal, on the day that the Cardinal-resident at Madrid should witness the baptism of Louis, Duke of Ripperda, into the bosom of the Church of Rome."
"I am sensible to the gracious intent of my Sovereign," replied Louis; "but that name I once idolized, I would now hear no more. It shall never be borne by me! And for the rest,—I am a Protestant, and I will die one."
Santa Cruz urged him by religious arguments and persuasions, drawn from the reasonableness of maintaining the rights of his ancestors. He spoke of the justice he owed to himself in restoring the illustrious name of his family to its pristine lustre; and, at any rate, it was his duty,when so offered, to transmit it, and the inheritance that was its appendage, unimpaired to his posterity.
"I shall have no posterity," replied Louis. "My father died an Infidel, and his name and his race are no more."
"What do you mean, De Montemar?" demanded the Marquis, regarding with alarm the countenance of his young friend.
"Nothing rash; nothing that this venerable man would not approve," said he, laying his hand on the letter he was writing to Mr. Athelstone. "But Marquis!" cried he, "Is there not matter enough to break a son's heart?"
Santa Cruz replied, by turning the subject to Louis's own great endowments of mind and figure; and tried to awaken his ambition, by dwelling on the impression his high principled conduct at Vienna had made upon his Sovereigns. It could only be equalled, he said, by their admiration of his late intrepid defence of Ceuta. On these grounds, the Marquis added, hehad only to chuse, and the first stations in the state, or in the army, must in process of time be at his command.
Louis shook his head.
"I was not born for a statesman," replied he. "I acknowledge no morality but one; and I have known enough of the ethics of cabinets to loathe their chicanery. I have seen that in the adjustment of their respective interests, the principles of common honesty may not only be dispensed with, but that no subterfuge is too mean for adoption, when expedient to disguise truth or over-reach a rival party. Where every man is supposed a deceiver by profession, no man can really trust in each other; and I will never be one of a set of men, where all are suspected of dishonour. As to the army!—I have had enough of that also." He shuddered as he spoke, and covered his face with his hand.
Santa Cruz did not require that shudder to be explained; but he affected toconsider this wide rejection, as derogatory to his loyalty, and to the general manliness of his character.
"Not in my mind," added he; "but in the opinion of the world. You must recover what your father's dereliction has lost; and the public suffrage is only to be retained by a succession of distinguished services. You are especially called upon to make manifest in all ways what you are,—a true subject of Spain, and one whose piety is worthy the adoption of our Church."
"Iamcalled upon," replied Louis, "to appear what I am! I served the King of Spain at the expence of many a sacrifice. I need not turn your eyes to the last. My faith is not in my power to exchange at will; but ill would he serve his Prince who could so desert himself: the example before us ought to set that at rest for ever. If, by remaining a Protestant, I must be no more a Spaniard, the forfeiture must proceed againstme. I have still the country of my mother. It will judge me with candour; and there, I trust, I shall do my duty in whatever state of life it may please Heaven to number out my days."
As Louis uttered this, his countenance was calm though sorrowful; and Santa Cruz, struck with such awful resignation in one so young and powerfully endowed, grasped his hand with as much reverence as affection, and soon after left the room.
Meanwhile, all was consternation and mutiny amongst the shattered remnant of the Moorish army. Ali had collected the fugitives from the bloody day of Ceuta; and attempted to re-organise them into some line of defence. But, fearful of being led a second time against their conquerors, they resisted every law of discipline, and spread the same refractory spirit to the camp of Adelmelek. The Hadge had undesignedly prepared his legions for this excess of disobedience, by impressing them with a belief that the conversion of the Duke de Ripperda to the Ottoman faith, was only a master-stroke of Christian policy, to acquire the Emperor Abdallah's confidence; and then, as he had done, betray the whole ofthe Moorish host to the sword of Spain. The people of the country at large were made to believe the same. Their credulity was easy, as their masters seldom consulted any counsellor but caprice; and, secure in their poverty, but bold in the use of their tongues, they clamoured against the court, for putting such implicit trust in a renegado; who, it was manifest, repaid the Emperor by betraying his army to the Christians; and had withdrawn himself from punishment, by shutting himself up, with the embezzled treasures of Abdallah, within the bulwarks of Tetuan.
At this juncture, Muley Hamet having been secretly apprised of the disaster which had befallen his former vanquisher, re-appeared upon the plains of Marmora; and, at the head of an armed multitude of Moors and Arabs, marched towards Mequinez.
Sidi Solyman, his near kinsman and secret partisan, was then in the capital.He was ready on any promising occasion to blow the flame of sedition; and, with great industry and dispatch, prepared the way for Muley Hamet, by publishing the reverses of the campaign. He accused the great officers of state of mal-administration; their chief agent, the renegade Duke, as an infamous trafficker of his faith; and urged, that Abdallah, having introduced the Christian impostor into the councils of the empire, had rendered himself obnoxious to the prophet's vengeance; the people, at present, lay under the same curse; and their first act must be to appease the heavenly power, by the deposition of the Emperor, and the delivery of Aben Humeya to the expiation of the laws!
The ever discontented and tumultuous rabble of Mequinez listened to these suggestions in the very spirit that was desired. They set fire to the imperial palace, and marched out of the town, headed bythe incendiary, Solyman, to meet his kinsman on the plain.
Abdallah, at that time, was with a few chosen troops, winding his way through the Habad mountains, to support the joint authority of Ali and Adelmelek with his presence; and also to ameliorate the fury of those two commanders against the Spanish Basha, whom he still believed to be as true as he was brave.
Adelmelek was so well aware of the consequence to him of the Emperor's arrival, should he hear from Ali that the battle of Ceuta was lost by the disobedience of the army of the interior to the summons of Aben Humeya; that on the very day he was told of Abdallah's approach, he caused Ali to be assassinated, and detached a body of troops to escort the Emperor with honour to his camp. But an honest Moor, who knew the designs of the Hadge, made his escape into the mountains, and informed the Emperor, not merely of the murder of the Sidi,but that Adelmelek intended his sovereign the same fate; after which he would march upon Tetuan, where the Basha was shut up, utterly helpless from his numerous wounds; and storming the place, deliver the whole with the empire, into the hands of Muley Hamet. Other information more than corroborated this statement; and Abdallah soon saw that temporary flight was his only resource. He called his few faithful followers together, and taking a circuit through the mountains, made a safe retreat into the desert regions of his empire.
Muley Hamet was declared Emperor by Sidi Solyman and Adelmelek; and the troops of the latter rejoicing in any change, readily obeyed his orders for a mere shew of discipline, while he dispatched his second ambassador to Ceuta, to make peace at any rate with the Spanish King.
By the information of this Moor, Santa Cruz learnt, that when Ripperda fell inthe battle of the camp, it was the last stroke of many wounds, and had been supposed mortal. But his immediate followers, snatching him from the crowd of slain, laid him on a camel, and disappeared with him from the field. It was some days before Adelmelek knew what was become of the fugitive party; and then a messenger from Ismail Cheriff, chief of his Arabian guards, brought information to Ali, that he had borne the wounded Aben Humeya to the safe hold of his own fortress of Tetuan. Ali lost no time in sending the courier back to the faithful Arab, with a full account of Adelmelek's intentions to give the Basha up to the resentment of the turbulent soldiery, or to influence the Emperor to order his immediate death.
The consequence was, Aben Humeya closed the gates of Tetuan as firmly against all the insidious advances of Adelmelek, as he would have done, to repel an open attack of the outrageous Moors,"Ali is dead; and Muley Hamet Emperor of Morocco,"—continued the ambassador, "Adelmelek is alone powerful with the new sovereign; and the first judicial act of the divan has been to declare Aben Humeya a traitor to the empire and our prophet. Should the desperate state of his wounds fail of proving his executioner, before the next moon Tetuan will be stormed by Adelmelek, the inhabitants put to the sword, and the treacherous Basha, die the death of a slave."
To these denunciations, Louis de Montemar, who was present at the audience, paid no attention; all that he heard, and seized as the renewal of life, was that his father yet survived; that he was accused of irreverence towards the founder of the Ottoman faith; and that he had taken refuge in a place not more than a day's journey from the Spanish fortress.
When the Mussulman closed his communications, and withdrew to leave their import to consultation, Louis impartedwhat were now his designs. Indeed, it was hardly necessary to declare them; for the existence of the Duke de Ripperda was no sooner affirmed, and his occupation of Tetuan mentioned, than Santa Cruz read in the instant blaze of his friend's countenance, the regeneration of hope; and the enterprize to which the welcome visitant would give birth.
"But the hazard is so infinite!" rejoined the Marquis, "where are we to find a person who would have the boldness to guide you through the brigand parties of the rival Moors? And even should we be successful in that object, and you arrive at Tetuan, consider the result. You may be admitted to your father; but should he perish in his apostacy, where would be your protection, and what would be your fate?"
"That I leave to providence!" replied Louis, "my course is clear:—to seek my father; and make a last effort to share withhim that happiness in the world to come, he has for ever destroyed in this."
"But his wounds are mortal," returned Santa Cruz, "he may be dead before you have reached this scene of peril. You will then have exposed your life, and more than your life, in vain. Think of the horrors that would befall you, should the infuriate Moors discover in you the son of the man, his enemies have taught them to believe was their betrayer?"
"Nothing is terrible to me," replied Louis, "but the idea of my father dying in his apostacy. Heaven appears to have opened his grave, to give him for a short time to my prayers; and shall any thing prevent me entering it, even if it should prove my own? I feel I have my errand! It is to touch the dead with the recalling breath of his redeemer; it is to see him rise again to life everlasting!"
Louis's soul was kindled into a holy flame. It was the ardent devotion of ason, mingling with the fervour of a really pious spirit. The enterprizing hope that was its offspring, might, by colder natures, be termed romantic vanity, or fanatic enthusiasm; but the warm heart of the Marquis saw religion in his zeal; and filial duty in the hazarded self-immolation.
After discussing many plans, it was at last decided, that the safest scheme was to pass from Ceuta by water; and that Louis should put on the garb of a brother of Saint Philip, one of theOrders of Mercy, then by licence scattered throughout the marine towns of Barbary.
As he passed into the chapel, to receive the vesture and holy benediction from the superior of the Ceuta brethren, he found Santa Cruz and his family kneeling before the altar, to unite their orisons with that of the priest.
The supplications of the veteran were fervent, though silent; and as he prayed, he often turned his eyes on his daughter,who knelt by him, with her face concealed in her veil.
The abbot put his hands on the head of Louis. The Marchioness wept; for she had no faith in this expedition, and thought within herself—"So he sanctifies the youthful martyr! For from that den of infidelity, he never will return!"
Ferdinand whispered something of the same import to his mother; and she sobbed audibly.
Louis turned to her voice, and put her hand to his lips. The Marquis and Ferdinand embraced him. Marcella had raised herself from her knees, and held by the rails of the altar. Louis did not see her face, for the veil yet hung before it; but the other hand that was laid upon her breast trembled; and he thought he saw he was not less in her thoughts, than in those of her parents. He wished, yet hesitated to approach her. Santa Cruz observed the direction of his eyes, and hisdoubting movement, but he did not speak. Louis's heart failed him; and blessing her in its inward recesses, he turned away, and followed the abbot out of the chapel.
Having received his credentials from the superior at Ceuta, to the fraternity of the same order at Tetuan, who resided there for the ransom of Christian slaves; Louis took his station in the open boat, that was to convey him, through the dangers of the counter-current at that season of the year, to the Moorish strong hold of the province of Hadad.
The river of Tetuan meets the sea, little more than a league from the town. All was quiet on its banks; and the boat which conveyed Louis to the Christian convent on the city walls, threw out its grappling irons under the deep excavation of a rock, at the base of an old tower.
Through a kind of lantern staircase in the hollow of the wall, Louis was conducted to an iron grating. The man who had been his pilot in this midnight voyage, pulled a bell which hung within the grating; and crossing himself at the same instant, muttered the Moorishbenedicite, "Sta fer Lah!" and hastened to his comrades in the boat.Louis had been warned by the brethren at Ceuta, not to ask his navigators any question; and when he witnessed this monstrous association of Mussulmen, with Christian devotion, he did not doubt that he had been rowed to Tetuan by characters of as little principle, as those which at first brought him from Spain to the Ottoman shore.
Before any person answered to the pull of the bell, which had ceased ringing, he heard the boat splashing away with its crew from under the caverned passage; and shortly after, the dead silence assured him he was left quite alone.
The mariner had given him a dark lantern, which shewed him the gloom of his situation. A short flight of steps; a fathomless abyss of waters at his feet. Before him a strong grated door, through which no human nerve could force an entrance; and immediately beyond it, a rough dark wall, which did not appearmore than a foot distant from its impassable portcullis.
Louis had just raised his arm to the bell, to make it sound a second time, when a figure appeared at the grate with the suddenness of an apparition. Without a word being uttered on either side, the massy bars were drawn; and Louis found himself following this silent conductor, through a long narrow stone passage, to another iron door. The mute friar made its bolts yield before him; and the chamber, to which its porch was a vestibule, presented to the eye of de Montemar, the assembled body of the holy brotherhood at Tetuan.
This little synod did not exceed ten; the person who conducted him completing that number. The prior rose on the entrance of a stranger brother of their order, which the ringing of that secret bell announced. It being a mode of egress to their cell, by which none but the respective fraternities ofSaint Philip of Mercywere ever allowed to enter.
A peculiar badge on the cowl of Louis announced that he came from the Abbey of Ceuta; and the credentials he immediately delivered to the prior confirmed its evidence. He was introduced to the brethren at Tetuan, as one who had a message of conscience to the dying Basha; and they were exhorted, by every argument from the Christian faith, to further the visit of the sacred embassador.
"I must see him this night."
"That is impossible," replied the prior, "but within an hour," continued he, "I expect a visit from Martini d'Urbino, the alcaide of his Christian slaves. He will judge of the practicability of your demand."
Louis inquired how the alcaide reported the state of the Basha; and asked the purport of his visit to the cell.
The prior hesitated to give a candidanswer. But he recollected the style of his superior's letter; and Louis repeated his questions, though mildly, with so unappealable an air of authority, he could no longer refuse a true and respectful reply.
"The Basha cannot live many days; and his Christian servant visits this cell by stealth, to witness the masses which we say for his master's soul."
"At his master's requisition?" demanded Louis.
"At his servant's," replied the prior; "the Duke himself is yet lost to redemption."
Louis sighed heavily. He wrapped himself in his mantle, as he took his station by the low embers of the hearth; and spoke no more, till a hasty step in a distant passage announced the approach of Martini. The friars had respected the abstracted taciturnity of their stranger brother; and did not even obtrude on him by an observation, whenthey saw him start from his seat at the well-known tread of his father's faithful follower.
Louis's cowl hung over his face when Martini entered. Indeed, it had never been raised.
The alcaide's appearance was strange to the eyes of him, who had last seen him in the light European garb of his country. He was now covered with the gorgeous draperies of an Asiatic officer; and the load of his magnificence seemed to weigh as heavily on his frame, as the fetters of his office oppressed the careless gaiety of his naturally free spirit. He did not remark an accession to the number of the brotherhood, but immediately announced the Duke's augmented bodily danger. The anguish of his wounds had that day been more intolerable than he could bear; low groans burst from his lips, during their most insufferable extremity; and when the hours of cessation from pain recurred, he lay in sullen despair, onlybreaking the fearful stillness, by occasionally murmuring the words, "lost! lost!"
"'Tis the evidence of his spirit against him!" exclaimed the prior. "But here is a brother," pointing to Louis, "whose holy zeal would try to lead him into some view of comfort."
"That is not to be done in this world," returned Martini, "he has lost too much, for any mortal aid to give him consolation."
"Then," cried the priest, "his doom must be eternal death!"
"Teach him to think that! that the doom of an unpardoned transgressor, is utter extinction;" replied Martini, "and you complete his perdition. He would find a treacherous peace, in anticipating the oblivion of the grave. But now—let us to prayers, my holy fathers; that is the only way by which we can bring him comfort."
The prior began the mass. Louis wason his knees, as well as the brothers. His prayers were not in their words, nor uttered in any sounds: but the inward groanings of his earnest spirit, like those of him who smote his breast in the temple, and exclaimed, "Lord, be merciful unto me a sinner!" were heard, and answered from above.
At the end of the service, Martini laid his oblation on the altar, and was turning away to withdraw, when Louis put his hand on his arm. He durst not speak to him before the brethren; for the abbot at Ceuta had warned him not to discover himself in the priory at Tetuan, until his success with the Basha should supersede any cause of fear at such an enterprize.
"Signor alcaide," said the prior, "if it be possible, you must introduce that brother to your dying master. He comes from Ceuta, and his mission is of importance."
"Nothing from Ceuta can be of importance to my master now," replied Martini, "its very name would re-awaken him from the melancholy stupor in which I left him, to all the horrors of his most terrific agonies." Martini paused an instant; then in a suppressed tone he addressed the stranger friar.
"The Marquis de Montemar, his only son, fell on the walls of Ceuta in his sight. and in his defence. And when any circumstances recall the scene, then it is I see the palsied quivering of his lip, and hear the often repeatedlost, lost!till the low, half uttered sound almost drives me mad. I too, loved him. But all is now gone for ever!"
Louis grasped his arm, and made a sign to the brethren to withdraw. There was that in the credentials he brought, that told them to respect all his wishes; and without a word they obeyed the motion of his hand.
Assured from what he now heard, that his father had restored him to his heart;the hope he derived from this happy change, nerved him with perfect self-possession; and drawing Martini towards the lamp that hung over the altar, he raised his cowl from his face.
"Martini," said he, "you will not deny me the sight of my father!"
It was flesh and blood that clasped his arm: but it seemed the voice and countenance of the slain de Montemar! The latter was wan and pale, and in the scared apprehension of the beholder, ghastly, as if just risen from his bloody grave. He did not speak; but with his eyes fixed on what he believed a terrible fore-warning of his master's death, shook almost to fainting, on the breast of the supposed phantom.
Louis comprehended his fear, and instantly relieved it, by saying, "I was wounded when my father saw me fall. But heaven has spared me to this hour; and you must do the last service to the Duke de Ripperda and his son."Though Martini was now convinced, it was no spectre that stood before him, he sunk upon the steps of the altar, and remained for some time in much emotion before he could reply. At last he spoke; and in his rapid and agitated recapitulation of the events which succeeded the repulse at the storming of Ceuta, he mentioned, that Ripperda's indignation at the Moors for abandoning the ramparts, seemed the more exasperated, when report told him the breach was defended by the Marquis de Montemar.
"We both did our duty," said he to me, with a horrible smile; "though Louis would have served Spain better, if he had suffered his brother soldiers to kill its enemy." "But he would not have been your son!" replied I. The Duke looked sternly at me. "Martini how often have I told you, I have no son? No part in any human being—but what administers to my vengeance!"
"Then came the intercepted courierfrom Oran. His dispatches related the attempt on Ceuta; and that the Marquis de Montemar was dying of his wounds. He was brought before the Basha; and, on being questioned, acknowledged that you were dead. At that unexpected disclosure, nature asserted itself in your father's breast. He found you were yet his son, in the moment you were lost to him for ever. His grief knew no bounds; it was terrible, and in despair. Alas! Signor, it was phrenzy wearing the garb of warlike retaliation. His orders were full of blood and extirpating revenge. All flew at his command; but, though all were brave, none fought as he did. His onward courage and invincible resolution on that desperate day of his defeat, surpassed human daring, and almost human credibility. He fell, bleeding at every pore. I was near him at the instant; and raising him from the ground, then as insensible as if past the pains of death, the Arab, Ismail Cheriff, assisted me, and we bore him to a place of security.
"We knew that all was over in the field; and, dreading the malice of his Moorish rivals, as soon as we perceived life in him, we conveyed him safely into Tetuan; and, closing the gates, prepared to defend him against the immediate fury of his vanquished soldiers; who, we were soon informed, were in mutiny, and urging their no less hostile commanders to lead them against their former Basha."
But an antidote to the deadly aconite which much of this narrative contained, was also gathered by the anxious son of Ripperda. He learnt that the blood which flowed so copiously from his father's wounds had cleared the long troubled fountain of his heart.
When the Duke recovered from his first mortal weakness, he found that he had also recovered a memory he would gladly have lost for ever. The madness of his revenge had passed away in the floodgates which opened from his streaming sides. No mist now hung over his better faculties. He saw his injuries as they were; but he also beheld his extravagant retaliation in its true enormity. He had become a rebel, an apostate, an enemy to all mankind! He had sacrificed his honour, his affections, his soul, to a phantom that vanished in his embrace, and left him to a terrible conviction of perdition! His son was no more! The race of Ripperda was then extinct; and all the fame, and all the glory for which he had contended, were blotted out for ever. His evil deeds alone would be remembered, as an example to avoid and to shudder at! Remorse fastened on the heart of the dying man; but it was a remorse, direful and dark. Repentance did not shed a tear there; for the mortal vice of his youth and of his manhood still kept guard over the better spirit within. He was too proud to give vent to the anguish of his soul; too proud to acknowledge to man or to God, the secret of his misery,—that he was a sinner and in despair.
Louis passed with Martini over the embattled terraces, which, in the present fortified state of the city, occupied the place of citron groves on the flat roofs of the houses of Tetuan. The Ginaraliph, or, otherwise, the Basha's palace, was in the centre of the town, surrounded by sumptuous gardens, and stood in the moon-light, reflecting from its gilded domes the milder splendours of her orb. The courts and the chambers spoke of pomp and luxury. Guards lined the galleries; and the baths and remote pavilions of the Basha, breathed every fragrance of Arabia, and sparkled every where with gold and silver stuffs, draperying the walls, and carpeting the floors. Did Paradise consist in banqueting the senses, here it was. But Paradise dwells within the heart. In that of the expiring possessor of all these delusions, therewas only a desert to be found; and, in such a state, gloomily awaiting his last sigh, and the direful judgment that was to be passed upon his soul, Louis beheld his father, lying as one already dead, under the mockery of all this gilded pomp.
Ripperda did not see the grey form that glided into his apartment; for he did not raise his head from its fixed position on his pillow. Martini advanced to the couch.
"My Lord, I bring you good tidings!"
Ripperda took no notice of what was said. Martini drew closer and repeated his words. His master opened his eyes with a look of reproach.
"I do not deceive you, my Lord," cried the faithful servant; "my tidings are the most precious your dearest wishes could desire."
"Then they would rid me of this world, and all that troubles me!" cried Ripperda. "Tell me nothing, for I have no wishes here.""Your son, my Lord," returned Martini, "would you not hear of him?"
"No!" cried the Duke, in a voice of peculiar strength. "His reputation is my infamy! Let me die without that last drop."
Louis could refrain no longer. He sunk on his knees. His cowl was now thrown backward from his head; and though at the extreme distance of the apartment, his father recognised him at the first glance. His eyes, for a while, became riveted to the strange vision; but he did not, for a moment, believe it otherwise than a reality.
"Who is that?" cried he to Martini, and pointing to the figure.
"The Marquis de Montemar," replied the Italian.
Louis was now on his feet, and approached his father. Ripperda drew himself up on his bed.
"And what," cried he, in a severe tone, "if you be yet a wretch in this miserable world? What tempts you again into the presence of the man who has survived all relations but his own conscience?"
"My own conscience, and my heart!" cried Louis, "from this hour, determined to live and die by my father."
Ripperda bent his head upon his clasped hands. Louis drew near, then nearer, and kneeling by the bed, touched those hands which seemed clenched in each other with more than mortal agony. The bed shook under the strong emotion of the Duke. At last, his hands closed over his son's; and Louis, in broken accents, exclaimed: "Oh! my father: In all that I have offended you, in word or deed, pardon; and bless me by your restored confidence!"
"Louis," cried the Duke, after a pause, and relinquishing the hands he held: "Pardon is not a word to pass my lips. I know it not. I shall never hear it. Let all men perish as I shall perish."
"You will not pronounce such a sentence on your son?" returned Louis,seeing the distemper of his mind, and praying inwardly, while he sought to soothe, and to turn him to better feelings. "You gave me birth, and you will not leave me to die, without having received your forgiveness for all my unintentional offences."
"Louis de Montemar!" cried the Duke, "virtuous son of an angel I shall never behold! There is no death in your breast; no need of forgiveness from earth or heaven! But your father!—Shudder while you touch him, for hell is already in his bosom."
Ripperda's face was again buried in his hands. That once godlike figure shook as under the last throes of dissolution; and before his anguished son could form his pious hopes into any words of consolation, a slave appeared for a moment at the curtain of the door. The act of prostration, holding out a sealed packet to Martini, and vanishing again, seemed comprised in less than a second.Martini knew the writing to be that of a friend of his own, in the suite of Adelmelek; and, aware of some pressing danger from the abrupt entrance of the slave, he broke the seal. He read, that the late Emperor being deposed, Adelmelek was advancing to Tetuan, to threaten it with destruction; or to allow it to purchase its ransom by an instant surrender of its Basha. This sacrifice being made, the offending Aben Humeya would be put to an ignominious death; and so the laws of Mahommed should be appeased, and an exemplary warning set up to all foreign invaders of the rights and honours of true Mussulmen.
Without preface, Martini communicated this information to those present. He no longer feared the execution of such threats, but felicitated his master on the arrival of the Marquis de Montemar, who would himself defend his father's life from these ungrateful Moors.
"And was it my death you feared?"asked the Duke, gloomily looking up from his position, and bracing his nerves at this seeming summons to renewed action. "Were it to be found, I would seek it; but there is no death for me. Torn from this murderous world by violence, or sapped by the consuming hand of corporeal pain, neither can give me rest."
"Yes, my father," gently rejoined Louis, "there is rest in the grave when—"
"Silence!" interrupted the Duke, all his former haughtiness confirming his voice and manner: "Is it you that would cajole reason with sophistry? That would give up your unsullied truth at last, to insult your father by preaching an annihilation you know to be a falsehood? I know a different lesson. A man cannot rid himself of bodily pangs by moving from place to place. How then shall the torments of the spirit be extinguished, by so small a change as being in or out of this loathed prison of flesh? Whenmy soul, my own and proper self, when it is freed by death from the fetters of the passions which have undone me; then I shall think even more intensely than I do now. I shall remember more than I do now. I shall see the naked springs, the undisguised consequences of all my actions. They will burn in my eyes for ever. For such, I feel, is the eternal book of accusation prepared for the immortal spirit that has transgressed beyond the hope of pardon, or the power of peace! Louis," added he, grasping his arm, and looking him sternly in the face; "has not your Pastor-Uncle taught you the same?"
"Yes; and more," replied his son. "He has taught me, that it is impossible for the finite faculties of man to comprehend the infinite attributes of God;—how he reconciles justice with mercy, in the mystery of the redemption, and renews the corrupted nature of man by the regeneration of repentance! Recallthe promises of the Scriptures, my father; and there you will find, that He who washed David from blood-guiltiness, and blotted out the idolatry of Solomon; that He who pardoned Cephas for denying Him in the hour of trial, and satisfied the perverse infidelity of Thomas; that He who forgave Saul his persecutions, and made him the ablest apostle of his church; nay, that He who has been the propitiation of man, from the fall of Adam to the present hour,—wills not the death of a sinner, but calls him to repentance and to life!"
"But what," returned the Duke, "if I know nothing of these things? You start! But it is true. The Scriptures you talk of, is the only book I never opened." There was a terrible expression in the eyes of Ripperda as he delivered this, and listened to the heavy groan that burst from the heart of his son.
"In this hour," continued he, "when all human learning deserts me; rejectedby the world, and loathing man and all his ways;—in this bitter hour, I believe, therein I might have found the word of life! But I derided its pretensions, and the penalty must be paid!"
Louis had recovered himself from the first shock of this awful confession. He beheld the desperate resignation of his father's countenance when uttering the last sentence; but he did not permit it to shake his manhood a second time, as he now took up the sacred subject in the language of Scripture itself. He had been well taught by the precepts and example of his Pastor-Uncle; and with a memory whose tenacity astonished even himself, and a power of argument which seemed the eloquence of inspiration, the young preacher sat by his father's side; till a light, like the morning sun, rose upon the chaos of his mind, and feeling warmth with the beam, his heart, which until now had been like a stone in his bosom, melted under the genial influence;and the eyes, which had not endured the softness of a tear for many months, overflowed on the hand of his son.
The soul of Louis was then as in heaven. He was speechless with gratitude; and when his father looked upon him, he beheld his face, indeed as an angel; for all that he had taught and promised, was then effulgent in his upward eyes.
Louis passed the night in his father's chamber. And before another sun arose and set, and rose again, he had so entirely satisfied him of the truth and efficacy of the religion of Christ, that the noble penitent begged to seal his repentance and his faith, by receiving the holy sacrament from the hands of the prior of Saint Philip's.
During these few sacred days, the Duke became so tranquillized by the hopes of religion, that he found freedom of mind sufficient, to converse with his son on his future temporal concerns. He took penand ink, to write something to that effect; which he forbade Louis to open, till the writer were no more.
"It particularly relates to England;" said he, "for that country must hereafter be yours. It is the only one I ever knew, where virtue is a man's best friend. You came innocent out of it; and it is to your own credit, and the influence of God alone, that you return unpolluted by the stains which have made my name one universal blot. Oh, Louis," cried he, wringing his hands; "you have taken from your father, the sting of death; you have brought him the true unction of heaven; and given him that peace, which the world and all its empires cannot give; and what do I bequeath thee in return. The memory of my infamy? But it will not reach you in England; or if it do, that people are too just, to condemn the blameless son, for the delinquency of his parent."
Louis's heart sprang to that country towhich his father exhorted him to return. Since he left it, his pilgrimage had been one of anguish; an expedition of contest and sorrow; of defeat without error; and victory which could yield no triumph.
"But you will live, my father!" said he, observing that for the last few hours his pains had ceased; and his countenance bespoke, if not the serenity of innocence, the resignation of religion. "Your bodily sufferings are ameliorated; and we shall see England together."
Ripperda looked on him with a sudden brightness in his eye.
"That penance is spared me!" cried he, "while on earth, I should feel that memory and reproach are the worms that never die! I have indeed, no pain; neither in my spirit, nor in my body; and in the moment the latter ceased, your father felt the bond was taken off that fastened his frail being to this world!"
Louis now understood what another few hours would so soon demonstrate."Here is the remnant of a sword," rejoined the Duke, putting the shattered remains of one into his son's hand. "It broke in the conflict on the breach of Ceuta, but it did not fail me. Its fractured blade slew the Biscayen who wounded you in my defence. Preserve it Louis; for it was my friend, when I believe I had hardly another friend left. It saved my life from assassins in the mountains of Genoa. Who wielded it, I know not; but remark its motto,J'ose! and should you ever meet its owner, remember that William de Ripperda's last injunction was,Gratitude!"
Louis kissed the shattered blade, and put it into his bosom. At the same instant he heard a stir in the vestibule; and with a melancholy haste, he rose, and opened the curtain, to welcome the prior of Saint Philip.
The Roman Catholic religion was the first Ripperda had exercised; and though he knew it by its ceremonials only,yet it was most grateful to him to die in its profession:—And as his soul now worshipped the only God and Saviour, in spirit and in truth; in his circumstances, every water was alike holy that baptized him to salvation.
"Father!" said he, when the priest entered; "you come to behold in me the end of all human vanity. What have I not been? What am I now? An example, and a beacon! What Ripperda was, is now forgotten; what he is, will be remembered by men, and reproached upon his posterity, when God has erased the record for ever!"
With his hands clasped in those of the prior, he made a short, but contrite confession of his transgressions and his faith. From those hallowed lips he received the sacred absolution; and as the consummation of his eternal peace, raised on his bed upon his knees, and supported on the breast of his son, for the first, and the last time, he received the pledgeof his salvation, in tasting with a believer's heart, the last supper of our Lord.
"It is the bread of life!" cried he, firmly pressing the hand of Louis; and starting forward with his eyes rivetted, as if on some invisible object:—"Thou hast given it me; and thy mother——" he fell back on the bosom of his son. At that moment, the smile which was once so beautiful, but now rendered ghastly by the hues of death, flitted over his blanched lips. It seemed the glittering wing of a seraph, escaping the marble tomb. All was still. The voice of the priest raised a requiem to the departing spirit; but Louis had neither voice nor tear. He was sunk on his knees, to adore the merciful God, into whose presence his beloved father was then passed away.
Louis opened the sealed packet, and obeyed his father's dying injunctions to the minutest circumstance.
According to the noble penitent's written command, and by the friendly management of the faithful Arab, his death was concealed from the Moors, until all was accomplished which he wished to be done. When every thing was completed, his body was taken away by night to the chapel of Saint Philip, and buried in its consecrated garden, without pomp, or a register on his grave.
Louis remained for an hour alone, by the humbled relics of all that was once admired and honoured in man. His heart would have been with that cold corpse, had he not known that its spiritmust be sought in other regions. But on that awful spot, he called on the shade of his mother; he invoked the soul of him, who had sinned and been forgiven! He laid his own ambition, and all that was yet within him of this world, on that first altar of nature, at the foot of the cross. He rose with a holy confidence, and was comforted.
He bade adieu to the brethren, who now knew him as the son of the deceased, and blessed him for his filial heroism. The prior conducted him, with a similar benediction, to the boat that was to convey him to the late Basha's armed galleon in the bay. Martini was already there, with the Count de Patinos. Ripperda had held him a close prisoner in a remote tower of the Ginaraliph; but with his dying breath, he pronounced his release; and the Count with other Christian captives, to whom the same voice gave liberty, were now safely embarked, along with the treasures of Ripperda, in thevessel that was to carry his son to the opposite shore.
Nature seemed to have put on her mourning garments; for all was universal darkness: not a star in the heavens, nor a glow-worm on the beach, shed one ray of light to guide his little bark, as it silently floated down the river.
He left a letter with the prior, for the Marquis Santa Cruz. It was to be conveyed to Ceuta with the first messenger from the brotherhood; and would inform him of the melancholy and decisive events in Tetuan. Louis wrote fully on every subject; and told the Marquis, that his father had ordered him to take de Patinos and the Christian captives to Gibraltar, and from thence give them liberty. The Duke had also enjoined certain sums to be left with the brethren of Ceuta and Tetuan, for the ransom of other captives in the interior; while the treasure on board the galleon was to be consigned to the governor of Gibraltar, under the personalagency of Martini d'Urbino, for a general fund towards freeing the numerous Christian slaves on the coast of Barbary.
Louis closed his letter, with his father's commands respecting his return to England, and his own wish to the same purpose. But he added, he would not take so decisive a step until he could consult the Marquis, how far he might comply, without violating his pledged duty to Spain. It was therefore his design to re-visit Ceuta, as soon as he had fulfilled his commission at the British fortress; and from the experienced counsel, and unswerving integrity of Santa Cruz, shape his future fate.
But Louis was never to see Ceuta again; never to set his foot again upon the Spanish shore; nor to hear the voice of Santa Cruz, till his destiny was decided beyond the power of friendship to dissuade or annul.
A whirlwind from the north-west, caught the galleon and its newly enfranchisedcrew, at the mouth of the bay of Tetuan, and drove it out to sea, where it was beaten about at the mercy of the winds and waves for many days. After having been twice nearly wrecked, first on the coast of Algiers, and then on the spiky shores of Murcia, a Levanter suddenly springing up, drove them as fiercely back towards the Straits; and falling calm opposite the Bay of Gibraltar, on the tenth morning after he sailed, Louis landed at the British fortress.
As he stepped out on the old mole, the partialities of his infancy were awakened instantly by what he saw; and though more than a nominal Spaniard, he felt the exultation of an Englishman, in viewing that rock, and those bastions, where the most heroic and persevering atchievements had been performed by the countrymen of his mother. It was England's own imperial domain; and Louis sighed when he inwardly exclaimed,"Oh! why did I wish for any other country?"
Lorenzo awaited him in the town with a packet from Santa Cruz. It was in answer to that which the Tetuan monks had forwarded to Ceuta; and was written just as the Spanish army was embarking on its return to Spain. By order of the King, Santa Cruz had made peace with the new government of the Moors, and was recalled with his whole family, to rejoin the court at Seville, and attend it to Madrid. But this was not all the Marquis had to communicate; he inclosed an angry letter from the Queen, on the subject of Louis having preferred the errors of heresy to the truths of the Church; and the prejudices of an absurd education, to the favour of his too indulgent Sovereigns. Her indignation was so highly incensed against so signal an instance of folly and ingratitude, that she told Santa Cruz, the delinquent must no longer consider himself protected by Spanish laws, should he ever presume to re-enter that country.
"'Tis well!" said Louis to himself; and he turned the page.
Santa Cruz then addressed him as a father, consoling and cheering him with every argument that could be drawn from an heroic and pious mind.
"You have convinced me," added he, "that the Holy One is no respecter of persons; that all, of every country and sect, who work theworks of righteousness, are accepted by him. If I can bring you brighter tidings from my at present inexorable mistress, you shall see me again in Lindisfarne. Meanwhile, be assured of the parental exertions of your unalienable friend,Santa Cruz."
"You have convinced me," added he, "that the Holy One is no respecter of persons; that all, of every country and sect, who work theworks of righteousness, are accepted by him. If I can bring you brighter tidings from my at present inexorable mistress, you shall see me again in Lindisfarne. Meanwhile, be assured of the parental exertions of your unalienable friend,
Santa Cruz."
A heart-wringing farewell was added by the Marchioness. It was blotted with her tears; for she, who knew the vindictive personal arrogance of the Queen, hadno hope of her being appeased; and there were expressions of a wild and mysterious regret in this affecting postscript, that puzzled Louis to understand; while, once or twice, he unconsciously sighed when he read the name of Marcella, coupled with words of maternal lamentation. She was ill, and urging her father to place her in the convent she had so long resisted.
A letter from Ferdinand seemed to explain this change in her resolution. "He regretted that his own selfish wishes had ever given her an idea, that such an immolation could purchase his happiness. He acknowledged that he now saw his father would not be bribed, even by her compliance, to grant what he had once refused to the same plea. Persuasion was the only engine that could be used with any hope; "and," he added, "were you to second Marcella's entreaties for me, with your persuasions I should not fear a refusal. My father holds you insuch esteem, I think he could deny you nothing.
"It was only yesterday, he was nearly drawn into a quarrel on your account; and, that it did not come to a more serious argument than dialogue, is, I believe, more owing to his principle against duelling, than to any deference to his antagonist.
"The affair took place in the Queen's cabinet; where, it seems, a little junto sits every morning, previous to the council in the King's presence. About half a dozen old grandees, your father's mortal enemies,—and, consequently, no friends to his son,—followed up their observations on the late business in Africa, with certain insinuations against all of his race. The Queen was already provoked at your declining the King's conditional re-investiture; and, instigated by the sly hints of these men, she, in her turn, let drop a few animadversions on your conduct. This was unleashing thehounds; the cry was up; and, in five seconds, the poor Marquis de Montemar was torn limb from limb. He was to be publicly branded as a heretic; deprived of his fortunes and his name; and the memory of his ancestors erased from the archives of the Escurial!
"If your Majesty gives but the word to our gracious Sovereign," exclaimed the old Duke d'Almeida, "in another hour, the last of that rebellious race will be reduced to the condition of its long demerits, and be numbered with the dregs of the people!"
"We have a petition here to the King, to that purpose," hastily rejoined the Count de Paz. "If Your Majesty would sanction it with your royal signature!"
Isabella took the pen. Duke Wharton, who was present, but who had remained all this time in silence, turned haughtily towards de Paz: "And who arewe?" cried he; then, with his usual effrontery, laying his hand on the paperbefore the Queen, exclaimed: "This is all short of the mark! These venerable Lords, in the compassion of their natures, have refrained from noting to your Majesty, the true offence of this daring Anglo-Spaniard. They know, that the favour with which half the princesses of Europe have treated this audacious young man, has turned his head with vanity. Nothing will now satisfy him, but to assume a particular deference to the Queen of Spain's commands alone. He rejects the King's conditions, not because he prefers heresy and rebellion, but he is ambitious to pay all his duty to his country, rather as a personal devotion to the royal Isabella, than as a peremptory obligation to his Sovereign. This wild arrogance must arm all our hearts against him; I, therefore, petition your Majesty not to mock your own dignity, by a beggarly stripping him of lands and parchments, but give him Phaeton's fate atonce! Strike him where he is vulnerable, by banishing him your presence for ever."
The Queen's colour heightened during this speech. She rose proudly from her chair: "My Lords," said she, "what the Duke of Wharton has intimated shall have its weight with me. Meanwhile, I will reconsider the sentence you are to propose to the King, and give you my directions accordingly."
On my father arriving at the palace, (which was immediately after the breaking up of the consultation,) the Queen's secretary told him all that had passed. He was justly irritated at the false representation Duke Wharton had so malignantly made, of the motives of your conduct; and accidentally meeting him in his return through the gallery, he accosted him without ceremony, and with a severe reproof. Wharton listened to him with a provoking kind of respect; and when my father, with some heat, had finished his reproaches, the Duke coolly replied:"I am sorry your Lordship and I should differ on any subject; but you are too good a Catholic to wish any man to speak against his conscience!"
"I am too much a man of honour, Duke Wharton, to sanction any man in speaking otherwise than what is fact. I know the Marquis de Montemar; and you have no authority for what you said this morning to the Queen."
"Did the Marquis Santa Cruz wear a cowl instead of a helmet," answered the Duke, "I might possibly make him master of my cabala; but, as it is, we may part friends, since I am determined not to confess myself his enemy."
"My father turned indignantly from the gay bow of the Duke, and so they separated.
"These are bad symptoms for you, dearest Louis," continued the letter of Ferdinand; "but if any thing can be done to protect your paternal rights in this country, my father will do it. And,as to my mother, I believe she thinks of you more than she does of me; but that is because you deserve it better. Write to me from Gibraltar; and say that you will gladly welcome to England your friend,Ferdinand d'Osorio."
"These are bad symptoms for you, dearest Louis," continued the letter of Ferdinand; "but if any thing can be done to protect your paternal rights in this country, my father will do it. And,as to my mother, I believe she thinks of you more than she does of me; but that is because you deserve it better. Write to me from Gibraltar; and say that you will gladly welcome to England your friend,
Ferdinand d'Osorio."
Louis received these packets from Lorenzo, at the house of a Spanish merchant residing in the town of Gibraltar. The Spaniard was known to Santa Cruz, and recommended by him, as a person well adapted to assist in the accomplishment of Louis's views in visiting the rock. He found the house in a retired part of the town, and preferred such a residence before the military bustle of the British quarters.
Having read the letters of his Spanish friends, he put them into a bosom that had long been accustomed so to hide the sorrows of his heart; and, having seen, the Count de Patinos respectfully attended to by Lorenzo, and the other captives comfortably disposed under the care of Martini, he quitted the merchant's house, to seek his first conference with the British Governor.
He had no occasion for other introduction to General ****, than the announcement of his name. The gazettes of Ceuta had been daily in the hands of the British garrison; and the tremendous bombardment of the Spanish fortress having been seen from the heights of Calpe, its gallant defence was read with avidity by the generous spectators. The Marquis de Montemar filled every line in the two last reports; and General **** rose to receive him, with that respect in his deportment, which is the brightest meed that veteran glory can bestow on youthful fame.
While Louis sat with the English Commander, in spite of his late inattention to objects of trifling import, the furniture and style of the apartment struck himas what he had not seen since he left England;—and, he was conscious to an emotion, as if he had drawn at once near to his home; and even felt the atmosphere of this room, different from that in the Spanish quarter of the rock.
It was not necessary, in his conversation with the Governor, to pain himself by any elaborate explanation of his father's rupture with the Spanish Court, and his fatal engagement with that of Morocco. The pillars of Hercules were too near to each other, for what was transacted under the shadow of the one, to be unknown to the inhabitants at the foot of the other. The Governor of Gibraltar admired the greatness of the Duke de Ripperda, when his virtues guided the Spanish helm; and his own virtues did not prevent him pitying the fallen statesman, when his ill-directed resentment made him dictator to a horde of barbarians.
Louis pleaded to himself the partialphrenzy of his father's mind, as some extenuation of his conduct. He learnt from Martini, that the Duke's passions had always been strong; but, until he received the wound on his head in the porch of the Jesuits at Vienna, they were always under his controul. From that perilous hour, his temper became more irritable; and in every way he shewed himself more vulnerable to the attack of circumstances. These circumstances at last overwhelmed him; and, disappointed, insulted, and betrayed, madness contended with reason in his brain. With just enough of the one, to shew him the enormity of his retaliation, and of the other to precipitate him into its commission, he became the desperate victim of revenge; a renegade, and a slave.
Nought of this passed the lips of Louis to the English general; but he understood it all, from the report of certain Jews from the coast of Barbary; and, in conversing with the son of the unhappyDuke, he delicately implied, that he knew his illustrious father had been led to his last fatal step, by the false lights of a distempered mind.
"In his latter hours," replied Louis, "that, indeed fatal disorder was taken away. He was restored to the upright principle of his former character; and his penitence for the effect of his dereliction, was as deep, as his injuries were indelible. But, in that hour of terrible recollections, he forgave all, as he hoped to be forgiven. And I saw him die in the faith of the church."
Louis spoke this with a steady voice; and a certain dignity elevating the sadness of his countenance, which convinced his auditor, that the son of Ripperda felt the honour of his name returned to him, in the restoration of his father to the religion and pardon of his God.
General **** entered with zeal into the plans which the deceased Duke had laid down, for the redemption of severalhundred Christian slaves in the interior of the Barbary states. And as the scheme must occupy much time, and numerous agents, to bring it to effect; Ripperda had fixed upon Martini, as the negociating person, on the Spanish side of the lines of San Roque. Certain deposits of treasure for ransoms, were to be left, both in his hands, and in those of the Governor of the English fortress, who, from the political relations between it and the Barbary coast, could be the most efficient agent in the great design.
General **** having heard of the probable sequestration of all the Ripperda property in Spain, ventured to hint to the despoiled heir, that there might be an excess of generosity, in at once relinquishing so vast a sum as that which the munificence of the Duke had allotted to the cause of charity.
"Had he foreseen the injustice of the Spanish government to his son," continued the veteran, "I doubt not he would havebequeathed his benevolence in a more prudent measure! It therefore becomes you, Marquis, to make the restrictions common equity suggests."
"No;" replied Louis, "my father's wealth was his own. I have no right, had I the wish, to lay an appropriating hand on a single ingot. I am rich, in the task of obeying his commands. And for myself, the world does not want ways for a man, of few personal wants, to gain an honourable subsistence."
A few days put every thing in a train for the prosecution of Ripperda's charitable bequest. The treasure was lodged in the government-house; and a list of all the yet unredeemed Christian slaves in Barbary, put into the general's hands. The enfranchised captives, which Louis had brought with him, were ready at the British lines, on the land-side of the fortress, to pass into Spain. On taking leave of their benefactor; he who had so religiously, and with largesses of money besides,obeyed every tittle of the deceased Duke's will in their behalf; they fell on their knees before him, and implored for blessings on his life.
"The past has been a vale of sorrows!" sighed he to himself, as he cheerfully bid them adieu, and gave them blessing for blessing.
Martini was to lead these happy captives to their native land; and to take up his own residence at the castle of de Montemar, until the execution of the expected decree against its lord should drive him out into some humbler abode; where he would still exercise the benevolent agency, which alone could have persuaded him to separate himself from the immediate presence of the beloved son of his ever-honoured master.
He wept at parting with Louis, and his brother Lorenzo.
"I am but your servant, my Lord!" said he, "but these are times when the heart knows no distinctions, but those ofattachment. Your noble father is gone; and you may cut me piece-meal, before I feel his son otherwise, thanbone of my bone, and yet my honoured Lord."
Louis pressed the faithful creature to his heart; and could he have wept, his tears would have mingled with those of Martini, which bathed his cheek.
The Count de Patinos was to accompany the returning column. He too was to take leave of his generous protector. It was beneath his rank to bow the knee; it was adverse to his nature, to call a benediction on his head: but he embraced Louis with the ceremonial of his country, while the extension of his arms was as cold and repelling, as if the mutual touch transformed benefits to injuries.
As the Count turned away, "Thus," said Louis to himself, "does Spain and all its interests depart from me!"
Some other thoughts, in which Spain had a share, traversed his mind, as heslowly took his way through the devious path-ways in the rock, towards the dwelling of his Spanish host. As he entered it, he felt it was possible to regret never respiring the atmosphere of Spain again.
The Governor had informed him, that a British frigate would sail for Portsmouth next day. A passage was eagerly offered to him by the captain; and after dining with his new friends in the garrison, and bidding them farewell, on the evening previous to the night he was to embark, he ascended the summit of the mountain to look round, and to breathe his last adieu to lands he should never see again.
He was alone, and so distant from the garrison, not a sound came to his ear, as he pensively mounted steep after steep, till he reached the old signal-house; at this time, a lone deserted tower on the highest point of the rock. All was calm within him, in this moment of finalseparation from all that had once possessed his whole heart, and been the utmost bounds of his far-stretching ambition.
The extended and magnificent scenery, which derived a kind of visionary beauty from the pure and luminous atmosphere in which it was displayed, seemed to refine the faculties by which it was contemplated, and to dilate his soul with a tranquil and devotional delight.
"Is it," thought he, "that as man draws near the region of celestial spirits, he begins to partake their ethereal nature?"
Still some earthly remembrances clung to the spot that horizon bounded. He looked from side to side. The vast Atlantic, rolling into the Straits, and ploughed by many a proud frigate, did not hold his attention long. He turned towards the east, where the Mediterranean took its milder course, flowing far away, between the hostile shores of Spain and Africa; till lost in distant Italy, andfarther Greece. The Moorish coast was boldly distinguished by prominent headlands and towering cliffs. They seemed to stretch to an infinite extent. And, on the opposite shore, and to the same unlimited horizon, rose the mountainous regions of Spain, the snow-clad Grenadines, and the empurpled heights of Antequera. The plains were diversified with towns and castles; and, immediately beneath him, lay the lines of San Roque. He gazed on that Spain he was to leave for ever; that Spain, which held the Marquis Santa Cruz; and her, whose voice he was to hear no more. But the sounds were still echoing in his heart; in his troubled dreams, or waking musings, he often heard the same. "I cannot dissuade the Marquis de Montemar from that, for which I honour him!" He often heard her say; "Look up, and cherish life; for heaven knows how to bless, when all the world has failed!"His melancholy eyes ranged over the abundant vales of Andalusia. That very province of Spain, on which he was now looking down for the last time, was his own inheritance! But that was little. He turned to the red line of light which now tracked the darkening coast of Africa. There stood the rugged cliffs of Abyla, frowning in mist over the towers he had so lately defended with his blood. Beyond, lay a dearer spot! The green sod that covered his father's grave.—There, the dews of night fell; and the wailing of the blast in the lonely turrets around, were all which hereafter would supply the place of a son's tears and groans!