The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Pastor's Fire-Side, Vol. IV. by Miss Jane Porter.

I will confess the ambitious projects which I once had, are dead within me. After having seen the parts which fools play upon the great stage; a few books, and a few friends, are what I shall seek to finish my days with.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1817.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. I.

Some time elapsed before Louis saw the Marquis again; but when he re-appeared, it was to appoint him an interview with a lady of the court; and this ostensible confidant was no other than Her Majesty's self.

Santa Cruz's representation of Louis's romantic honour with regard to Countess Altheim, had excited Isabella's not less romantic taste for adventure; and she resolved to try her personal effect upon him, unaided by her rank. While she was considering this project, a person arrived from Vienna, speaking every where of the confusion which had taken place at that court,[2] from an open declaration, on the part of the Arch-Duchess Maria Theresa in favour of Francis Prince of Lorraine. This news, by verifying one argument in the alleged innocence of Louis de Montemar, gave a respectable colour, in her now mind, to the really vain motive which prompted a clandestine reception of the Duke de Ripperda's son. In mentioning her design to his zealous friend, she hinted that such privacy was necessary; since the King had followed the flight of Ripperda, with a sentence of perpetual banishment. While unknown, she said, she could discourse more freely to the young Marquis, on the circumstances of his father's conduct; and, by remaining incognita, should she chuse the affair to end at that conference, her implied interference would escape expectation, or blame.

Santa Cruz bowed to a command that promised so fair, notwithstanding its professed doubts as to the issue; and, as it was to be kept a profound secret, he[3] pledged himself, and performed his word, not to disclose her real quality to the object of her condescension.

While Louis exchanged his prison garments, for a court dress, the Marquis told him, he must not ground his father's defence to the lady he should see, on any argument of the Queen's precipitancy in politics. Her Majesty's consciousness was sufficient. Louis thanked him for his caution. And, no objection being made to the royal signet which Santa Cruz carried, they passed through the prison; and, without opposition, entered the carriage at its gates.

As they drove silently through the streets, the Marquis regarded the countenance of his companion. It was no longer pallid and dejected. His eyes were bent downwards in thought, but a bright colour was on his cheek; and the refulgence of an inward, happy animation, illumed every feature. Santa Cruz refrained from remarking on this[4] change, so favourable to his cause; though he did not the less wonder how it could have taken place during the short interval since his first visit.

The fact was simple.—From that hour, hope had been his abundant aliment. Yet, not an implicit hope in frail humanity. He had lately learnt, to put no absolute trust in mortal power, nor any dependance on man.—He had been made to know, that blinded judgements are often with the one, and misguiding interests in the other; but he knew in whom he trusted! and the expression of hope in his countenance, partook of the sublime source whence it sprung.

When they arrived at Saint Ildefonso, vespers were concluded, and the King retired with his confessor. This circumstance was what Isabella anticipated, and determined her to name that hour for the appointed interview. A few minutes after Santa Cruz had conducted Louis into her pavilion, she ascended the steps. On[5] hearing her foot on the pavement, the Marquis hastened to meet her; and, as she stood in the portico, and Louis remained in the room, he had an opportunity of taking cognizance of the lady who was to report his suit to her royal mistress.

She seemed about forty; of a low stature, and slight figure; with a countenance, whose acute lineaments, dark complexion, and quick, penetrating eye, announced alacrity of intellect, with an equal proportion of irritability and vindictiveness of mind. She conversed a second with the Marquis, and preceded him into the pavilion. He presented Louis to her, as the Marquis de Montemar; and named her to him by the title of Duchess Tarrazona.

Louis bowed respectfully; while she, so far forgot her assumed character, as to take no notice of his obeisance, though her rivetted observation lost not a line of his face or deportment. He raised his[6] eyes from the share they usually took in his bow; but, encountering the sharp and investigating gaze of her's, he looked down again, and retreated a step back, with a second bow.—

As she spoke, she turned into a secluded veranda; and waved her hand to Louis, to follow her.—He obeyed.

For more than an hour, Santa Cruz walked to and fro under the long double colonnade of the pavilion, before the Queen re-appeared on the threshold. Louis remained in the saloon. She stood apart several minutes, talking earnestly with the Marquis; and then withdrew, unattended, across the garden.

Not a word passed between him and his charge, until they were out of the confines of St. Ildefonso, and once more on the road to Madrid. Louis's countenance, all this time was meditative and troubled:—Santa Cruz at last said:—[7] "The Duchess informs me, it shall not be her fault, if your suit be not favourably conveyed to the Queen."

"She is very kind," replied Louis, "but very extraordinary.—And, did you not assure me of her influence, I would rather avoid her interference. She appears too peremptory, to be a favourite with arbitrary power: and, though some of her discourse shewed a penetrating judgement, and great vivacity in the interests of Spain; yet, the rest was trifling; and absurdly foreign from our subject."

Santa Cruz warned his young friend to take things as he found them; and to be as respectful to the Duchess, as to the royal presence itself. He then enquired the particulars of what had passed.

Louis informed him, that so far from her Grace seeking information relative to the Duke de Ripperda's political conduct at Vienna, she continually interrupted the narration of those proceedings,[8] with the strangest questions respecting the nature of his intimacy with the Empress.—And when she had received assurances and proofs, that it was purely confidential; contracted in early life; and, though continued, was ever in check to the interests of Spain; she repeated the same interrogatories again and again, with all the art and abruptness of consummate subtlety. At last, she demanded a minute description of the Empress's person, saying with a smile.—

"Marquis, your next attendance at Saint Ildefonso may give you an opportunity of judging between your Queen, and this boasted Elizabeth of Germany!"

"Should you be admitted to such an audience," observed Santa Cruz, with a smile, "you must not disappoint the expectations of the Duchess, in giving the palm of beauty to her mistress."

"She will be fairest to me," returned Louis, "who turns the most gracious eye on the truth of my father."[9] "Hold that principle," rejoined his friend, "and I will not curb your sincerity."

From this day, the aspect of many countenances changed at Saint Ildefonso. The Queen was engaged in frequent conferences with the King; and the ministers, who severally used to make one in all the royal consultations, were totally excluded from these. Philip kept a strict silence on their subject; though his saddened physiognomy often declared how they perplexed him. The Queen alone wore an unaltered mien; yet the lynx eye of de Paz could often discern suspicion in her prompt accordance at the Council; and some unknown triumph, in the smile with which she bowed in devoted deference to the judgement of her husband. What was the object of all this, and what would be its end, were equally subjects of mystery and of apprehension to the newly-seated ministers; but not one of them suspected for a moment,[10] that Ripperda, whom they had exiled, or his son, whom they had immured, held any connexion with the changing scene.

In the course of a week after the interview in the pavilion, Santa Cruz re-entered the state prison of Madrid, with the sign manual of the King, for the release of the Marquis de Montemar, and his servant Lorenzo d'Urbino. The young man was confined in a cell remote from his master; in equal ignorance with him, that the same roof covered them. Their re-union was joyous on the part of Louis, but full of overflowing transport on the side of Lorenzo; for his gaolers had tortured him with reports of his master's death; and assured him, that his own imprisonment would shortly be ended by the same violent means.

The governor of the prison was enjoined to conceal the release of the Marquis de Montemar from the ministers of the King, until Philip himself[11] should send permission to officially announce it.

Louis was to be admitted the following morning to a private audience of the Queen. He was to go as a suppliant; and to pass from a dungeon, to his first presentation at a court, where his father had taught him to believe, he would one day be received as only second to royalty itself!—But he thought not of these circumstances. He had gained one great object, in obtaining the royal ear; and he looked with confidence to the event of the interview.

Santa Cruz was not less sanguine; and, with almost parental pride in the son of Ripperda, he conducted him to the palace, and led him into the chamber of audience. Her Majesty was alone, and seated in a chair of state. A magnificent dress shone through the large veil she had thrown over her face and person.[12] On Louis approaching her, and on his being named, bending his knee to the ground, she rose, and threw up her veil.

"Marquis de Montemar," said she, with a smile, and extending her hand; "the Duchess Tarrazona has prevailed, and thus I promise my patronage to her client!"

Louis had entered in some agitation, and knelt with more at the feet of the Sovereign, who, he believed, held the honour and fate of his father in her hand. He now recognised the Duchess in the Queen; and every anxious doubt flying before the glad surprize, the sentiment of his heart shone out in his complexion and eyes. She translated this flush of hope, into a tribute to her charms; and graciously repeated her smile when he put her hand to his lips.

"Who will you serve, de Montemar," said she, "Elizabeth and Countess Altheim? or Isabella, and the Duchess[13] Tarrazona? Chuse freely, for I love not bondage."

His heart was in his words and his countenance. The devotion of Ripperda had been reserved and stately; but in the animated answer of his son, there was a youthful fervour, a chivalric gallantry; which, being her soul's passion, subdued her at once to his interest. All her pre-determined caution vanished before it. She looked towards Santa Cruz.

"Give de Montemar your cross of the Amaranth," said she; "I will replace it to-morrow. When he returns from Gibraltar, he may wear it openly; now, it must be nearer the seat of truth."

Santa Cruz drew from his neck the purple ribbon, at which the brilliant cross was suspended, and buckled it under the vest of his young friend. Again[14] Louis kissed the hand of the condescending Isabella; who continued to regard his graceful person with increasing favour, while she communicated the result of her mediation between him and the King.

So many baffled negociations for the restoration of Gibraltar had worn out the patience of Philip; and, as the fortress was evidently strengthening itself on the Spanish side, he had ordered similar lines of intimidation to be constructed at San Roque. But this did not awe the English, whose sovereign seemed on the eve of a quarrel with the new ministers of Spain; and therefore, Isabella seized the occasion to represent to her husband, the danger of allowing the British cabinet the incalculable benefit of Ripperda's discoveries and counsels. In pursuance of these arguments, she gradually gained her object with the King; and now informed Louis that she had obtained the royal command for him[15] to go direct to Gibraltar, to lay before Ripperda all that was alledged against him, to offer him a fair and open trial, or a general amnesty; and which-ever he would prefer, should follow his election.

"Bring him from Gibraltar," returned the Queen, "and nothing shall be withheld, that can gratify the honourable ambition of his son."

She then told him, that as it was necessary to keep these preliminaries from the knowledge of the ministry, he must neither visit the British Ambassador, nor the Val del Uzeda, nor even allow his name, nor his errand to be known, until he should have obtained the object of his mission.

"When you return, it will be with a companion," added she, "to whom, meanwhile, I pledge my restored confidence."[16] She smiled, and disappeared. Louis looked gratefully after her. The Marquis would not trouble the hopes of his heart, by warning him that all this revered goodness arose from the dreams of vanity; and that both father and son must preserve its illusions, if they would continue in the favour she so largely promised.

Louis gave his arm to his friend; and with heads too full of busy thoughts, to give them immediate utterance, they repaired in silence to Santa Cruz's residence in Madrid.

A few hours completed every preparation for Louis's journey to Gibraltar; and the next morning, by day-break, accompanied by the faithful Lorenzo, he set forth on his momentous pilgrimage.

CHAP. II.

Hope having drawn him from sad meditations, as he rapidly pursued his way towards the south of Spain, he could not but obey the voice of nature, which called on him from valley and from mountain, to behold her vast and wonderous creations.

The royal province of Castile, traversed by rivers, and populous with cities, conducted him to the extensive plains of La Mancha. Here the palladian palaces north of the Guadiana, and avenued with glowing vistas, were exchanged for heavy and sombre hamlets spread under the shade of thick groves, and dark with the clusters of the black grape. But in architecture alone, these villages were gloomy and uninviting. It[18] was the season of the vintage, and the whole scene teemed with life and gaiety. Louis passed through it, enjoying with the sympathy of benevolence, the happiness he saw. In front lay a mountainous desart. Here he exchanged his vehicle for two stout mules used to the precipitous road; and with Lorenzo, entered the new region.

They were now in the Sierra Morena, which separates La Mancha from the Hesperian vales of Andalusia. The passes of the mountain were long, winding, and melancholy; but the moment he crossed its high misty ridge, Louis felt a difference in the atmosphere, amazing and grateful in its contrast, as the luxuriant landscape before him, when opposed to the frowning sterility behind.

"That is Andalusia!" exclaimed Lorenzo, pointing down to the fairest piedmont of Spain. Louis knew there was not a rill or a hillock in that ample province, which did not once owe tribute[19] to his family; he also knew how they had been lost; and with mingled feelings, he turned to the careless voice of Lorenzo, remarking on the beauties of the view.

On one side, towards the east, extended the pastoral hills of Jaen, backed by the snowy summits of the distant Sierra Nevada of Grenada; the last retreat of the Moors, before their final expulsion from Spain. Louis thought on the latter circumstance, as those storied mountains stood bright in the glowing sky. He recollected, that amongst these persecuted people, was Don Ferdinand de Valor, one of his own progenitors; and that his attachment to the Moorish cause had occasioned the first sequestration of the Ripperda territories to the Spanish Kings. He did not utter his reflections; but deeply ruminating, gave the reins to his mule, and slowly descended the heights.

With this humble equipage, and by the[20] side of a single attendant, he entered the principality of his fathers. Over those very hills and vallies, where the heroes of his name had conducted armies to assist or to repel the sovereigns of Spain, he was journeying to seek the representative of all their honours, an exiled fugitive in a foreign land!—But William de Ripperda was not less worthy of their blood! And the last of their race, did not blush at the banishment of a parent, whose crimes were his virtues.

"My noble, glorious father!" exclaimed he, inwardly, as he looked upwards; that look conveyed his vow to heaven. To think only of that father; to exult only in his virtue; to mourn only his affliction; and to regard his weal or woe, as the only future objects of his own.

"From this spot, to the banks of the Xenil;" said he, "a track of many[21] leagues, is the Marquisate of Montemar. The castle stands on a high promontory, far to the west, on the latter river. I never shall forget the joy of the country, when the Duke de Ripperda paid it a visit, on his return from Vienna."

Louis looked on the silver flood, on each side of the noble bridge they were crossing. He, then, was lord of that branch of the magnificent Guadalquivir! The lands he saw bore his name; the people who tilled them, owed him homage; and he was passing through all, a stranger, and unknown!

He descended from the bridge into a sinuous track, between long plantations of olives; under whose refreshing foliage, the low vines, and the waving corn, were alternately spreading their clusters, or their yellow tops to the sun. Here again, were the reaper, and the joyous treaders of the wine-press. He listened to their jocund voices; their guitars, castanets, and bounding steps; and he could not[22] forbear thinking, with some emotion of displeasure; how little did the memory of him live in their hearts, whose paternal policies had secured to them the fruits of their labour! As long as they were happy, it seemed the same to them, whether their benefactor were on a throne or in a prison!

But it was human nature, consistent with itself, which forgets the Providence that blesses, in the enjoyment of his gifts. The friend of man must, therefore, imitate his Creator; and pouring his good on those who need it, the just and the unjust, look for gratitude in the world to come.

The travellers again occupied a wheeled carriage, and pursued their journey with rapidity. In some parts they traversed extensive forests, sublime in sylvan grandeur; then they wound through the shady defiles of intersecting hills, or passed through towns and villages, whose light and airy architecture bore evidence[23] of Moresco origin; all around was a fair garden. But there was a bound; a wall of mountains rose before them, shooting up into the azure heavens, in sharp and menacing peaks.

Here they resumed their mules. The first part of the ascent was gradual; and as Louis mounted the rugged acclivities, (sometimes on foot, to scale the highest points, while his beast rested;) he saw, winding along the less abrupt tracks, the shepherds of the plains, driving their flocks to the recesses of the upland pastures. The practice is the same in Scotland; and the similitude pleased one, who had passed some of his happiest hours amongst the Highland hills.

But the image of him, who was then his dear and trusted companion, rose with the remembrance. He saw him bounding down the breezy height; his plaid streaming in the air; and his feathered bonnet in his hand, as he whistled gaily, and waved him from afar.[24] Louis closed his eyes, to shut out the association with the scene; but it would not do. The glad smile of perfect confidence still shone on the visionary lip; the eyes of the persecuting phantom continued to sparkle with greeting intelligence; and even his voice seemed to sound in his ear!—Louis shuddered to the soul, and spurring his mule, dashed forward amongst beetling rocks and caverned ruins. They had once been a magnificent work of man. An aqueduct, built by the Romans; and its remains clasped the mouth of the pass which leads to the interior of the mountains. Hence it was called the Puerta de Ronda; as these were the peaks of that name, which stretch their stony ramparts between the plains of Andalusia and the borders of the sea. The Sierra de Ronda surpasses in desolate grandeur, even the sublime wastes of the Morena mountains. No vegitation crowned these vast colossal rocks; bare to the sun and tempest, they[25] looked like the huge altar of nature, to which avenging Jove bound the consuming, but still immortal Prometheus. All around was either acclivity or precipice; and from between two high pyramidal craggs, Louis caught his first view of the Mediterranean.

A small fishing town was scattered about a little bay at the foot of the mountain. Lorenzo proposed hiring a vessel there, to take them immediately round to Gibraltar; and his master readily acquiesced in a plan which would exempt him from the obstacles that might accrue, should he enter the fortress by the Spanish lines. Louis was to remain in the mountain, to watch the mules, and Lorenzo descend by a near foot-path he had discovered cut in the precipice, to the sea shore. Before they parted, a spot was fixed on amongst the rocks, as a place of rendezvous.

When Lorenzo was gone, Louis bound the animals to the remains of an old[26] wooden cross, which had been erected to mark a place of murder; and putting down their corn before them, on a spot where grass would never grow; he ascended a higher promontory, to see whether he could discern any part of the embattled heights of Gibraltar. But the lofty crest he sought was not within the mountainous horizon. Broken pinnacles of granite, shattered by the deluge; and fathomless abysms, that made the eye giddy even to glance at, hemmed him around. As he contemplated the hideous solitude, voices suddenly sounded near him. It was not his intention to listen, but before he could move, he heard the name of his father, pronounced in a rough, guttural tone. He paused breathlessly. The speakers were invisible; and the last who spoke, continued affirming to the other, that "the Duke de Ripperda was still as able as he was willing, to reward all who did him service."[27] "Prove it to me," replied his comrade, "and you shall find me ready."

"Look at this purse of ducats!" replied the other, "he will load your felucca with bags of the same, if you carry the merchandize he bargains for!"

A low shelving cliff, and some broken rock, divided Louis from the speakers. He saw the dark points of their Montero caps, under the cragg; and vaulting from his more elevated situation, stood before them. They were two strong-bodied men, with fierce, independent countenances; and starting on their feet, they also stood resolutely, and eyed the no less commanding, though youthful figure, which so boldly advanced to them.

Louis saw by their wild garb they were smugglers, and of the Gustanos tribe, the gypsies of Spain. Lorenzo had pointed out some of these people to him in the Sierra Morena; and explained their daring lives, with their outlawed[28] condition. Some carried on their desperate traffic on the high seas, and others, in wandering bands, vended their forbidden merchandize over the face of the country. But they all called themselves Seranos; being the generic name for the inhabitants of these fastnesses of nature; and as such Louis addressed them.

"Brave Seranos!" cried he, as he approached them; "you speak of the Duke de Ripperda, as if you had seen him lately. I am seeking him, and any facility you may give me, shall not be unrewarded."

The men looked on each other; but the elder of the two, striking the head of a huge hatchet into his belt, to shew he was in a condition not to be trifled with; answered Louis, by demanding in his turn, how he knew that they had any concern with the Duke de Ripperda.

"By accident. I stood by my mule, on the other side of the cliff; and heard you discourse of the Duke, as if you[29] had recently parted from him. Was it at Gibraltar?"

"If you are an emissary of his enemies," replied the smuggler, "you had best return to your mule. I am not the man to betray a friend."

The blunt honour of the outlaw bore its own evidence to Louis; and without a second thought, he answered:—

"It may be so;" replied the man, "but you are also a courtier; and flesh and blood of that cast are rarely to be trusted. If you dare face the truth, follow me. You will find a man behind that rock, who may tell you what I will not."

"His name?" demanded Louis, who observed a strange, treacherous leer in[30] the wild countenance of the other man.

The smuggler led the way, down a circuitous ravine, to the mouth of a cavern. Several mules were feeding near its entrance. Louis heard the sound of boisterous jollity; and as he advanced, he discerned, in the depth of the cave, many persons seated on the ground, under the light of a huge iron lamp that hung from the roof.

Had he wished to recede, retreat would have been impossible. But all thoughts of personal hazard were lost in the one eager desire of learning some certain tidings of his father. The smugglers' communications to each other, being uttered when they were ignorant of being overheard, and, therefore, when they could have no intention to deceive, had[31] awakened doubts in him of Ripperda having reached Gibraltar. Perhaps he had been overtaken by his enemies; and was now secretly managing with these adventurous men, to effect his escape from some second Alcazar in the bosom of the mountains! The minister's silence to Santa Cruz, or even to the Queen, on such a re-capture, was no argument against its probability; and impressed with these apprehensions, Louis hurried onward, impatient to see Martini, and to learn how he might yet reach his father.

At the mouth of the cavern he stopped. His guides drew close to him. They saw no sign of intimidation in his face; and the former spokesman stepping forward, announced to his comrades the arrival of a stranger, who called himself the son of the Duke de Ripperda. Every man rose at a moment, and with a murmur, and a clangor of heavy arms against the rocky floor, that might have appalled[32] more veteran nerves. Louis comprehended his danger. His eye had ranged at a glance through the crowd, and he saw no Martini. He recoiled a step, and placing his hand on his sword, said in a firm voice:—

"Gentlemen! I am here, on the faith of that man. He brought me to meet Martini d'Urbino, my father's servant; and I demand to see him."

"Signor, you have a stout heart. From that alone, I believe you to be what you say. Enter the cavern, and you will find the man."

The smuggler turned, and said something in an unknown language to his comrades. Louis regarded him with a dauntless, but stern brow; for while he spoke, the men drew gradually around, though at some little distance, muttering to each other, and fixing their eyes on their prisoner. Such Louis believed him[33]self to be. The only point that was open for his advance was into the cave. All seemed vacancy there, excepting the pendent lamp, which shewed the fragments of the yet unfinished revel.

It was frenzy to suppose it; and if it were not so, Louis himself were lost. He had gone too far to retreat; and with a step, which announced the resolution with which he would defend his life, should it be assailed, he went forward into the den.

The captain of the band followed him. He passed him, and was immediately obscured in the deeper gloom of the interior rock. Louis saw no human being in the wide range, though many might be hidden in the shadowy depths of its farther excavations. He fixed himself with his back against the side of the cavern; and with his hand on his sword,[34] stedfastly regarded the spot where the smuggler disappeared.

His comrades remained without, and evidently watched any egress unsanctioned by their chief.

Louis heard the advance of hasty steps from the interior vaults. He planted himself more firmly in his position, and half drew his weapon. The smuggler emerged from the recesses with another person, and in the instant of his appearance, pointed to Louis, and said to his companion:—

The twain were in the deepest shadow of the rock; hence Louis could not distinguish, otherwise than by the voice, which of the two were his conductor. But himself being on a spot where the light fell direct on his face, the immediate response to the demand of the smuggler, was an amazed cry:—

"It is the Marquis de Montemar!"[35] "'Tis well!" rejoined the outlaw, "else he must have slept without his ancestors."

The voice of him who had recognised Louis, was indeed Martini's; and that faithful servant was the next moment at the feet of his master's son.

The smuggler joined his comrades on the rock; and Louis immediately enquired the fate of his father. To his astonishment, Martini informed him that more than two months ago, that very man had conveyed the Duke to the coast of Barbary.

To this, Martini gave a confused and unsatisfactory reply. All that Louis could gather from his agitated and sometimes contradictory accounts, was, that after their escape from the Alcazar,[36] and during their progress towards the sea, his master never emerged from an intense reverie, except to give orders; and then he only delivered his commands and strait was profoundly silent again. It was not until they reached the borders of the Mediterranean, that the object of his meditation seemed explained. While Martini was foddering down his weary mules, Ripperda entered the shed, accompanied by Roderigo the smuggler. In few words, he declared his intention to embark that night for Tangier; and asked Martini whether he chose to share his fortunes in that land, or to return whence he came. Martini swore to live and die with him; and the next sun rose upon Ripperda in the kingdom of the Moors.

This intelligence confounded Louis; it was so contrary to his father's written intention, and so totally inexplicable on any principle of his former conduct. While Martini gave his hurried narration,[37] he did it with evident fear of saying too much; and yet he appeared hovering on the point of saying more. Louis told him, there was something in his manner that excited his suspicions. He feared he withheld some communication, which, as the son of the Duke de Ripperda, he ought to know. Martini's confusion encreased with the earnest remonstrance of his young master; and, at last he confessed, that the Duke was engaged in some projects, the consequences of which he dreaded, but he was bound by oath not to betray.

"His Excellency," continued he, "has laid the same bonds on Rodrigo; who, with other men of his trade, are sworn to serve him. My present errand to Spain, was to bring away certain treasures he left at the Castle de Montemar. They are now on the backs of the mules you saw feeding without; and, by to-morrow night, they will be in Barbary."

Louis was lost in conjecture.[38] "Are you sure, Martini, my father received no insulting repulse from Gibraltar?"

"It is very extraordinary!—But you dare not satisfy me. I will know it all from himself; and, whatever may be his reasons, his destiny shall be mine."

Martini now acknowledged to Louis, that Ripperda's indignation was so high against him, there could not be a hope of his admitting him to his presence.

"Every day, my Lord," continued the faithful creature, "he names you in his general maledictions on the ungrateful world; he names you in terms, that I have often deprecated from you on my knees; and, as often he has commanded me from his sight, till I knew how to distinguish between loyalty and parricide."

"But I do not deserve his curse, Martini," replied Louis, "and I will appear[39] before him. He shall not want a comforter, and an honourable confidant, while he has a son. You must engage this Rodrigo, to give me a passage in his vessel."

Martini went out of the cavern to prevail on the smuggler to this purpose, and Louis was left to his bewildering thoughts. That he saw the usually festive spirits of the Italian so completely subdued, redoubled the uneasiness with which he considered the vow that had been exacted from him and the smugglers. Louis's open and honourable mind shrunk from such ill-assorted mystery; till finding some condemnation of his father in this repugnance, he reproached himself for having conceived the nameless dread he felt creeping over him. He recalled his injured parent's undeviating career of public virtue; he dwelt on the magnanimous features of his character; and could find no argument in either, to[40] sanction his present inexpressible forebodings.

"Yet why," cried he, "does he take refuge with infidels; why associate his honourable name with these desperate men?"

After he had settled with Rodrigo the terms of his voyage to the opposite coast; he and Martini repaired to the rock he had appointed to Lorenzo for their mutual rendezvous. Lorenzo was sitting by the mules, anxiously awaiting the appearance of his master, when he descried him on the heights with his companion. It was now deep twilight; but the light was sufficient when the latter drew near, for Lorenzo to recognise his brother; and the lively pleasure of their meeting, was only checked by recollection of the calamitous situation of their respective lords.

Lorenzo informed his master, he could not procure a boat to go round to Gibral[41]tar; the strait being too much infested with Barbary pirates, for small vessels to put to sea. Martini sighed heavily, at this information. Louis attributed it, to apprehension for the treasure he had to convey, and made a remark to that purpose.

"No," replied the Italian, "Rodrigo carries a safe conduct; nevertheless, I am Catholic enough, to wish every corsair at the bottom of the sea!"

A few minutes communicated to Lorenzo, that his master's voyage was now to be to Barbary, where the Duke de Ripperda was already arrived. The faithful servant regarded all places alike, to which he was to follow his Lord; and, having received his orders, he went apart with Martini, to discuss, with freedom, the subjects most interesting to them both.

The night was balmy and serene; and Louis kept his station in the open air. After their conference, the brothers drew[42] near, and slept by his side; but he watched and mused, and silently prayed to Him who was above the stars. The moon arose. As he contemplated that lovely planet; considering it as walking in beauty and loneliness, like the youthful saint who had urged him to persist in the virtue that was his principle, he could, almost, have bowed to the bright similitude. But, when he recollected that, by the vague light of this very moon, the secret depredator crept from his covert; and each deed that shuns the ken of man, steals upon his slumbers, he shuddered; and turning from its beams,—beheld the long shadow of a figure approaching him. It was Rodrigo from the beach beneath. He came to say, that his men were on board, the packages stowed, and all were ready to sail.

In the course of half an hour Louis found himself on board an out-law's vessel, with the crescent of Mahommed flying from the mast. This, was the "safe[43] conduct" Martini spoke of; and was sufficient to protect him from the corsairs. Their light galliots scudded by in every direction, and hailed the smuggler as he passed; Rodrigo stood on the deck with a turban on his head, replying, through a trumpet, in the barbarous slang of rapine.

The dark blue sea, innocent of the guilty keels which shot across its bosom, heaved its reflecting waves under the brilliant orbs of a midnight African sky. All was tranquil; all in harmony with the first fiat of its creator; excepting the breast of rapacious man; excepting the heart of an anxious son, ruminating on conjectures, hopes, and fears. He leaned on the railing of the deck, in a more wretched state of mind, than he could have believed possible to be his, when approaching the goal of his many prayers: the presence of his father. There was something within him, that would not be satisfied with his present[44] companions; with his father having made such men his confidential agents; and, in the midst of his troubled thoughts, he often murmured to himself—

The night continued bright, and the wind fair; and, having smoothly passed Europa point, the little vessel turned into the strait between the far-famed pillars of Hercules,—Calpe and Abyla. Louis gazed on both; on the fortified heights of the one, on the barren cliffs of the other. He thought on Gerizim and Ebal.—On one, rests the blessing; on the other, the curse! "Chuse ye, between them!"

CHAP. III.

The next day, being a religious feast of the Moors, it was midnight before the christian crew thought it safe to draw towards the shore. They then ran their bark into an obscure creek, about a league from the town of Tangier. A dull flame, which gleamed on the summit of the rock, as if feeding on its surface, was the mariner's guide through the intricate navigation. The cliffs were high and close; therefore all was black darkness, excepting where this phosphoric beacon opened its wandering fires.

A dead silence was maintained, during the working of the little ship into its place of refuge; and, not until its bulging sides grated against the point of landing, did Louis receive any intimation of[46] their being near the place of disembarkation. Martini pressed his arm, and whispered—

Rodrigo and the Italian jumped from the head of the vessel, upon the land. Louis followed his conductor; leaving Lorenzo in the ship. For nearly an hour, the cautious tread of their footsteps was all that disturbed the profound stillness. They passed many low, flat-roofed dwellings, whose inhabitants were shut in from even the light of the stars, performing the last rites of their solemn feast. Such gloom was in memory of the shadows which enveloped their prophet in his flight from persecution; and to invade it by noise or intrusion, would have been deemed sacrilege; and the blood of the transgressor must have expiated his offence.

After their almost unbreathing passage along this populous road, they struck[47] into an avenue of date trees, and stopped before a building of more spacious dimensions. Martini turned a key in a small arched door, and gently opening it, they all passed through a short paved arcade, into a court open to the sky, and dimly lighted under its pillared aisles at the sides, with four painted lamps. A fountain in the centre was discovered by the transient sparkling of its waters as they dashed into a marble bason below.

Here silence was broken; and Martini told Louis, that although his father was under that roof, he durst not introduce him immediately to his presence. In the Duke's present exasperated state of mind, such an abrupt entrance might destroy at once, every object of the interview; and therefore he conjured him, to wait until His Excellency were at least apprised of his arrival.

Louis had no resource but to remain where he was. He had too much dependance on the honesty and discretion[48] of Martini, to doubt his prudence in this precaution. If the gloom around him were great, that in his mind was of a deeper shade. He was alone; for the smuggler had followed Martini. An hour elapsed in this irksome solitude. He listened for the sound of a voice, or an approaching step; but the silence continued unbroken. His suspense became intolerable; composure was no longer in his power to assume. He paced the mosaic floor, with every agitating conjecture; envying even the feelings of anticipated murder, with which he awaited the first mysterious interview in the lonely chateau of Phaffenberg. At last, the Italian and Rodrigo appeared at the extremity of the court. The smuggler turned away through a dark colonnade; and Martini advanced to Louis, who had darted towards him.

It was a cold welcome; but Louis[49] thought not of the words, since the permission was granted. He hastened through the arcades, to a large curtained door.—Martini drew it back, and Louis beheld the honoured object of his long and filial pilgrimage. The Duke was standing with his back to him, reading a scroll of paper. Nothing that was not purely the son, was then in his labouring heart; and he was advancing to throw himself at his father's feet, when Martini spoke:—

"Let him wait my leisure," and, looking on the paper again, sternly resumed his reading.

Louis stood.—The face of deadly paleness, the eye's livid flash, and the deep, emaciated lines, furrowed with every trace of the burning volcano within, filled him with a dismay, even more terrible than the fierce estrangement this reception an[50]nounced. But it was only for a moment that his astounded faculties were transfixed by the direful apprehension. He was his father still; his noble, injured, suffering father! and, rushing forward, he flung himself on his knees before him, and covered his face in his robe; for the hand he would have grasped was withheld.

"What is it you require of me?" said he, "The minion of two Queens must have some reason for bending thus low, to the man the one has dishonoured, and the other betrayed!"

Louis looked up in that implacable countenance: He attempted to speak, but no sound obeyed. He struggled for his father's hand, and wrung it to his heart. Ripperda stood cold and collected.

"What would you yet seek of me? I have no longer fame, nor riches, nor[51] power to bestow. These were your idols! Deny it not! They were my own! I found their food ashes. But the draught that turned my blood to poison, was the desertion of my Son."

"Hear me, my father!" at last burst from the lips of de Montemar, as he clung around that august, but torpid frame. No warmth glowed there, but the gloomy flame of vengeance; no responsive throe whispered there, that sympathy and forgiveness were within. The very stillness with which he suffered, without returning or reproving this agonized embrace, smote his son the more severely to the soul. Yet he thought he saw more resentment, than the object of his lately conceived apprehension, in the stern calmness of his father; and hoping to prevail by reason, where reason yet reigned, in a less agitated voice, he repeated.

"Hear me, and then condemn me! or believe me, and acquit me, before the[52] tribunal of Heaven and your own justice!"

He pointed to a sofa, for Louis to sit. He obeyed; and his father sat opposite to him, folded in his mantle. His eyes were bent to the floor, except when he occasionally turned them in deep suspicion upon the earnest narrator. Not one oral remark escaped him, till the communication was brought to an end. He then looked up, and slowly pronounced:

"Tis well; and the tale is marvellously told: But I have no connection with its truth, or falsehood."

"Yes, my father!" returned Louis, "It contains your justification; the acquittal of your son; and the atonement of your repentant sovereigns!"

"My justification is here!" exclaimed the Duke, proudly striking his breast,[53] and starting from his seat. "And for atonement! Heaven and Earth cannot atone for my injuries. Tell your Queen, that William de Ripperda was not born to quail to any man; nor, to hold his honours, by flattery to a woman. I served the country of my ancestors for its own sake; neither in homage to her, nor to the King. I devoted myself to the prosperity and peace of the world. But they rejected peace: And, they shall find a sword! All have spurned me! I am thrust out from Europe. And, when I have found a land of refuge, they would ensnare me to return! And, I will return! Return with desolation and death! For Christendom, ungrateful Christendom, has sinned beyond my wish to pardon."

"You cannot comprehend me. I would not be comprehended by a Spaniard! You were once my son. And, you have[54] satisfied me, you meant to be loyal to me: But you cannot serve two masters."

"What master would oppose my serving my father? If you mean the King of Spain, your own inexpugnable honour would not raise an arm against him; and he will not, cannot, prevent me dedicating my life to you!"

"My honour, Louis! Christian Knights have honour! The King of Spain has honour; his ministers, and those of Austria have a thousand honours! But where were they all when my inexpugnable honour was calumniated and betrayed? Where, when the man they durst not bring to an open trial, was committed to the dungeons of the Inquisition, to be silently, and securely, murdered?"

Louis acknowledged the justice of his father's indignation against the ministry of Spain; yet enforced the Queen's persuasions for his return; and dwelt on the glorious result of the public trial she had absolutely promised him; and his own[55] consequent satisfaction in pronouncing a general forgiveness on the misguided people, who were still the objects of his paternal love.

Ripperda walked the room during this discourse; and when it ended, gave no other reply to its arguments, than pronouncing a brief and solemn curse upon the whole land. Louis shuddered, as he gazed on the working brow of that still noble countenance; and with a self-control, that surprised even himself, commenced a new train of persuasions, to induce his father to resume his first intention of passing over to Gibraltar. He laid before him the advantages of seeking an asylum in England; where he might live with honour in the bosom of his family; and under the protection of a Government constituted to revere his virtues.

Ripperda drew near him. That mouth,[56] on which the graces once played, was distorted by a smile of such triumphant malice, that his son recoiled.

"I will tell you Louis;" returned he, "when I hear you repeat your oath to adhere to your father against Earth and Heaven. Grapple with me, my son, in this overthrow of our oppressors; and the name of Ripperda shall redeem itself!"

The eyes of Ripperda shot terrific fires as he spoke; and Louis, direfully convinced of his fears, answered with assumed calmness:—

"All that the laws of Earth and Heaven, and my own devoted heart, dictate as duty to my father, I am ready to perform. To follow you whithersoever you go; to abide with you, even in this worse than wilderness, if it be your decisive will!"

Ripperda walked several times up and down the apartment. Several times he[57] glanced suspiciously towards his son; and stopped opposite to him, as if he were going to speak; then turned away, and resumed his perturbed pace. A consuming impatience inflamed every feature; and, once or twice, he took out his watch, and looking at it, muttered to himself.—At last, abruptly drawing near his son, he snatched the cross of the Amaranth from his breast, and scornfully exclaimed.—

"One night in the Alcazar,—when my gaolers had left me no other light than my injuries,—I bethought me who raised those walls!—In the black darkness of my prison, I saw a host,—they who fell in the passes of Grenada! And from that hour, the soul of Aben Humeya passed into my breast. Yon is my ensign!"[58] He pointed to a crescent, on a standard in a far corner of the room. Louis still gazed on him without speaking; but the apprehension in his mind was in his looks.

"Do not mistake me," rejoined the Duke, "my injuries have not made me mad; but they have driven me to a desperation that will prove you to the heart. Are you now willing to go, where I shall go; to lodge, where I shall lodge? Shall my God, be your God? And my enemies, your enemies? Or, am I cast out, like Ismael, to find my revenge on them who mock me—alone?"

Louis had now subdued the effect of his fears, and rallied himself to argue again with his father, as man with man. He could not penetrate the whole of the threats he had heard; yet his rapid arguments embraced every possible project of revenge. The Duke listened to him with stoical apathy. But when the energetic pleader dwelt on the heinous[59]ness of coalescing with the enemies of the Christian faith, in any scheme of vengeance against its professors, Ripperda interrupted him with a withering laugh.

"Impossible!" cried Louis, "you whose life has been a transcript of your faith; noble and true! It is not in you, my father, to desert a religion whose founder was perfectly holy, just, and merciful; to embrace the creed of an impostor! One whose life was polluted with every vice; and whose blasphemous doctrines sanctioned oppression, and privileged murder! Oh, my father, it is not in you to become the very thing that excites your vengeance."

As Louis continued a still more earnest appeal to his understanding and his conscience, Ripperda suddenly stopped before him.

"You may spare your arguments,[60] De Montemar; I know all you would say; but it is my choice to be a Mussulman."

His son's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth; but he forced himself to say: "Your choice to abjure the religion you believe? To cast from you your God, and your redemption?"

"It is my choice to be revenged!" cried the Duke, gloomily striking his sword; "we will talk of redemption hereafter."

"My soul on the issue!" returned he, with a second horrible smile; "you are brave and daring, and will not shrink from the adventure. You will buckle your life to your father's in the desperate leap!"

He grasped his son's arm as he spoke, and looked in his face with a fierce resolution, which menaced some terrible judgement on the reply he seemed to[61] anticipate. A low monotonous cadence of many voices, chanting a few dismal notes in regular rise and fall, broke the awful pause. Ripperda dropped the arm he held, and calmly said:

"By the Saviour you outrage in the dreadful intent!" cried he, "I demand of you not to incur the deep perdition! By the honour and renown you so richly possess, I conjure you not to consign all at once to such universal infamy! By the memory of my mother, now in the heaven from which you would seal your everlasting banishment,—I implore you to remember that you are a Christian! That you are the Duke de Ripperda! That you are my father."

With the last words, Louis sunk on his[62] knees, and forcibly added: "my life and your salvation hangs on this dreadful hour!"

All the passions of his nature were now in arms in the breast of Ripperda. The boiling flood rushed to his brain, and pressed upon the nerve that shook the seat of reason. He looked askance upon his son with a horrible expression in his eyes. It spoke of suspicion, of scorn, even of hate.

"De Montemar!" cried he "what would ye yet with one who reads you as you are? What dare you expect from a father, who sees the desertion you meditate? I will not be trifled with; for I cannot be deceived. Be with me or against me! a Mussulman, or an enemy! For in this hour I forswear all connection with the Christian world; all honour to the name of——."

But ere he could pronounce the fatal abjuration, an awful cry from his son arrested the concluding words. It was[63] the cry of a pleading angel, at the bar of Eternal Judgment. With its piercing, beseeching appeal, he stretched forth his arms to Heaven, supplicating its mercy to defend his father from himself. At this juncture, the door opened, and Martini announced the arrival of the sacred deputation. The Duke snatched his hand from the grasp of his son; Louis seized his robe.

"Never will I leave you," cried he, "till you consent to quit these enemies of your honour and of your soul!"

"Release me, on the peril of your life!" returned his father, with a desperation equal to his own; but with a something added to it, that made Martini draw a few steps nearer to the defenceless Marquis.—Ripperda's fingers wandered over the hilt of a poniard that was in his girdle.—

"Could my blood expiate the offence of Spain, and not pollute my father's[64] hand," cried Louis, "I would say, take the life you gave.—Oh, at any sacrifice, but that of soul and spirit, leave this accursed land!—If your freedom be pledged to these barbarians, give them my youth and vigour in exchange.—Let them drink my blood.—Let them, cover me with insults and oppression!—Only, do you fly;—fly, my father, and save me from veiling my eyes in the dreadful day of Judgement!"

Ripperda did not answer; for his possessed mind heard not what was said.—He continued gazing on his son, with a terrible fixture of eye, while he only appeared to listen; and in the moment the sounds ceased, he burst into a tremendous laugh; and attempted, by a force, almost preternatural to break from his clinging arms. But the filial heart was stronger than the madness of revenge. Louis grasped his knees, exclaiming, in the agony of his spirit—[65] "Oh, God, be my advocate!"

At that moment a clenched hand fell on his forehead with the weight of death. Louis felt no more, for the blow was in his soul. His nerveless fingers relaxed their hold;—he fell prostrate;—and Ripperda rushed from the apartment.

CHAP. IV.

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 on[67] the 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-like[68] tunes; 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.[69] 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 Lorenzo[70] bending 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. But[71] these 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 re[72]joiced 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 re[73]turn 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 prognos[74]tic 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.[75] "I have one act to perform," said he, "before I am called into the presence of my only father. Give me writing materials."

"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 will[76] execute 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 Christian[77] charity, 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! Mean[78]while, 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. Besides[79] this 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, that[80] he 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.

CHAP. V.

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 suddenly[82] made 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 a[83] treaty 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 Uzeda[84] where 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. Rip[85]perda'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 counsellor carte 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."[86] 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 weak[87]ness 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 com[88]mission; 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,[89] 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 troops[90] of 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,[91] 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 a[92] dawn 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 the Trinidada, the vessel that was to bear Santa Cruz to the Mahommedan shore.

Unconscious of the wound they[93] probed, 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 cele[94]brated 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 vapour[95] which 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 de[96] Blas 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 of[97] their 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:—

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 group[98] of 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 pursued[99] and 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 loose[100] of 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 in[101] his 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 answered[102] the 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 into[103] the 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,[104] 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, and[105] depend 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 trampled[106] on 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.

CHAP. VI.

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 disguise[108] previously 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 by[109] complete 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 description[110] of 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 should[111] pass 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, having[112] wrapped 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

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 Me[113]diterranean 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; and[114] should 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.

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.[115] 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!

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?"[116] 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:[117] 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 church[118] too, 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 unna[119]tural 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; and[120] then 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 a[121] firm voice, he asked, what was his reply to that petition from a Queen and a woman?

"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."

"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 that[122] field, 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 he[123] grasping 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.[124] 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; and[125] see 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 the[126] pavilion.—"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.

CHAP. VII.

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 fi[128]lial 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."

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;[129] 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 supposition[130] of 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 can[131] offer 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, their[132] day 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,[133] 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 body[134] of 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:—[135] 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 sally[136] from 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,[137] 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 Hu[138]meya; 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:—

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 the[139] return 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, the[140] lines 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 worthy[141] of 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 her[142] opinion 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 human[143] body; 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.

"I could resign my life for you, my dear brother," added she, "but for nothing this world can produce, dare I sacrifice my conscience."

To providence, then, Ferdinand left his future destiny; and now only striving to deserve its bounty, he resolved to make Louis de Montemar the confidant and counsellor of his thoughts. He em[144]braced him on the African shore, with a grateful acknowledgement of his former generous interference; and soon convinced Louis, that he held to his heart, the still faithful lover of his dear Alice.

Before Santa Cruz quitted Ceuta, he held a council, in which he left positive orders with the Count de Blas, that no sally should be attempted, until he came back with the men and ammunition which were necessary to make the first attack the decisive one. An hour passed in private conference between him and the anxious son of Ripperda. The Marquis alone, knew that Aben Humeya was other than a Moor; and, therefore, the Marquis alone knew why the once gay De Montemar was seldom seen to smile; and why, while he did his military duty with a precision that neither admitted error, nor relaxation, the glow of martial enthusiasm was extinguished in his countenance. But the hectic of fevered diligence still kept its crimson on his cheek[145] and at times gave a lustre to his eyes of intolerable brightness.

Santa Cruz had hardly set sail, when a spirit, very different from that of obedience to his commands, manifested itself amongst the heads of the garrison. The Moors seemed more carelessly disposed in their camp, revelling and exulting in the easy fall of Larach; and in consequence of some observations on the unguarded state of their lines, Don Joseph de Penil proposed attacking the Basha by surprise. The Counts de Blas and de Patinos warmly assented to the enterprize; and the former turned to Louis, saying he should lead the volunteers in the sortie. He thanked the governor for the proposed distinction, but respectfully reminded him of the Marquis's parting commands. Every lip was now opened upon the absurdity of Santa Cruz attempting to curb events by such ill-judged caution; and as de Penil persisted in pressing the advantage of the present[146] moment, he triumphantly called on Louis to give the Marquis's reasons for such jealous prevention.

Louis calmly explained the incapability of Ceuta to defend itself, should the sally be repulsed by the enemy. He gave his reasons for this opinion, by enumerating all the wants and defects of the garrison; and ended by repeating the positive charge of the Marquis Santa Cruz, that no egress should be made from the Spanish lines, until his return with sufficient means to render defeat almost impossible.

"De Montemar!" exclaimed de Blas, "these considerations are for grey hairs. If you are ambitious to be a soldier, begin at the right end; act before you think: and where can an enterprizing spirit have so fair a field as against these insolent barbarians?"

"Courage," rejoined de Penil, glancing superciliously on Louis, "is an essential quality in a soldier!"

"So essential," replied Louis, "that[147] he cannot maintain obedience to his commander without it."

"Some orders are safely obeyed!" said de Patinos with affected carelessness. "A parade at Vienna, and a sortie from Ceuta are different things!"

"When disobedience is a proof of courage and good discipline," returned Louis, "I may have the honour to meet your approbation, Count de Patinos. Meanwhile, I trust the Count de Blas, who is the governor of this garrison, and on whose responsibility hangs its fate; I trust, wherever he may chuse to place me, he will not doubt finding me at my post."

"To shew I can revenge insult!" cried the haughty Count, touching his sword, "if it be within the calculation of that philosopher to bid me draw it."[148] Louis boiled with rising passion; and with a countenance whose lightning glances could hardly be restrained from giving the defiance his better principles refused, he sternly answered:—

"Count de Patinos, I do not wear the King's sword, to draw it at the prompting of every wordy spirit. If I have insulted you unprovoked, I submit myself to the judgement of all present, and am ready to stand your fire. But on the reverse, I mean not to assert that courage by a private duel, which the public service will so soon put to the proof."

De Penil prevented an insolent retort from de Patinos; and de Blas interfering with a real interest in the reconciliation of the two young men, the haughty Spaniard grumbled out an enforced apology, and left the room.

Don Joseph was conscious that he, too, had been guilty of impropriety towards the Marquis de Montemar; but he was too proud to acknowledge error to one[149] so much his junior; and saw him retire to his quarters with an admiration of his superior self command, which he would have been glad to emulate, but had not generosity enough to praise.

Piqued into obstinacy, he urged de Blas to put the garrison into immediate preparation for an attack upon the enemy's trenches; and with the rising sun, the ground before the fortress was filled with Spanish troops.

Nothing could have been more grateful to the views of Ripperda. He knew the weakness of his opponent in numbers and artillery; and from a forward eminence in his lines, with the aid of his glass, he counted the Spanish columns as they defiled through their gates; and believing them devoted to his sword, he turned to the Moors, whose thickening ranks blackened the ground around them; and addressed them in a style to arouse their fiercest passions. He described their former empire in Spain; he recapitulated[150] the various acts of injustice which banished them that kingdom; he exposed the tyrannous animosity of the Spaniards to the past and present generations of the Moors; and set forth the shame of permitting so oppressive a race to maintain a foot of land in Barbary.

The Moors answered his inflaming eloquence as he expected; and with furious gesticulations and curses which rent the air, they demanded to be led against their hereditary enemies. He mounted his horse; and giving his orders of battle into the hands of his two leading coadjutors, Sidi Ali, and the Hadge Adelmelek, marched out at the head of his troops into the open field.

The Spaniards were led on, in two wretchedly appointed battalions, by de Blas, and Don Joseph de Penil. Count de Patinos, in the arrogance of his assumed contempt of Louis, volunteered his services at the head of a small detachment of troops, which the governor considered[151] the elite of his cavalry. De Montemar, and Don Ferdinand commanded the men who were to carry the trenches.

This first atchievement was speedily done. The workmen fled without resistance; and even the soldiers in the parallels, when they had discharged their fire, threw down their arms before the overwhelming enemy, and begged quarter. But no time was granted to yield, or to receive mercy. Every avenue from the Moorish camp poured forth its troops; and at this moment they came rushing on like a storm. They charged over their vanquished comrades; and over-leaping every obstacle, fell upon the Spanish advance with a shock that broke its line. The havock was as great as the surprise; and the way was soon open to the attack of the second division. It made a halt, and stood firm. Louis collected the fugitives from the first line, and formed them behind their comrades, while the battle in front became close and complex. The[152] Infidels, contrary to their wonted custom, fought hand to hand; and rallied two or three times, when any extraordinary press of Spanish force compelled them to recede.

Aben Humeya shewed an eminent example of faith in his new creed. He appeared to take no care of his person, but rode about under the heaviest vollies, exhorting, and charging with his men; till at length, after prodigious efforts, the Spaniards were obliged to give ground. They retreated; but it was with a backward step; while the Moors, crowding on them, horse and foot, broke the line in every direction. In some places, the victors so mingled with the vanquished, that it rather resembled an affray of single combatants, than a contest of regular troops. The depth of de Montemar's little phalanx, was insufficient to sustain the weight of the Basha's charge; it was penetrated and turned; and in the moment of its defeat, the horse[153] of Don Ferdinand was shot and fell. A Moor raised his lance to dispatch its rider, when Louis dashed between his friend and the infidel, and received the weapon on his face. A random shot killed the lancer, while another gave the just rescued Ferdinand a less mortal wound.

The Basha, after being twice unhorsed himself, cut off the squadron under De Patinos; and the confusion among the Spaniards being redoubled by Count de Blas falling at the same time, the panic-struck infantry retreated pell mell into their outworks, hardly closing the gates on the triumphant infidels at their heels. As Don Joseph de Penil galloped towards the principal entrance, he passed Louis de Montemar, who, black as a Moor with smoke and toil, stood by a held piece, which he had brought to that spot, to cover the flight of the Spaniards; and was firing it on the pursuers, with a[154] quickness and effect, that cleared the way to a considerable distance.

The enemy halted before this formidable barrier; for Louis's commands and example soon made it a battery; and as the grape showered from it on all sides, the fugitive Spaniards entered the fortress in safety.

Aben Humeya drew off his victorious troops; but it was only the recoil of the tiger, to make his second spring decisive.

CHAP. VIII.

All was dismay within the Spanish lines. The Count de Blas died in the arms of the men who were bearing him into the castle; and Don Joseph de Penil was so severely wounded, that he dropped off his horse as soon as it had cleared the draw-bridge into the fortress. Half the garrison was slain or missing; and no officers of rank returned alive from the field, but what were borne in on their cloaks,—sad, mangled victims of the preceding rashness.

When De Penil's wounds were dressed, and he heard the state of his men, he was driven to despair. He called for the Marquis de Montemar, as the only person in whose steadiness to the last, he felt he could place any confidence. All[156] who approached him came trembling; and, from confusion of mind, contradicted each other in every account of the garrison, excepting the one, that its destruction was now inevitable!

When Louis obeyed the General's summons, he corroborated the observations of De Penil's own senses; and told him that a contagious fear unmanned every heart; and that the eyes of the soldiers continually turned towards the sea, with a more evident wish for escape than resistance. While Don Joseph listened to the consequences of his own headstrong folly, and saw the bloody evidence of the courage he had pretended to doubt, on the cheek of the brave narrator, he obeyed the noble shame which coloured his own; and, having uttered a frank apology for his former conduct, as frankly asked for his opinion on the present crisis.

Louis did not hesitate to say, that he believed the Moors could not see their[157] advantage without attempting to storm the place.

"And they will take it to a certainty," replied De Penil. "In the present disposition of the men there can be no resistance."

"Without resistance they are lost!" returned Louis. "There are no ships for flight, and the Moors grant no terms in a surrender."

"Then every man must fight for his life!" cried De Penil. "I will yet do my duty from this bed; and you, De Montemar, must act from my authority."

Louis did not now demur. He was ready to do all in his power to stop the torrent, whose sluice he would have prevented being broken down. Without losing time in sending for those paralized officers, who wandered from place to place at their wit's end, De Penil consulted his young co-adjutor on every resource; and while he marvelled at so comprehensive a judgment in so inexperienced a soldier,[158] he adopted so many of his suggestions, that dispositions were soon made for the defence of Ceuta, of better promise than those which had placed it in such extremity.

Louis wrote down the necessary arrangement; and when it was finished, the wounded General was laid on a litter, and carried out along the ramparts; where, after he had said a few words of encouragement to the soldiers, Louis read aloud the different orders for the defence of the garrison.

De Penil was too conscious of the evil his impatience had wrought, not to do his utmost to prevent yet more disastrous consequences; and, while he exhorted the men to stand to their guns, and never to leave their ground but with their lives, he himself took an oath before them never to surrender. He told them to obey the Marquis de Montemar as his representative.

"But for his promptitude in mounting[159] the battery which covered our retreat, and his steadiness in maintaining it," added the General, "we should not now have Ceuta to defend."

The soldiers knew this as well as their commander, and with a sincere hurrah of obedience, followed their officers to their respective duties.

Exhausted, and almost fainting, De Penil ordered the litter to his quarters; but he held himself up with assumed strength, till the walls of his apartment permitted over-tasked nature to sink under the pain of his wounds.

Louis's spirit rose with the summons for exertion. His calm collectiveness in dispensing his commands, and instant apprehension of what was most proper to be done, from objects of the greatest importance to the minutest inquiry from the meanest workmen in the lines, revived courage in the faintest heart, and inspired the brave with an animation equal to his own.[160] After he had seen every thing prepared for the anticipated assault, he returned to De Penil, to inform him of the favourable aspect his commands had produced. Having found the General in a state of anxiety that looked for such intelligence to enable him to seek the repose his condition needed, he closed his communications with assurances of hope; and, leaving him to rest, proceeded to the quarters of Don Ferdinand.

His wound was deep, but not dangerous; yet the alarm for his life had been so great, before the extraction of the ball, that one of the surgeons dispatched a messenger immediately across the strait, with intelligence to Santa Cruz of the perilous state of his son, and the jeopardy of the garrison.

When Louis found what had been done, he reprimanded the man for presuming to send off any account, before the official reports of the affair could be duly ascertained. The other surgeons[161] assured the young commander that his friend was not to be despaired of; and, with the feelings of a brother for the son of the revered Santa Cruz, he entered his apartment.

"De Montemar," cried Ferdinand, stretching out his hand to him, "dearer lips than mine must thank you that I live."

Louis smiled as he used to do in his unclouded days of happiness:—"God is good in yet giving life a value to me, by making me his instrument to preserve my friend. While I may be such," added he, with a deeper expression, and pressing Ferdinand's hand between his, "I feel the son of Ripperda is not completely lost!"

Ferdinand did not understand all the reference of this almost unconscious apostrophe; but supposing it arose from some free remarks of the Count de Patinos which might have reached his ear, he replied with earnestness:—[162] "Il rit bien, qui rit le dernier! The sneers which De Patinos dared venture against the Duke de Ripperda's escape from his enemies, and the unsullied honour of De Montemar, were visited on his head this day. I saw him fly before the negro guards of Aben Humeya; and I have since been told, that he and his whole squadron threw down their arms before the barbarian."

"That they may be his prisoners," replied Louis, "is too likely; but whatever may be the Count de Patinos' ungenerous enmity against men who never voluntarily gave him offence, I must exonerate him of the charge of cowardice. I believe him brave; and all I have now to wish is, that he may be treated according to his merits as a soldier, by the hands into which he has fallen."

At nine o'clock, Louis went the round of his posts, and found all in good order. The men were in spirits, though it was easy to discern, even by the naked eye,[163] that a threatening commotion continued along the enemy's lines.

By his glass, earlier in the evening, he had observed the approach of artillery, and some other signs which convinced him of the necessity of Don Joseph's precaution. For his own part, he never retired under cover the whole night, but kept his station on the best point of observation,—a tower at the extremity of the outworks.

About the watch of the night, which is called by the Moors, Latumar, being their fifth hour of prayer, the sky was involved in total darkness; but the attentive ear of Louis heard a distant murmuring. It was demonstrative of the approach he expected; and having persons near him for the purpose, he dispatched them to the lines to order every one to be prepared.

In less than a quarter of an hour after he had taken his own most efficient station, the flash of cannon and of[164] musquetry lit the plain for a moment, like the splendour of day; and, in the next, the roaring of the guns, and the smoke of the explosion, rocked the fortress to its foundation, and involved the whole atmosphere in sulphureous clouds. The ordnance on the walls of Ceuta were not silent; and the mutual bombardment in the intermitting darkness, was rendered more terrific by the savage cries of the besiegers mingling their horrid war-whoop with the hissing of the musquetry, and the tremendous thunders of the cannonade.

Where his father was in the midst of this dreadful contest, more than once shot in direful question across the mind of Louis; but he dismissed the paralyzing thought. He was there to defend the cause of his country and the faith of his fathers; and he must not allow the yearnings of his heart to unman his fidelity.

He flew from the bastion on which he[165] stood, at the moment he heard a cry of triumph from the scene below. In defiance of shells and raking fires, these desperate barbarians had rushed on, and pointed their guns till a breach was made. Louis ordered a rampart to be immediately raised on the ruins, but the gabions were hardly rolled forward, and the cannon planted, when a tumbrel blew up, and rendered the egress wider and more accessible than before. The stone battlements shook under his feet like an earthquake, while the fragments from the torn rampart, the smoke, and the scorching powder, covered him with viewless horror. There was not the pause of a moment between the explosion, the dispersion of the smoke, and the most dreadful conflict of the day.

Aben Humeya had prepared for an escalade; and the very band which planted the crescent on the towers of Larach, was the first who scaled the walls of Ceuta.[166] The contest at the breach was as sanguinary as it was decisive. The Moors were twice repulsed with terrible slaughter; and the more terrible the second time, as it was quickly known, by the intrepid desperation of the assailants, that they were led on by the Basha himself. Louis's unreceding arm had tumbled the leader of the first division from his footing on the wall; and at his fall his followers had given ground. On the second assault, he was contending with the invincible devotedness of a man who knew that spot was the key of the fortress, when his father's voice assailed his ear. A flash of musketry shewed the jewelled chelengk in his turban, as he mounted the farther ridge of the platform, slippery with blood, and called on his men to support him. In another moment, two Biscayan grenadiers held the Basha between their weapons and the pinnacle of the battlement. A choice of death seemed the only alternative,—their[167] swords, or precipitation over the precipice. The Moors who pressed forward, were cut to pieces by the Spaniards on the breach; and Louis saw nothing but destruction to his father, when rushing towards the spot, in the moment Ripperda's weapon shivered against those of his enemies, he threw himself, sword in hand, between the Biscayans and their prey, franticly exclaiming:

"The Basha is the governor's prisoner." But the strokes which were levelled at Ripperda's breast were sheathed in his son's. Before the Spaniards could check their arms, he was cut through the shoulder and stabbed in his side; but the men recoiled on finding they had wounded their leader; and in the instant, Sidi Ali mounting the height with a fresh horde of triumphant Moors, they surrounded Aben Humeya, believing the day won. But as Ali's hand planted the Ottoman standard amidst the still grappling of foe to foe, and the anathemas of[168] the Christian against the ferocious curses of the Moor, the clouds of smoke rolled away from the eastern point of the rampart, and the golden head of the sun peered from the horizon. Its first ray shot direct upon the radiant crest of Aben Humeya, and a rifle took aim. The ball struck; and, in spite of a momentary exertion in its victim to spring forward, he staggered and fell into the arms of his followers.

A woeful yell announced to the legions below, that some direful disaster had happened. The cry was echoed from rank to rank with shrieks and howlings; and a single blast of a trumpet immediately succeeded. The breach was abandoned, as if by enchantment. The firing sunk at once into a dead calm; and the flight of the Moors through the yet hovering smoke, sounded in the darkness like the wings of many birds brushing the sands before the sweep of some coming storm.

CHAP. IX.

The Queen's cabinet at Seville was employed on many projects besides that of sealing the union between Portugal and Spain. The venerable Grimaldo was just dead; and the affairs of state falling entirely into the management of the Marquis de Castellor and the Count de Paz, she affected a warm interest in the former, though she detested him in her heart, not only as the most successful rival of her regretted Ripperda, but because his talents were equal to his ambition. And what was more provoking to a despotic woman, he made her feel that he could maintain his ground by the same surreptitious art he had obtained it.

The Count de Paz was a man of a different complexion. Covetousness, and an abject dependent on individual fa[170]vour, tethered his vain-glorious spirit to a boundary he panted to overleap, but everlastingly found it a limit he could not pass. This man, Isabella used as her instrument, and by his connivance, admitted a third person to their private councils, who commanded him with the invincible power of a superior demon.

In obedience to the Queen, and this her secret counsellor, he was to influence the Marquis de Castellor to extort an act of aggression from the French arms against the German Emperor.

Since the public betrothment of Maria Theresa to the Prince of Lorraine, Isabella had become reconciled to Louis the Fifteenth; and she now wanted to attack the grasping power of the rival Empire, by a concerted act of open hostility. France was to invade Austria on the side of Germany; while Spain, in consequence of the death of the Duke of Parma, should resist the pretensions of the Emperor to that duchy; and, in support[171] of the rights of Prince Carlos, (the late Duke's kinsman, and Isabella's son,) overrun that part of Italy with Spanish troops.

Her secret counsellor had already moved the cardinal minister of the French King to thwart the establishment of the pragmatic sanction; and through the Queen of Spain and De Paz, he had drawn from the treasury of Philip a large subsidy to support the pretensions of Bavaria.

On the open rupture between Isabella and the Empress, the former was not long at a loss how to revenge herself on the wide ambition of her rival. Her midnight familiar whispered the means. He told her that Gibraltar was not more the fortress of England than of Austria. Whoever possessed that rock, commanded the Mediterranean, and bound all on its banks to his feet. The interest of Austria and the House of Brunswick were now the same. He therefore exhorted her to categorically demand Gibraltar of[172] the King of England; and to make her husband and his council, see the wisdom of considering him the King of England who would restore that gem to the Spanish crown.

One of the last acts of George the First was to reject this demand with a positive refusal; and the following evening saw a tall, dark man, of a noble mien, pass into the private cabinet of the King of Spain. They were alone together for some time; and then the Queen and the two ministers of state being introduced, a paper was signed in their presence by Philip and the stranger, and the royal seals of Spain and of Great Britain solemnly affixed to the deed.

Santa Cruz met this personage as he withdrew through the vestibule of the King's apartment. He knew him, and stood with his hat in his hand till he passed.

"Do not repeat what you have seen," whispered Isabella, who found the Mar[173]quis gazing after him; "but now you read my riddle. A few months may see you governor of Gibraltar!"

"The trenches of San Roque must first be opened in England!" replied he, answering her gay smile with unusual gravity.

"No," was her reply; "there we spring a mine; and the best engineer in Christendom has his hand on the match."

Santa Cruz understood enough of her meaning, not to make a second observation in so public a passage; and bowing to her beckoning finger, he followed her into her apartment.

He held in his hand the first official dispatches from Ceuta. The last had not arrived. But the fugitive merchants from Larach were then in the palace, with their calamitous account of the fall of that fortress.

The Queen was enraged at these determined acts of hostility in the man to whom she had condescended to humble[174] herself as a suppliant; and vehemently arraigning the insolence that durst disdain her returning favour, she preceded Santa Cruz to the chamber of her royal husband.

On the King's being told the fate of Larach; and learning, by the discomfiture of Don Joseph de Penil, how nearly Ceuta had shared the same disaster, he issued his orders that the troops just called off from the lines of San Roque, should be employed without delay in a final vindication of the Christian name in the plains of Barbary.

These forces had been intended by Isabella and her secret counsellor, to make a descent on the British shore; and there, as Santa Cruz had guessed, assert the rights of him who had purchased the support of Philip by a written pledge for the restitution of Gibraltar. But at this moment resentment obliterated every promise; and, in the rage of revenge against the man who had disdained her, more as[175] a woman than a queen, she at once announced to her husband, that it was his own rebellious subject, the Duke de Ripperda, who, under the assumed name of Aben Humeya, but as a real apostate and a traitor, waged war in Africa against his King and his God.

Philip's amazement was creditable to his heart; and, when unquestionably convinced, his indignation against the Duke's irreligion superseded the expected resentment for his rebellion. He summoned his council; and in full assembly of the ministers and grandees, degraded the Duke de Ripperda from all his honours, hereditary and by creation; confiscated his estates; and ordered the arms of his family to be obliterated from the Spanish college of arms.

With the feelings of an ancient Spanish nobleman, Santa Cruz saw the rapidity of this act of disgrace. Not in consideration of the degraded Duke; for in becoming an infidel, he had sunk himself below the[176] power of man to cast him lower; but compassion for his blameless and exemplary son, filled the heart of Santa Cruz with honourable sympathy.

The Queen turned on him at the moment, and observing the expression of his countenance, said with a taunting surprise;—

"Your Majesty will grant an exception in behalf of that young man? He covered the retreat of de Penil into Ceuta, and merits some exemption from the universal stigma on his father."

"We may consider that hereafter," replied the King, "meanwhile let the edict be published."

The messenger from the surgeon at Ceuta, who dispatched him during the panic immediately succeeding the return of the unfortunate sortie, went direct to[177] the Marquis Santa Cruz's house in Seville. The Marquis was from home, but the man delivered his credentials to the servants; and with the eagerness of a first bringer of news, gave an exaggerated account of the defeat of Don Joseph, the death of de Blas, and the wounded state of Don Ferdinand d'Osorio. He closed his report of the latter, by saying, he was rescued by the intrepid interference of the Marquis de Montemar, from sharing the fate of the governor; but as the Moorish sabres were generally venomed, little hope could be cherished of his ultimate recovery.

On Santa Cruz's return from the palace, he found his wife and daughter in speechless agony, listening to this narrative of despair. He sent the man from the room; and by reading the dispatch which the official messenger had brought, he succeeded in convincing them that the Moors did not poison their weapons, and[178] that the life of his son was in no present danger. The Marchioness however, insisted on accompanying her husband to Ceuta; and Marcella, in a passion of tears, implored her father to permit her to be her mother's attendant.

Dreading that despairing love had precipitated the vehement nature of her brother, upon the swords of his enemies, Marcella now reproached herself for having so decisively, and therefore she thought cruelly, rejected his suit. In the paroxysm of her grief and her remorse, she threw herself at her father's feet; and to his astonishment, informed him of Ferdinand's love for the cousin of the Marquis de Montemar; declaring at the same time, her own resolution no longer to oppose his wishes of her passing her life a professed nun; provided her vows might be simply confined to celibacy, and a secluded state; and Ferdinand be allowed to marry the English lady.[179] The Marquis was confounded, and looked at his wife.

"It is too true;" was her reply to his enquiring eyes; "Ferdinand loves Alice Coningsby; and my invaluable child would make herself the price of her brothers happiness."

"Marcella," replied Santa Cruz, turning with solemnity to his daughter; "this is not what I expected from you. You dishonour your father and your brother, by your petition. You may accompany your mother to his sick couch; and for the rest, should he recover, I hope he will find a fitter oblation to his blind passions, than a sister's and a parent's conscience."

Marcella rose humbled from her knees; and in speechless sorrow left the apartment. The Marquis looked after her and sighed; and the Marchioness taking his hand, pressed it to her lips, wet with her drowning tears, and exclaimed;—[180] "Better that we had never met, than that the purest offspring of our heaven-sanctified union, should be consigned to a living tomb! Oh, Santa Cruz, why is she to be our victim!"

CHAP. X.

Santa Cruz did not wait for the tedious embarkation of the troops, now under orders for Africa; but set forward immediately, accompanied by his wife and daughter; who both assumed the privileged habits of Sisters of Mercy, in this their pilgrimage to a land of war and suffering.

When he arrived at Ceuta, he was ignorant of the attempt at storming the place. The courier with that intelligence, had been taken by an Algerine row-boat, and carried into Oran.

By this capture, Ripperda became acquainted with all that had passed in the rescued fortress; for the messenger was sent in irons to him: and the dastardly[182] communicativeness of the man was too clear an interpreter of the brief account in the dispatches.

The Basha's wounds being aslant, and in the muscles of his breast, were slight and easy of cure; but that on his mind was not to be healed, when on awaking from his swoon, he found himself thrown across a camel, and in full retreat from the fortress he believed in his hands. He was no sooner within his own entrenchments, than both officers and men felt the weight of his disappointment. He summoned their several commanders into his pavilion, and accused them of cowardice, for having made so unnecessary, and therefore shameful a flight.

Adelmelek pleaded two reasons for this conduct. Their Basha's supposed mortal wound; and its befalling him in the moment of sun-rise, seemed so signal a judgement on the Moors for their breach of the prophet's ordinance, in pursuing the warfare into the sabbath morn,[183] that with one consent they made the only expiation in their power, by abandoning the scene of their impiety.

Enraged at the subtlety of this apology, in which Ripperda saw that the jealousy of the Hadge was at the bottom of this retreat, he turned on him with derision, and bade him take that excuse to the Emperor, and see whether he most respected the enlargement of his empire, or the superstition of a coward.

"Aben Humeya," replied the Hadge, regarding him with equal scorn; "If I am to be your messenger, one truth at least you shall learn of me before I set out on my journey! It is impossible for a bad Christian to become a good Mussulman. Devout men are no changelings. He has little of the spirit of religion, who finds an insurmountable stumbling-block in any dispute about the letter; and in my opinion, the man who more than once alters his faith, may shew himself a con[184]summate hypocrite, but he persuades no one to doubt the nothingness of his religion."

"Your head, proud bigot, shall answer for this insult!" exclaimed Ripperda, starting from the cushion on which he lay.

"The event of this siege," replied the Hadge, "will determine the fate of yours!" and with a threatening countenance, he left the apartment.

Nothing awed, by what he called this insolence in a man whose talents he despised, Ripperda was the more incited to shew his contempt of superstition; and the moment he withdrew, his reproaches to the officers were augmented in severity and reproof. He punished the soldiers in a more exemplary way; and published a proclamation, declaring that he would put to death any officer, let his rank be what it would, who should henceforth presume at any time to disobey his orders, or to desert his post on any[185] pretence whatever. He finished by pronouncing himself, as the leader of the Mohammedan armies in Barbary, the best interpreter of the prophet's laws; and that while he bore the standard of Mecca, the sabbaths of Jews, Mussulmen, or Christians, should be alike free to the progress of his arms.

The rigor of these threats, and this last assertion, so contrary to the customs of their faith, filled the Moors with terror and amazement: but the full effects of the manifesto were to be seen hereafter.

While these punishments and intimidations were going on, the courier taken at Oran, was brought to the camp before Ceuta. The Basha was now convalescent; and while the reading of the dispatches inspired his coadjutor Sidi Ali, with renewed confidence in the reduction of the fortress, it doubly exasperated the passions of Ripperda, when he gathered from the report the dangerous state of his son.

The courier was commanded into his[186] presence; and on examining him it was found that three parts of the garrison had fallen in the sortie and the defence of the town; that the Count de Blas was dead of his wounds; the commander, de Penil, incapable of service; and that the young Marquis de Montemar, whose gallant exertions filled so great a part in the dispatches, was in such extremity when the messenger came off, that it was impossible he could now be alive.

Ripperda was no stranger to the voice that rushed between him and his assailants in the breach; but it passed by him as the wind. Vengeance was then all that possessed his soul! But now that voice was hushed for ever. In his first field his son had perished,—and perished against whom?

He sprang on his feet as the horrible images pressed upon his brain. Regardless of who were present, he snatched up his sword:—

"I am alone!" cried he, "the last![187] the last! But I will yet uproot thee, murderous Spain, that dost thus riot in my vitals!"

The prisoner and the attendants all fled from before the terrible enunciation of his eyes. Sidi Ali alone had courage to remain and seize the aimless weapon.

"Were I less a man," cried Ripperda, turning his burning eye-balls upon him; "I could bear it. But now the curse has found me!"

CHAP. XI.

When Santa Cruz landed at Ceuta, he proceeded direct to the quarters of Don Joseph de Penil, and was told there of the attempt to storm the fortress, and its miraculous defence by the inexperienced but intrepid son of Ripperda. Don Joseph's wounds were in a mending state; and from him he learnt, that his son was also on the recovery; but less hopes durst be encouraged for the Marquis de Montemar.

"The worst wound is in his heart!" remarked Santa Cruz. For it could no longer be disguised from de Penil and the whole garrison, that Aben Humeya, the direful cause of all this bloodshed, was, though now an apostate and a rebel, once the great Duke de Ripperda, the[189] universally honoured father of this noble young man!

His public attainder, and disgraced name at Seville, had made the circumstance known to all there; and the new army spread it at once through the lines of Ceuta.

But there was a kind hand which warded off a blow which might have been fatal to his blameless son. Don Ferdinand and Louis de Montemar lay in their wounds under the same roof; and by the same gentle ministry they were attended.

The Marchioness and her daughter found no difference in their hearts between the sufferers; for if the one had the claims of a brother and a son upon their tenderness, the other had purchased the life of that dear relative by the exposure of his own; and the bonds of gratitude were not less sacred than those of kindred.

Marcella sought to cheer her brother, by assuring him that her prejudices[190] against a monastic life should no longer stand between him and his happiness, if that compliance with her father's wishes could obtain his consent to Ferdinand's union with the cousin of his friend. But she did not withhold from her brother, the Marquis's remark on the sacrifice she offered to make in his behalf.

"However," continued she, "our aunt, the abbess of the Ursalines, is too charitable to force my conscience to more than the vow and the seclusion; and I trust that Heaven will not see any crime in a Protestant nun, worshipping in spirit and in truth, by the side of sisters from whom the cloud of error has not yet been raised!"

Ferdinand gazed upon his sister while she spoke. Was the fabled Iphigenia of Tauris half so fair, or the virgin daughter of Jephthah so full of youthful loveliness, as she who now talked, with such sweet smiles, of immolating herself for him? She was indeed the victim, clad in the[191] lilly and the rose; and the fragrance of the flowers, and the morning dew of their leaves, breathed and sparkled from her lips, as she pursued her disinterested theme. Bodily suffering, and hours of solitary reflection, had opened to Ferdinand a clear view of his former injustice in seeking happiness at the expence of his sister's liberty; and, abhorring such utter selfishness, he was ashamed to acknowledge its late power over him, even by disavowing its continuance; and with a deep blush, and deeper sigh, he pressed her hand without a word.

But in Marcella's separated heart, the vow of abjuration from the world was already registered. She had now but one duty;—to wait with her lamp trimmed, while she ministered to all who needed her deeds of charity; and, as a Sister of Mercy, whose garb she wore, she daily attended her mother to the couch of the preserver of her brother.

The Marchioness's eager disposition[192] was always too hasty in imparting the evil as well as the good; and, therefore, her more considerate daughter implored her, and every body who entered the room of the Marquis de Montemar, not to breathe a word of the sentence which Philip had passed upon the name of his father. From an instinct in her own bosom, she knew that injuries are easier to be borne than disgrace; and she guarded every approach to his ear with the watchfulness of an attendant spirit.

As her own hand frequently administered the cordials to the silently-suffering patient, his eyes thanked her, though his lips seldom moved. His wounds were numerous and excruciating; and, from the opium his surgeons mixed with every potion, he was almost always in a seeming stupor. But neither his mental perceptions, nor the annotations of his heart shared the lulling faculty. His shrouded vision discerned the solicitude that hovered over him. He heard the tender voice[193] that gave directions for his comfort; he felt the soft touch of the hand that smoothed his pillow; and his own spirit mingled in the prayer which the holy accents of Marcella murmured over his apparently unobserving form, when she gave place to the persons whose medical balsams were less healing than the balm of her presence alone.

"It is the presence of virtue!" said he to himself, "and that is the ministering angel of heaven."

Lorenzo had shared his master's dangers and his wounds, as he had shared his sorrows and his prison. He had followed him from rampart to rampart, stood by him on the breach; and sunk under the same sweep of balls which had levelled both to the earth. As soon as he was able to leave his chamber, he prevailed on his attendants to take him to that of his master; for he had been told of the news which had astonished the garrison;—that the exiled Ripperda was[194] the man, who, under a Moorish name, now made Spain tremble; and that the impotent revenge of the Spanish court was to deprive him of a title he had already abandoned.

It was during the absence of the Marchioness and Marcella at matin prayers, that Lorenzo was borne to Louis's apartment. Ignorant that any thing which the whole garrison knew, could have been withheld from him who had most concern in it, Lorenzo, after his first felicitations on finding his master declared out of danger, began to accuse the Spanish government for not sparing the honours of Ripperda to the meritorious son, though it had found it necessary to withdraw them from the rebellion of the father. Louis started.—

Lorenzo was seized with a trembling that almost amounted to fainting, when he found that he had intimated what his master's friends had deemed it prudent[195] to conceal. Louis regarded him with grateful pity, while he armed himself to hear whatever was then to be told.

"Do not hesitate to speak all you know," continued he; "I have suffered too much to shrink now. My heart has armour, Lorenzo, that the world guesses not."

Lorenzo burst into tears; but he instantly told him all. Louis pressed his hand; and, bidding him return to his room and take care of himself; the faithful creature, with a full heart, permitted the servants to carry him from the apartment; and when the door was closed on every body, Louis laid himself back upon his couch. That was his hour of agony; all that was yet within him of the world, mingled with the pang of filial anguish, and agitated his spirit even unto death.

Ferdinand came into the room, leaning on his sister; and taking his seat by the side of his friend's bed, gently touched him:—[196] "Do you sleep, De Montemar?" said he. "Here is a fresh northern breeze in this sultry climate! Open your eyes and receive the genial visitant!"

Louis did not open his eyes, but he sighed heavily, and half muttered in a smothered voice: "When shall I meet a genial visitant again! Oh, Ferdinand," added he, turning his face upon the hand of his friend, "better had it been for me, had I never been born!"

Marcella was retiring at the first exclamation; but, at the second, she paused and drew near.

"De Montemar," said Ferdinand, "what can prompt you who are so universally honoured, to such a sentiment?"

"My father's universal infamy," replied Louis. "He is now judged before men and angels; and where shall I hide my head!"

"In the bosom of him who pierces the heart to purify it!" replied Marcella, as she sunk on her knees beside him.[197] "He only who wilfully offends that gracious Being, may cry: Better for me had I never been born! If God have already judged your erring father before men and angels, and given that once illustrious name to universal infamy, receive that as a mercy; as a punishment here, that it may be remitted hereafter."

Louis looked up from his thorny pillow. He took her hand, and pressed it with grateful fervour to his lips.—

"You, you, holy Marcella!" cried he, "are the genial visitant I saw not,—are the messenger from heaven that speaks peace to my soul! Pray for me I beseech you; but, above all, pray for my misguided father. May he be redeemed; and for disgrace,—trampling, overwhelming disgrace, let it come!"

The speech was begun to her, but ended in an address to heaven, without farther consciousness of who were present.

Ferdinand and his sister comprehended that some person had betrayed to him[198] the secret they had so carefully concealed; and both apprehended the effects of so sudden a blow upon a mind whose keen sense of honour seemed one with his being.

When the Marquis Santa Cruz learnt what had passed, he went to the couch of his young friend; and dismissing every person, discoursed with him alone, for more than an hour. The Marchioness met him in the room of her son, and with maternal anxiety, enquired the result of his visit.

"I found him," replied Santa Cruz, "in a silence, which he had never broken since my son and daughter left him; but when I spoke to him, he answered me firmly. And then I discovered that it was not so much the publication of his father's dishonour, which had so affected him, as the conviction that such public degradation, by still farther incensing the Duke, was the seal of his estrangement from his religion and his country."[199] "He is now an outcast!" cried he, "and driven to despair, he will believe he is banished from the face of heaven and the Christian world for ever!"

"Oh, my father," cried Marcella, "is there not one who teaches us where all comfort is written? And in those sacred pages we are told, that he who was cast out into the desert for mocking the promise of his God, yet found an angel in the wilderness to save him from perishing."

"Louis de Montemar is no stranger to the volume which is your study, my child;" gently answered her father; "and I soon learnt, that though human nature shrunk under the stroke, there was a spirit within him that sustained and cheered him with a better hope."

"My father," said Marcella, laying her trembling hand on the arm of the Marquis, "can his faith be wrong, who is so supported?"[200] Santa Cruz shook off that appealing touch. A deep thoughtfulness passed over his brow. It was troubled, but it was not severe; and he left the room without answering her.

CHAP. XII.

It was some time after this conference, before the army from the Peninsula were all arrived and disembarked at Ceuta. Santa Cruz had made himself master of every information respecting the condition of the enemy; and found that a large reinforcement of troops was daily expected from the interior provinces. He wished to bring Ripperda to a general battle, before this accession of cavalry should give the Moors so great an advantage; for his own columns were very slenderly supported by horse.

The whole strength of the Ceuta army did not amount to more than twenty-five thousand men; but they were fresh and in spirits; while the forces under the Basha, were not merely reduced to almost as[202] scanty a number, but they were in despair at the contempt their leader shewed to the laws of their prophet. Ten thousand Arabs had lately arrived, to strengthen the division under Sidi Ali; and were disposed on the side of the mountain, to cover the camp. Some other general was to bring up the hordes from the interior; who were coming forward with savage eagerness, to assist their brethren in driving the Spaniards into the sea.

Santa Cruz did not disturb the progress of Louis de Montemar's recovery, with any communication of these designs; but proceeded without any apparent extraordinary motion in the garrison, to draw out his troops and prepare for the general attack. His position was fully taken one morning before it was light; and falling in the darkness upon the advanced posts of the Moors, the infidels in the trenches were cut off to a man before a gun was fired.

Martini was the first who brought his[203] master intelligence of this assault; for the Moors had conceived so sullen a horror of their leader, that uncertain what to do, many of them would rather have suffered a total surprise of their camp; than saved themselves by yielding to the impious Aben Humeya an opportunity of establishing his power with the Emperor. But a few minutes shewed the irresistible ascendancy of boldness and decision, over pusillanimity and wavering. When Ripperda knew the peril of his camp; and issued from his tent in full military array, the awfulness of his heroic countenance, and the splendor of his arms, eclipsed all remembrance of his tyranny in some; and others dreading the resentment of so formidable a man, threw themselves forward to receive his commands.

He ordered the gates of the camp to be thrown open before his horse; and he and his battalions, soon occupied the space between the entrenchments, and the rapid advance of the Spaniards; who[204] were now nearly within the range of his first line of batteries.

The cannon began their summons of death. The rays of the morning, and the flashing of guns traversed each other in the passing shadows and rolling smoke of the contest. During deep night, Santa Cruz had detached a body of infantry with a few field-pieces, to file off to the left; and by forming in a pass at the bottom of the hill, between Ali's camp and the Basha's, cut off the former from coming to the support of his colleague.

Before Aben Humeya marched out into the field, he dispatched two messengers; the one to Sidi Ali with his commands, that he should come forward and attack the Spaniards in flank; and the other to Adelmelek, who was bringing up the columns from the interior, to hasten onward, and confirm the anticipated victory.

His orders being issued, the Basha bore[205] down upon the charging enemy with a shock as terrific as his own; and with so decisive a weight of cavalry, that the Spaniards gave ground. While the Moors pursued this advantage, a report reached their leader that Ali was intercepted in the hills. With the quickness of lightning, he detached a resolute body of troops to cut off, in their turn, the division of Spaniards which had been sent on this dangerous enterprize.

The eyes of Santa Cruz were not less alert in viewing the manœuvres of his enemy; and at the very moment he was looking around to see whom he could entrust with the important commission of opposing this force, to his astonishment he beheld Louis de Montemar at his side. He had heard the roll of cannon, and required no other summons. He was now mounted, and in arms, as if in perfect vigour, from his hardly closed wounds. Without asking a question, the Marquis ordered him to take the command of a[206] certain body of cavalry; and lead them towards the hill, to the attack of the detachment dispatched from the Moorish camp.

Louis obeyed; and performed his commission so completely, that the Moors were obliged to fall back, and shelter their flying squadrons behind the nearest batteries. But part of the troops which had previously been sent to watch the motions of Sidi Ali, seeing the way clear, joined the chase; and so left a passage for the enemy. Profiting by the oversight, Ali rushed from his lines; and taking the pursuing Christians in the rear, the shouts of the Moors, reanimated their fugitive brethren in front, who turned like a host of tigers at bay; and all at once Louis found himself between two fires.

But it was not the object of Sidi Ali to waste his time in the extirpation of a part, when the whole was near, to yield a mightier revenge to the conqueror. He[207] advanced with rapidity and good order, to the support of the Basha; whose left flank, where he had thrown himself in person, was already turned by the furious onset of the Spaniards. Seeing the approaching squadrons of Ali, Aben Humeya rallied his receding men; and precipitating himself and a chosen cohort upon the most effective engine of the enemy, (which was one of the Moorish batteries turned upon themselves,) he retook it, and discharged it on its late masters. The fresh troops of Ali came on with shouts like thunder; and the Christians, who expected nothing less than this new attack, supported the charge only for a while. Aben Humeya brought up a kind of flying battery of his own construction; and his adversaries being thrown into confusion by its incessant fire, turned to fly. The Basha left the fugitives to Ali, and moved to the centre, which was now hardly pressed by Santa Cruz himself.

Until now, the Spanish leader had not[208] exposed his own person; but when he found that part of his army assuming the same retrograde motion with the left wing, he saw the necessity of shewing his own personal courage, and fighting man to man.

Here was the shock and the tug of the day. Aben Humeya and Santa Cruz, were alike seen in every part of the field, as if their bodies, as well as their minds, had the property of omnipresence. Blood streamed on every side; and the terrific screams of the wounded horses, mingling with the groans of the dying; and the yells or shouts of the victors; the braying of the trumpets, the rolling of the drums; and the roaring of the guns, shook the earth, and seemed to tear the heavens. The echoes were tremendous from the caves and summits of the overhanging mountains; and to the crazed imagination of fear, the Genius of Spain and of Barbary appeared to hang in the clouds of[209] battle, and to clash their dreadful arms, in horror of the equal fight.

But in the moment of loudest acclaim in the centre, while the helmeted turban of the Basha shone resplendent in anticipated victory, and his watchmen looked from his towers in the camp, for the approach of Adelmelek, a howl of dismay issued from the left; and the thronging squadrons of half Ali's division spiked themselves upon the points of the Spanish line.

Louis had no sooner seen that the Sidi had passed, and driven this wing of the Spaniards from their ground, than recalling his own squadrons, and marching behind the rolling smoke to the right, he came in van of their flying comrades; and making a hasty chevaux de frize of his pikes, he permitted the fugitives to pass through and form behind, while the enemy's horse found their fate on his iron rampart. Field-pieces were rapidly brought forward to confirm this stand;[210] and the leader of the Arabs falling by the first explosion, the Moors turned and fled towards their lines.

The centre and the right flank deserved the confidence of their leader; but the star of Ripperda was now on its last horizon. The Moors fought with desperation for empire,—for paradise! He performed prodigies of valour! The fabled exploits of romance were no longer marvellous to them who beheld Aben Humeya; but the Spanish numbers and discipline overpowered it all.

Louis saw that, on that field, his father's power in Africa, and perhaps himself, would on that day perish. Through the flashes of musquetry and of cannon shot, he saw that father moving in every direction, with the consummate generalship of a practised soldier, with a determined resolution that merited a better cause. Louis was desperate and devoted as himself; and though actuated by different principles, and exposing their[211] lives on adverse sides, they seemed actuated by the same spirit, to conquer or to die.

The Moorish entrenchments were forced in every point, the ditch filled with the slain, the camp set on fire that no delay might be made for plunder; and the infidels who survived, flying in every direction, without a leader, and without a refuge.

At the entrance of the mountainous track between the base of Abyla and the hills of Tetuan, the pursuing army was encountered by an ambuscade from Adelmelek's division. The envious Moor had disobeyed Aben Humeya's orders to join him in the field. He waited apart for the defeat of the Basha; but to ensure his own favour with the Emperor, he planted a powerful detachment to cover the retreat of any who might escape the horrors of the day.[212] While the Spaniards were briskly engaged with this ambuscade, the fugitives retreated safely into the mountains; and the army of Adelmelek drawing behind some batteries he had prepared, Santa Cruz's orders to abandon the dangerous pursuit were at last obeyed; and the infuriate conquerors, drunk with blood and vengeance, returned in broken ranks to the rescued town of Ceuta.

Louis, who had accompanied the general chase, with no other sense but a breathless eagerness to know the fate of his father, galloped over the death-strewn earth with his eyes wandering all around, while his sword waved without aim over his unhelmeted head. The plumed crescent of Aben Humeya was no more to be seen. Even his standards had long disappeared from the field; and with the returning squadrons, the horse of De Montemar also quitted the pursuit.

The officers of cavalry alighted at the pavilion of Santa Cruz, where all of dis[213]tinction in the army were assembled to congratulate the general on his victory. Louis entered mechanically with the rest. He was pale as a spectre; and the blood on his garments bore witness that he had not left his chamber that morning on a vain errand. His presence of mind had saved the day at its first commencement; and his undaunted arm had twice turned the Moorish scymetars from the head of his general. On his entrance, therefore, his brave compeers parted before him; and the oldest veterans present did not think themselves degraded in bowing their heads before the youthful hero.

When the eyes of Santa Cruz met his advancing figure, the bleeding image of Ripperda rose upon his recollection. He had seen him borne lifeless from the burning camp.

"He was his father!" cried the Marquis to himself, as he looked on the brave and devoted son; and stepping forward, he pressed him silently in his arms. Louis[214] felt the pulse of the pitying heart that beat against his; but he was not then susceptible of comfort from any human commiseration; and, with an unaltered aspect, he raised himself from the Marquis's breast, and passed unmoved through the less delicate crowd, who pressed on him with compliments on his exertions of the day. He heard nothing but the buzzing of many voices; and bowing without observation as they approached or retreated from him, left the pavilion; and as unnotingly proceeded to the city.

The nature of Ferdinand's wounds not allowing him to share in the service of the day, hourly messengers from the field duly communicated the progress of the victory. The contest was at last over; and the Marchioness and her daughter threw themselves in speechless thanksgiving upon the ground, before the Almighty Preserver of Santa Cruz. They had known all the agonies of being within hearing of a field of battle. The distant[215] uproar of death; the thundering of the guns; the red and billowy clouds which, at every explosion, a strong east wind drove in darkening volumes over the fortress, were portentous accompaniments to the terrifying successions of the wounded, which every hour brought within its walls. The horrid suspense of that day often came over Marcella in future years, with a recollection so present of mental torture, that catching the hand dearest to her in the world, and trembling with dismay at what might have been the issue, she has wept over it tears of ceaseless gratitude. But in the dreadful hour of conflict, those tender expressions of anxiety were driven back upon their source; and, while thinking on no other object than the life of her father and his friend, her hands, with her mother's, assisted in binding up fractured limbs, and staunching blood, welling from many a brave heart.

The trumpet of recall from the victo[216]rious chase, sounded near the walls. The Marchioness rose from her knees; and though unable to move herself, from strong emotion, she dispatched Ferdinand and Marcella to meet their father. He supported his sister's agitated steps, while he sustained his own by the aid of his crutches. They were hastening along the main gallery of the castle, when Louis de Montemar entered from the field.

Aware of what must be his feelings on the defeat and fall of his father, Ferdinand instantly quitted his sister's side, and retreated from the melancholy greeting. Marcella was not less informed by her own heart, of what must then be tearing their friend's; but she did not fly, neither did she move towards him. She stood still, with her eyes rivetted on him in speechless occupation of soul. He had not seen Ferdinand: he did not see her though he passed her close. Marcella saw something dreadful in the fixture of[217] his mien. Could such piety as his be stricken with despair? She sunk on her knees at the terrible image; and a sound, between a groan and a cry of supplication to heaven, burst from her lips, as, with clasped hands, she looked upon his disappearing steps.

That was a sound which had its chord in Louis's breast. He turned round. Marcella did not cover her face; for a brighter principle than terrestrial love actuated her soul for the noble sufferer before her. She knelt and looked on him. Louis approached her. He stood for a moment gazing on her. In the next, the whole agony of his mind agitated his before marbled features. As she started on her feet he took her hand, and firmly grasping it, said, "Oh, pray for me!" and then dropping it, again turned away, and passed out of sight along the gallery.

CHAP. XIII.

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 outrages[219] committed during the present campaign.

"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."

"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-es[220]tablishing 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 so[221]lemnity, "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,[222] 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, he[223] had only to chuse, and the first stations in the state, or in the army, must in process of time be at his command.

"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 to[224] consider 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."

"I am called 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 against[225] me. 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.

CHAP. XIV.

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 of[227] the 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.[228] 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 by[229] the 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,[230] 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 in[231] the 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,[232] "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 imparted[233] what 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 with[234] him 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 a[235] son, 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 the Orders 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,[236] 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 his[237] doubting 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.

CHAP. XV.

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 Moorish benedicite, "Sta fer Lah!" and hastened to his comrades in the boat.[239] 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 appear[240] more 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 respec[241]tive fraternities of Saint Philip of Mercy were 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.

"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 candid[242] answer. 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 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, when[243] they 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, only[244] breaking 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."

"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 was[245] on 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 impor[246]tance 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 repeated lost, 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;[247] 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.

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."[248] 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 courier[249] from 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, assist[250]ed 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 flood[251]gates 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 acknow[252]ledge 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, there[253] was 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.

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."[254] "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.

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 in[255]to 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,[256] 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.[257] 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?"[258] 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."

"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? When[259] my 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! Recall[260] the 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; rejected[261] by 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;[262] 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 pen[263] and 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 to[264] which 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."

"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.[265] "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,[266] 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 pledge[267] of 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.

CHAP. XVI.

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 spirit[269] must 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 the[270] vessel 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 personal[271] agency 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 enfranchised[272] crew, 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,[273] "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 Spa[274]nish laws, should he ever presume to re-enter that country.

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.

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, had[275] no 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 in[276] such 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 the[277] hounds; 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 are we?" cried he; then, with his usual effrontery, laying his hand on the paper[278] before 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 at[279] once! 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:[280] "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.

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 attend[282]ed 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 him[283] as 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 partial[284] phrenzy 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 unhappy[285] Duke, 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 several[286] hundred 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 have[287] bequeathed 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,[288] 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.

"I am but your servant, my Lord!" said he, "but these are times when the heart knows no distinctions, but those of[289] attachment. Your noble father is gone; and you may cut me piece-meal, before I feel his son otherwise, than bone 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 he[290] slowly 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 final[291] separation 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, and[292] farther 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!"[293] 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!

"Oh, my father!" cried he, "Thou sleepest alone! Far from thy wife and child! Far from the country of thy birth, or thy adoption—betrayed, forgotten, stigmatized!"

While this bitter remembrance envenomed the before resigned state of his[294] mind, his upward eye was struck with the appearance of an eagle, as if emerging from the ether; so high was its elevation, as it floated over him, on vigorous and steady wing. It moved towards the coast of Barbary. It seemed to hover over the heights of Tetuan:—it descended for a while; remained stationary in mid air; and then, soaring aloft like a dart of light, was lost in the heavens.

Louis saw no more. That bird was the crest of his family. Imagination and grief were busy in his heart. He burst into tears, and slowly descended the mountain.

CHAP. XVII.

A succession of various weather, at last brought the frigate, which contained Louis de Montemar, and his faithful Lorenzo, in sight of the British coast. He was returning to it, after an absence of little more than two years, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief!" In the morning of his youth, he bore in his bosom the experience of age. But it was not with a bent spirit, nor a wearied courage.

"I am bruised," said he to himself; "but not broken. I have yet, bonds of duty to the world, and I will not shrink from my task."

But he felt this inward assurance spring and grow, exactly in proportion as he drew nearer to the coast where[296] he had imbibed the first aliments of all that was greatly emulous in his mind; where his heart had first known the glows of dear domestic tenderness; where, in short, he first knew a home.

"Since I left it," cried he, "I have never found another!" and, as he stood on the deck of the vessel, he thought the glittering summits of the cliff's he descried at a distance, shone on him like the welcoming smiles of a mother.

He landed. Portsmouth did not detain him long; nor any town, nor any track he passed over; while the rapid vehicle in which he threw himself, conveyed him with all the eagerness of his wishes towards Northumberland.

It was the season of the year when the family of Lindisfarne were usually removed to Morewick-hall. Though the summer was far advanced, in the southern climate he had left; in the colder latitudes of England he found snow on the mountains, and ice in the vallies. The[297] leafless woods shook their glittering branches in the keen blast, and the heavy clouds, teeming with a hail-storm, burst, and darkened the road.

Louis would not think of the orange groves, and gales laden with balm and fragrance, he had so lately left behind; but he did not check the remembrance, because he regretted the change.

There were memories attached to it, which he wished not to cling too closely to his heart, when he should first press to his returning bosom, the venerable form of him, who had blessed him when he last crossed the top of that hill!—

As soon as the well-known pinnacles of Morewick-hall, appeared over the woods at the bottom of the valley, he called to the postilion to proceed slower. He was alone. For he could not approach that house, with any witness of his emotion. But the man had no sooner obeyed his directions, and was winding down the hill with a leisurely pace, than Louis[298] felt the agitation of his mind encreased by the slowness that permitted recollection to crowd his thoughts with images. He changed his commands, and the driver set off on the spur towards the gates of Morewick.

Many an apprehension was in his bosom. Many a wringing reflection. How had he left that place? How did he return? And what would be the pangs of meeting, after the wreck of so many hopes!—

He was taking counsel of his manhood, to sustain with firmness the questions which must summon the shadows, whose torturing substance he had endured without a receding nerve;—when his carriage entered the gates of Morewick Park. Lost in self-recollection, it was only by the jerk of the horses in stopping before the mansion, that Louis knew he was arrived. The carriage door was opened. In that land of hospitality, the house-door also stood at large. He[299] sprang from his vehicle into the hall. Servants were entering it from different avenues; but he passed through them all, and knew nothing of what he saw or did, till he found himself at the feet of his revered uncle.

He was clasped in the arms of his aunt; and Alice bathed his hand with her happy tears.

It was many minutes before a word was spoken. But every heart knew each other's language, and the folded hands of Mr. Athelstone, as he stood over his nephew, told to all who looked on him, that his grateful soul was then at the feet of his God.

The embrace with which Louis strained his aunt to his bosom, recalled her passing senses to recollection; and, throwing her arms round his neck, she wept there, almost to suffocation. While the Pastor, with eyes no less the witnesses of a joy that has not words, assisted his nephew to bear her to the[300] settee, Louis put the venerable hand to his lips. The last time he so pressed it, he was possessed of a father whom he loved and honoured!—That father was now no more; and the pride with which he then dwelt on his name, was extinguished for ever! He would not allow the swelling sluices of his heart to give way, or even to intimate what was labouring there, by pressing that hand to his bosom!

"Dearest Louis!" cried Alice, who was the first to speak;—for her mother sat on the sofa with her arms still on the neck of her nephew, and gazing with anguish on his face:—"Dearest Louis!" cried her daughter, in a voice as plaintive as her mother's looks; "Oh, how you are changed!"

"Ah! that voice, is still his own!" cried Mrs. Coningsby, throwing herself upon his bosom, and weeping afresh.[301] "Yes, Catherine;" said the Pastor, regarding the agitated groupe, with all the tenderness of his sainted spirit. "A veil has fallen over the lustre of that beauty you used to prize so much! but it is a veil only; the light of heaven is still behind it!"

It was not until this day of emotion was quite over; and that both Mrs. Coningsby and Alice had given their hands to the kneeling obeisance of Lorenzo, with rather the welcome of kindred than of superiors; and the calming solitude of night had schooled every heart to the necessity of, at least, assuming tranquillity, that the little circle at Morewick could fully feel the happiness of re-union.

Before Louis quitted his chamber next morning, the usual domestic groupe were assembled in the breakfast room. Mr. Athelstone, with pious gratitude, remarked to Mrs. Coningsby on the trying circumstances of his nephew's yet early[302] life; and exulted in the integrity with which he had passed so fiery an ordeal.

"Yes," returned she, "many begin their contest when he has finished his. But he has not escaped the marks!" and she shuddered while she wiped the starting tear from her eye.

"Man's contest," rejoined the Pastor, "is not finished till he grounds his arms in the grave. That our nephew has so soon commenced his combat; that he has so bravely resisted what has overcome more veteran spirits; is a sign that much remains for him to do. The soldiers of our heavenly captain, are not taught in vain: they must struggle and conquer until the end; and then they will receive their rest and their reward!"

"Hitherto," replied Mrs. Coningsby, with almost audible sobs, "his discipline has been severe indeed! but altered as he is, never did I behold affliction so dignified. His eyes, in their brightest happiness, never looked so lovely as last[303] night, in the wordless anguish of his soul."

"But I do;" cried Alice, "I lament the loss of all that was my former Louis! his light, ethereal step,—his look of radiance,—and his voice of such soul-entrancing gladness!—But now, his movements are slow; his cheek is wan and faded; and his voice is so full of pity, I could weep whenever he speaks."

"Give him time, my child," returned the Pastor; "the hand of recent sorrow is yet heavy on him. He must yield his tribute to Nature. Suffer him now, and Nature will reward us with an ample restoration of all his delighting powers."

Louis's entrance checked the reply of Alice. And now he was welcomed to the dear domestic breakfast table, with smiles, instead of the tears which on[304] the foregoing night, lingered in every eye until the hour of retirement.

During the meal Mr. Athelstone made the conversation cheerful, by turning it on general subjects, and particularly enlarging on Sir Anthony's improved manner of life. He had thrown aside all his old, reprehensible habits, and preferring the occasional society of his niece Cornelia, (who, in consequence of the gout flying about him, was now with him at Cheltenham,) his days passed in the equable current of domestic comfort and social respectability.

While the Pastor pursued this discourse, and Louis listened to him with evident pleasure, Alice contemplated her cousin's face and figure; and at last wondered within herself, how she could have thought him so greatly altered. If any change had taken place in his figure, it unquestionably was to its advantage. A certain martial dignity was added to its former pliant grace. It was[305] now a form where every god had seemed to have set his seal to shape the perfect man;—before, it was that of a beautiful youth,—the dawn of this checquered, but resplendent day!

If this were the case, it must then be his black garments, which had at first struck her with some melancholy idea of a change in his person as well as face! she scanned that face with equal scrutiny. To her poetic fancy, his still matchless smile played under the soft moon-light of his now pensive eyes, like the shadowed, yet scintillating wave of her native stream.

At the moment this romantic image crossed her mind, she descried a spot of a deeper hue than the rest, and of the form and tint of a faded leaf, upon his cheek.

"Dear Louis!" said she, pressing affectionately to his side, and putting her finger on the place; "what mark is[306] that?—It was not there when you left us?"

All her cousin's wonted bloom suffused that pale cheek, and obliterated the mark, as she uttered the question. It was the remains of the wound he had received there, in defending the life of Don Ferdinand.

"Do not enquire of all things, sweet Alice!" returned he, as he pressed her hand to his lips.

But he said it with an accent and a look so fraught with tenderness, and a something implied besides, that Ferdinand immediately occurred to her mind, though she knew not why, and casting down her eyes with a blush; she again thought within herself:—

Before the expiration of a week, he had communicated to the different members of the little circle, all that respec[307]tively most interested each. But it was only when alone with his revered uncle, that he laid open the undisguised history of all that had befallen him in his father's calamities and his own; the undisguised confession of his trials, his disappointments, and the present unnatural torpor of his soul.

The Pastor, with the gentleness of affection, and a knowledge that knew when to probe, to render the cure more radical, entered on all these discussions with wisdom and truth. He shewed Louis how mistaken had been his early conceptions of human nature; how idolatrous had been his estimation of beings, formed of the same dust and ashes as himself.

"I told you this from the first, my child!" said he; "and though your lips accorded, your spirit would not believe. But it is the error of most of us. We garnish finite man with the perfections of the infinite God. We fall down and[308] worship the image we have made. We pray to it, we rest on it. But we soon find our trust is in a piece of clay. It has ears, and hears not; eyes, and sees not; and hands that cannot help!—Yes, Louis, all earthly idols are little more than blocks of wood; which might have been secure staves to hold us on our way; but when elevated to shrines, we find them things of naught. Now, my son, if we view all that are born of woman as erring creatures like ourselves; and accordingly love and assist, pardon and sustain them; we shall support, and be supported, through this travelling pilgrimage, till we at last lay down our heads in the grave, at peace with all mankind. But, on the reverse, when we look for perfection, and meet error, we are shocked; we resent and abhor; we do not forgive, we will not excuse; and they become our enemies from despair, whom the tender charities of a Christian spirit might have preserved as friends, and in time,[309] persuaded to the hope of unerring purity!"

Louis acknowledged the truth of these observations. He had erred under them all, excepting that, of not knowing how to pardon; and there, his heart bore witness to itself, that he could forgive the hand that stabbed him.

"Yes, Sir;" replied he, "I know that in striving after excellence; to bear, and to forbear, is the duty of men on earth. Perfect virtue will be his happiness in Heaven."

"You sigh, very heavily, my dear Louis;" replied Mr. Athelstone, "while you acknowledge this!—But so right a judgement at so early an age, is cheaply purchased by the sweet uses of adversity!—you know I told you, in my first letter on the beginning of your misfortunes; that, may be you were only entered into a cloud, which would shed forth a gentle shower to refresh your virtues—and the event has proved it."[310] "But not with gentle showers!" replied Louis with a smile of anguish.

"No, my child," answered the Pastor, tenderly regarding him; "but had you not required it, they would not have been so heavy."

"I believe it, Sir!" replied Louis rising from his chair, "I was proud, and I was ambitious. The world reigned in my heart, when you thought it possessed by a better principle. I was ignorant of my own state, till I was made to see my own likeness in a mirror—But we will not speak further on it!" cried he, interrupting himself,—"It is over,—quite over;—buried deep, deep—beneath the walls of Tetuan!"

Louis had touched a string that made every chord in his heart vibrate; and, he quitted the venerable presence, to recover composure in the recollections of solitude.

CHAP. XVIII.

The letters from Morewick, which announced to Sir Anthony Athelstone, the return of his nephew, found the Baronet at Cheltenham, just recovering from a fit of the gout. He was seated in his great-arm chair, and Cornelia reading by his footstool, when the tidings were brought in. Under these circumstances, for either to set out on an immediate journey northward, was impossible; but the raptures of both were not less eloquent; and was expressed with boisterous joy, by the one; and the mild transport of perfect happiness, from the lips of the other.

Sir Anthony wrote to Morewick, that his physicians would allow him to set forward in a very short time; when six[312] horses should bring him with all speed to the banks of the Coquet. But this permission was not granted so soon as he expected; and, when it was accorded, the haste he made in travelling was so hostile to his convalescent state, that, within a stage of his own place of Athelstone-manor, he was seized with a relapse. Cornelia got him to the house, but no farther; the gout had now made prisoners of both feet; and he was laid upon his couch, for, perhaps a month to come, when she wrote to her cousin to tell him of this prevention to their progress.

The anticipated answer to this information was not disappointed. Louis set out for Athelstone. His reception there, was like that of the lost sheep being found; or the prodigal son, returned from his hopeless wanderings. The fatted calf was killed; and all the costly apparel brought forth, by the tenantry to honour the re-appearance of their master's future heir.[313] Sir Anthony fell on his neck; and the happy Cornelia, standing bright in her beauty, like the palladian goddess her form and character resembled, looked on him with a sister's love beaming through her tears.

Time flew in this dear domestic circle. Louis and Cornelia successively read, and conversed; and amused the good-humoured invalid, in every possible way. And what was less agreeable to the cousins, the neighbouring gentry were curious to renew their acquaintance with the young and always animating de Montemar; but who was now returned amongst them, a politician and a soldier. Some enjoyed his society, with the zest of highly intelligent minds. Others gathered from his observations, information and pleasure; while the rest (and some of the older sort,) listened, and questioned; and marvelled with an absurd wonder, at such extraordinary[314] knowledge in a man not yet four-and-twenty.

During his first visit to Athelstone, which was lengthened to more than a month, he received letters from Spain, from Martini and Ferdinand. The former told him, that he was still an unmolested occupier of the castle on the Guadalquivir. There was but one sentiment along its banks, with regard to him: lamentation for Ripperda, whom they still designated under the title of the Great Duke, while they accused the present ministry of Spain, of having forced him into rebellion. His dying in the arms of the church was a sufficient propitiation, in their eyes, for his short defection. But that was not enough for their love; and masses were daily said throughout Andalusia for the repose of his soul.

Martini's duty of charity proceeded in a manner equally grateful to the son of Ripperda. General ****, in Gibraltar, and Ismail Cheriff in Barbary, continued[315] zealous coadjutors in the good work; and many slaves were ransomed, who had since arrived in Spain, full of thanksgiving to the hands which gave them freedom.

Ferdinand's letter was of a less agreeable complexion. An air of restraint pervaded its communications; which induced Louis to believe that his friend did not wish to let him see the whole hostility of the Spanish court against his father's fame, and his own claims on the country. He wrote of armaments by sea and land. This could no longer excite its former interest in the mind of his correspondent. He added there were great schisms in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Queen; but there was one head acknowledged infallible by all parties, and that was Duke Wharton. He rode the government, as Jupiter did his cloud; and in the same invisible manner shot his thunderbolts; every body knowing whence the shaft came, but nobody daring to mention the name that launched it. How[316]ever, he was lately gone to Paris, to meet the Electress of Bavaria.

"I would, I might never read of him, or hear of him again!" exclaimed Louis, as he turned to the pages, which spoke of the Marquis Santa Cruz's journey into Italy, for the benefit of Marcella's health.

"She has never recovered her close attendance on the two wounded cavaliers at Ceuta," continued Ferdinand, "The life of so worthless a being as I am, may have been dearly purchased; but I will not say the same of my friend! However, Marcella will not own to this cause of her illness. She rather believes it to be a punishment laid on her, for her long resistance to the wishes of my father, for her entire seclusion from the world. This idea has fastened on her; and now all her petitions are to be fixed with our aunt, the abbess of the Ursalines."

Louis closed the letter at this passage. The form of Marcella was then before him. She whose bloom of health, he was[317] too sensible had in part been sacrificed for him! He recalled her as she used to sit, evening after evening, by his apparently unobserving side, in that sad chamber of suffering at Ceuta. In those hours, the bright moon of that clear atmosphere, shining through the solitary window, fell direct on her face. It was pale from watching; but her eyes were often fixed on the orb; and the expression of her countenance, ever reminded him of Milton's lines:

When he used to repeat these lines to himself in her presence, and gazing upon that form, which already appeared half angel; he did not sigh when they closed with the remembrance of the vow,[318] urged on her by her father. Why then did separation make a change? Why did her image haunt him? Why did his heart feel as if it had received another death stroke, when he read it was now her own repeated wish, to retire into the convent of the Ursalines?

His bosom's deepest grief whispered the solution to this mystery. While his father lived in exile, he was conscious to no feeling that did not point at him. That absorbing interest gone, the repressed sympathies of his heart streamed towards their attraction; and he found that he loved, and had most inexplicably dared to hope! But this letter of Ferdinand's extinguished the vain chimera. He was made sensible that the object of his tenderest thoughts, had never been more to him than a Sister of Mercy; that her unconscious eyes had never looked a dearer language; that she was now passing from him, by her own wish for ever!

"Then be it so!" said he, striking his[319] breast; "I deserve this new misery, for my most extravagant presumption."

A few weeks after the receipt of these letters, Sir Anthony Athelstone was so completely recovered, as to meditate the transfer of himself and family to Bamborough. Mr. Athelstone's little household had been some time removed to Lindisfarne; and the prospect of the whole party being reunited under the venerable roof, was impatiently anticipated by them all. But the Baronet being one in the domestic circle of the Pastorage, was to be yet further postponed. The King had died the beginning of the month; and Sir Anthony was suddenly summoned to town, by order of his successor George the Second, to receive His Majesty's commands respecting the civil management of his northern counties. Other great land-holders, north of the Humber, had received the same writ; and without demur, the Baronet set forward with his nearest[320] neighbour, to obey the summons of their new King.

Louis and Cornelia had their uncle's permission to proceed immediately to Bamborough; and either invite the family of the Pastorage to be their guests till his return, or if they preferred it cross over and take up their temporary abode at Lindisfarne.

It was a fine morning in the month of June, when they set off from Athelstone manor. Lorenzo, who would never lose sight of his master, rode by the side of the carriage. The usual out-riders kept their stations before and behind.

The cousins being together alone for so many hours, various subjects passed in review before them; and none of deeper interest, than the mutual attachment of Ferdinand and Alice.

"I wish," continued Cornelia, "that my sister could have pitied, without loving him."[321] "But is it not natural to love what we pity?"

"And may we not admire what we pity?" inquired Louis, the secret of whose heart was prompting these questions.

"In some cases," returned Cornelia; "but surely not in Alice's, when she first knew Don Ferdinand. She saw by his manner, that he was a man whose conscience was ill at ease; and how she could fix her pure affections on one his father acknowledged to have been very blame-worthy, has ever been an inexplicable wonder to me."

"But his melancholy was contrition for his offences, Cornelia," replied her cousin; "and Alice, admiring the principle, on your own argument, loved him."

"It may be so!" replied she, with a smile. "But were I to chuse, it should be an unsullied tablet!"

Louis shook his head. "Then, my[322] sweet cousin, you must go to heaven for it!"

"You are an amiable sceptic, my Cornelia; and, Heaven grant that time may not be the teacher to you, that it has been to me!"

"Louis," answered she, with a tender seriousness; "will you not be offended if I make a candid reply to that invocation?"

"Then," replied she, "had you not deserted your youthful standard of female perfection—" She paused, and feared to go on. Louis completed the sentence.

"You would say, I should not have been disappointed in the Countess Altheim!"—A heightened colour was on his cheek as he spoke.

"Forgive me!" cried his cousin; "I was indelicate and cruel in making the reference."[323] "Not cruel," returned he; "for she is no more to me than the recollection of a hideous dream. My imagination, not my heart, was the victim of her delusions."

"Ah, Louis!" cried Cornelia, again forgetting herself in the earnestness of her remarks; "It was something like your infatuation for Duke Wharton. My uncle always called him a splendid mischief; and, happily, the outlawry against him has banished him this country for ever. But you have long been convinced of his worthlessness; and, I thank Heaven for your second escape from similar delusions!"

Louis did not answer, but gratefully put his cousin's hand to his lips. She resumed.

"Indeed, when you wrote of her to my uncle, and under your best impressions too you dwelt so much on her beauty and accomplishments only, and her preference for you, that we could no way make ourselves esteem her, or believe[324] her capable of making you finally happy. Dare I venture to go on, Louis?"

"Yes; you are a gentle physician!" replied he, with a forced smile; "and man's vanity needs a probe!"

"Now, the Lady Marcella!" continued Cornelia. Louis prevented himself from starting. "You wrote little of her, and you have said less; but it was always of her virtues; and in such few words, we saw her fairer, than the proud beauty of Vienna." Again Cornelia paused, and looked on her cousin, whose face was now bent on his hand. She rather hesitatingly proceeded. "We wished and thought, that had it not been for the vow anticipated by Ferdinand, you might have found her nearer to your first ideas of female excellence, and repaid her goodness to you with your love."

Louis did not speak, but still kept his head in its reclining position. She saw the struggle of a suppressed sigh, which would have been a sufficient response;[325] and, grieved at the pain she had unconsciously excited, she tenderly pressed his hand.

"Louis," said she, in a tremulous voice, "could I have conjectured this—But I begin to think I have a very inhuman heart!" and the tears sprung to her eyes as she spoke.

"Not so;" replied he, looking up with a serene, though sad, countenance; "it has all of human softness, without its weakness. And, that I may emulate you, my Cornelia, there are some subjects I would rather avoid."

Cornelia did not answer this, nor ask another question: it declared itself. And turning to the other side of the carriage, while she gently pressed his hand, affected to gaze out of the window; but it was to allow her tears to flow unnoticed down her cheeks. Though she had never known the passion whose struggles she pitied, she loved the sufferer, dear as a brother; and, at that moment, would[326] have surrendered her own blameless life, if, by that means, she could have purchased the happiness of Louis with the angelic Marcella.

CHAP. XIX.

During these conferences, the day gradually declined into red billowy clouds, till the whole heavens were overcast; and the pregnant vapour hung on every hill. A chill, unnatural to the season of the year, pervaded the air, while at times, a steam of sulphureous vapour descended from the sky, and rendered the atmosphere hot to suffocation. With the gathering clouds the evening soon deepened into night; and, in the midst of a succession of wide moors, this fearful canopy developed itself to the travellers, in all the horrors of a tempest. It was profoundly dark, though the hour could not be much beyond the time of twilight. But the violence of all the seasons, seemed accumulated in this tre[328]mendous storm. Thunder and lightning, sleet and rain, and furious hurricanes of wind, menaced the travellers in every blast. The postilions lost their way. Sometimes plunging into plashes of water; at other times, struggling in a morass; but, at every step encountering some new obstacle, and some new danger.

Several hours passed in this dreadful wandering over the dreary fells; and the yawning coal-pits which were scattered over their bosom, were not the least objects of fear to the bewildered drivers.

Louis became alarmed for the health, as well as the immediate personal safety of his cousin; for owing to the frequent narrow escapes of the carriage, from over-turning in the difficult and trackless road, he let the windows down, for fear of the glass injuring her, in case of an accident. He drew up the blinds in their stead; but, from their construction, little of the outward weather could be[329] excluded; and the whole weight of the storm drove in upon her, till she was wet through. He had covered her with his coat; but all could not shield her from the deluge and piercing blast of that furious night. She shivered, and shrunk close into the corner of the carriage, in spite of her resolution not to distress him, by shewing herself affected by what was hopeless of remedy till the morning light should shew them where they were.

In the midst of this compulsory resignation, the carriage made a violent rebound, and stuck fast in the mud behind, while the horses plunged and reared with such strength, as to threaten its instant over-turn in the morass.

Lorenzo dismounted, and throwing open the door, Louis leaped out, and taking Cornelia in his arms, who was almost fainting from exhaustion, he carried her out of the reach of the wheels and refractory horses. One of the[330] servants approached him at the moment, and told him the accident was occasioned by the breast of one of the leaders striking against the angle of a stone-hovel. It was a miserable, uninhabited shed; but might give some shelter to Miss Coningsby, till they saw what could be done with the carriage.

Revived at hearing of any refuge from the fury of the elements, Cornelia exerted herself to obey the suggestions of the servant; and Louis, equally glad of so providential a shelter, supported her tottering steps through the muddy ground. The hovel appeared of considerable extent, from the length of wall they had to grope along, before they reached the entrance, for door it had none. Louis bent under the low rafter, and leading Cornelia in, found his way obstructed by heaps of dried turf. On one of these heaps, she proposed seating herself, till her cousin had enquired after the injury of the horse, and given his[331] judgment on what was best to be done for the extrication of the carriage.

Louis knew her too well, to fear that solitude and darkness alone could create any alarm in her mind; and, having seen her harassed spirits a little revived by the comparative security of the place, he had just consented to quit her for a short time, when Lorenzo re-entered with a glimmering lamp he had rescued from the carriage. All the others had been extinguished in succession, by the storm; and this was following their fate, when the prompt Italian seized it from its hook, and brought it in to light a few turfs, and warm Cornelia.

She took it, and dismissing her cousin and Lorenzo to their exertions without, with her own unpractised hands, she gathered some of the moor-fuel into a distant corner from the rest, and soon spread a cheering light and glow through the dreary habitation. Lorenzo ran in with a flask of oil from one of the postil[332]lions' pockets, to replenish her lamp; and he answered her anxious enquiries, by saying, that the wounded horse was loosened from the harness, and his master was then examining the injury. After this information, he left her.

While the group without, were raising the carriage from the bog into which it appeared to sink the deeper after every attempt at extrication, Cornelia sat, anxiously attending to their alternate voices of hope, and the disappointing plunges of the vehicle into the treacherous soil. In the midst of this solicitude, she thought she heard sounds of another import; and listening, found they were repeated low and heavily, as from one in a dying extremity. She turned her head in the direction whence they came; and, as she held her breath to hear more distinctly, the moans became louder, and drew her eye to a narrow door-way in the side of the intermediate mud-wall, at some distance from where she sat.—[333] Without once considering there might be danger to herself, in exposing herself alone to the human being, or beings, she might find there, she thought only of succouring the distress those sounds indicated; and taking up her lamp, made her way over the scattered turf, to the miserable half-shut door.

It let her into a part of the hovel, even more dismal than the one she had left; for here was the confusion and stench of old worm-eaten sheep-skins; broken tar-tubs; and other implements of the shepherd's life, lying about in rust and disorder. In the middle of the apartment, something dark was spread on the floor. From that wretched bed the moans proceeded. Probably the poor tenant of this lonely sheep-cote, lay perishing there, under the toil of his occupation; without the support of necessary nourishment, or the comfort of a companion to soothe him in the last moments of over-tasked nature![334] She stepped gently towards the object of her pity. As she drew near, she saw the bed was a heap of these dingy fleeces, half covered with a cloak, on which lay the suffering person.

Cornelia bent over it; and holding the lamp, so as to distinguish what was beneath, beheld, not the squallid shape of poverty and comfortless old age, but a man in the garb of a gentleman, and with one of the noblest forms that ever met her sight. His dress was disordered, and clotted with the slime of the morass; but his figure, whose contour she thought she had never seen equalled, needed no embellishment to shew its consummate elegance, though now motionless in the torpor of approaching death.

Cornelia's astonishment was not so great as to supersede the active exercise of the benevolence which brought her to his side. She bent down, and placing the lamp on the ground, with her trembling hands attempted to turn[335] the face of the dying person, from the stifling wool in which it was now sunk. When she had accomplished what she wished, her pitying admiration was not less attracted to that face, than it had been to the figure of the unhappy sufferer. It was as pale and motionless as marble; and as perfect in every line of manly lineament, as the finest statue that ever lay under the chizel of the sculptor. A majesty, almost more than human, was stampt in the brow, on which her eyes were rivetted.

A deep groan broke the fixture of his lips. It was that of pain; and she took up the lamp, to see if she could find its immediate cause. She then saw that where his waistcoat was open, the linen on his breast was stained and stiff with blood. His before tranquil features, which had appeared fixed in death, were agitated by an evident sense of acute suffering. She put her hand[336] upon that part of his linen, where the blood-stain was the widest, and in the act, she thought she felt a gaping wound. He shrunk under the touch, and convulsively opened his eyes. They were shut as suddenly, and in a low voice, he hardly articulated—

"In a wretched place," replied Cornelia, "but with those who only wait the morning light to bear you to one of comfort."

On the first sounds of her voice, the sufferer appeared to struggle to bear the light with his eyes; but it was beyond their power. He tried to speak:—

"If I live—" said he. But a sudden agony rushing through his frame, arrested the rest; and turning his face again upon the dark pillow, Cornelia thought that moment was his last.

She clasped her hands, in the wordless sympathy of human nature. She was then brought through the horrors of the[337] still raging tempest, at that dismal hour of night, to this lonely hovel, to close the eyes of a forlorn stranger!—To perform the last offices to the beloved son or husband of some tender mother or doating wife, who must "long look for him who never would return!"

"Louis, Louis!" cried she, in the piteous accents of one calling for an assistance they needed, but despaired of its bringing help. Louis heard the cry, and the tone struck him with an alarm that instantly brought him into the hovel. Lorenzo followed his master, and both rushed through the chamber in which she was not to be found, into the one whence the light gleamed. She pointed, without being able to speak, to the heap on the floor. Seeing her so overcome, instead of approaching it, Louis put his arm round her waist to support her. Lorenzo stepped towards the wretched bed, and the rays of the lamp resting[338] upon the marks of blood, he started back, and exclaimed:—

Cornelia gasped at this enunciation of his actual death; and Louis, while he held her faster to his heart, instinctively moved towards the terrific object. Her feet readily obeyed the humane impulse of his; and sliding down on her knee by the side of the motionless stranger, she ventured to put her hand on his, expecting to feel the chill of death.

"He is warm!" cried she, looking up in the face of her cousin. He had caught a glimpse of the figure as it lay, and she saw him pale and trembling, while putting away Lorenzo, who leaned over to assist in raising the dying man, he approached close to the bed. He bent to the head that was smothered up in the wool, and touching it with an emotion in his soul he had only felt once before, he turned that lifeless face upwards. He[339] did not gaze on it a moment. His nerveless hands let go their hold, and it would have fallen back into its loathsome pillow, had not the watchful care of Cornelia caught it on her arm.

"My God! my God!" exclaimed he, as recoiling from the bed, he hid his face in his hands; "to what am I reserved?"

Cornelia did not move from her position, but her eyes were now fixed on her cousin. The emotions of his mind shook his frame to convulsion, though he gave no second utterance to his thoughts.

"Who was it then, whose deathful face now lay on her arm?" She had seen, by her cousin's countenance, on the first view of the sufferer, that he knew him; and she now contemplated the silent agonies of a more than common grief!—Her hand instinctively moved to the heart of the stranger.[340] "Lorenzo," said she, in a low voice; as if alike afraid to wake the dead, or to disturb the living; "feel! surely there is a pulse!"

Lorenzo obeyed her; but not so gently as her tender touch; and pressing likewise heavily on the body, as he leaned over to examine, the sufferer started in Cornelia's arms, and murmured a few inarticulate sounds. Louis heard them, as a voice from the dead; and springing forward, was again at his side.

"He is wounded, but he lives, Cornelia!" cried he, "we must search his wounds, and he may yet be saved!"

"Who is he?" asked Cornelia, in a tone that echoed the deep interest of his own.

"He is my friend," answered Louis. But he checked himself from saying more, for his heart smote him with the true response: "my bitterest enemy!"

Heavy groans succeeded the few half[341]uttered sounds from the lips of Wharton; for it was he that Louis recognized in this lone abode of ruffianly murder; and finding that as he and Lorenzo attempted to raise him, the symptoms of pain were always most acute when he appeared to press on the left shoulder; Louis concluded that on that spot was the principal injury. Though the sufferer was evidently sensible to bodily anguish, his other faculties were too confused to shew any perception of what was now passing around him.

On examining farther, which his anxious attendants did with the tenderest care, they found his shoulder dislocated, and a frightful wound in his breast, made by some jagged instrument. The blood was staunched over it by the cold of the night. Louis had no sooner removed the stiffened linen, and a broad blue ribbon, part of which had been stabbed into the wound, than the blood began to flow afresh. Cornelia shuddered as the pure[342] crimson trickled over the hand of her cousin. He shuddered also, but it was from a different reflection. She gave him a cambrick handkerchief from her neck, to well up what she feared might be the last effort of life. The heart's surgery was then in the hands of Louis; and by the time he had bound up the wound, and composed the shoulder, so as to produce the least possible pain until he could reach proper assistance, a servant came in from without, to say the carriage was brought into a tolerable state for proceeding.

On Lorenzo going out to examine, he saw the information was correct; and returning, told his master the extreme violence of the storm having subsided, one of the out-riders had found his way back with tidings of a secure track. Another had been yet more successful, having brought a herdsman, whose cottage he had lit upon; and arousing him, by a promise of reward, had engaged him to guide the[343] carriage over the waste into the direct northern road.

On inquiry of this man, Louis found they were now in the midst of Wansbeck Moor, a terrible wilderness of bituminous slime, exhausted coal-pits, and pasture land, so marshy, that it was rather poison than aliment to the cattle which were so miserably provided, as to be turned on it to graze. But as it possessed a few causeways of firmer texture, which the wretched herdsmen had raised for their own convenience, such tracks were sometimes temptations to less practised travellers to use as cross roads; and often, as might be expected, led them astray, or into no very insignificant nightly perils. This had been the temptation and the issue to the postilions of de Montemar's travelling equipage.

When all was prepared in the coach, the wounded Duke was carried into it between Louis and Lorenzo. None knew who he was, but the bleeding heart of[344] him who had once been his friend. At the unavoidable changes of position, his sufferings became so grievous, that every sound went to the soul of Cornelia; who now felt both for the invalid and her cousin, whose interest in his recovery, she saw, not in words, but in the pale cheek and searching eye with which he composed every thing that could yield him ease.

In her discourses with Louis concerning Germany and Spain, she had heard him speak of estimable persons in both countries; but who of them all, was now before her, she could form no conjecture; for though he spoke of several, with considerable regard, yet he had not given her to understand that he had conceived a friendship for any one of them, so exclusive as that which was now manifested in his silent but ceaseless attentions to the noble stranger. That he was noble in other respects, besides the stamp of nature, was apparent to her, from the[345] ribbon of some order which hung on his breast under his linen. There was a badge suspended to it, which Louis concealed the moment he had extricated the ribbon, by rolling them up, and putting them, without an observation, into his own bosom.

The travellers were now in the carriage, and the rain having ceased, the wind that remained did the service of dispersing the clouds, so that the moon sometimes appeared, and Louis had the hope of reaching Morewick soon after sun-rise. The dell in the Moor, from which they started, was not more than three hours journey to Warkworth; a little town, about two miles from the hall; and he gave orders, that in passing through it, a surgeon should be called up to follow the carriage to Morewick.

As they journeyed forward with the stranger's head in the lap of Cornelia, and Louis supporting his shoulder on his knees; her cousin told her, in a sup[346]pressed tone, that it was necessary for a time, the invalid should remain in ignorance that he was at Morewick-hall, and who were his present attendants. "Therefore," continued he, "your Christian charity must take charge of his comforts; and as you love my peace, neither ask his name, not let him hear that of Louis de Montemar!"

"Not ask his name!" repeated Cornelia, looking down upon the deathly face on her lap; "what has he done to be ashamed of it?"

Louis turned almost of the same ashy hue: "do men never seek concealment but from infamy?"

"I would not think so ill of any man you could love;" replied she, "and certainly not of this;" her eye again falling on the finely composed features before her; "for here the finger of heaven seems to have written true nobleness."

"Cornelia;" returned he, "when we obey the commands of Him who told of[347] the Samaritan binding up the wounds of the stranger, and bade us do likewise; he did not say, inquire of his virtues first; but behold his misery, and relieve it!"

There was an air of reproof in this remark; a something of asperity, that Cornelia could not understand; and instead of its raising doubts in her mind relative to the character of the stranger, she cast down her eyes in silence, to conjecture what she had done to merit such unusual harshness from the unerring candour of her beloved cousin. The features her meditating gaze dwelt on, were to her an unimpeachable witness of good within. But what would she have felt, could she have been told at that moment, that the object of Louis's distracted thoughts, and her own then unqualified pity and admiration, was the delusive, treacherous, and out-lawed Duke Wharton!

CHAP. XX.

On the travellers' arrival at Morewick, the orders of its present temporary master were strictly obeyed. Duke Wharton was laid in an airy, but remote chamber; and a surgeon, with every proper assistant, in attendance day and night. The Duke's shoulder was set, and his wound probed. The danger of the latter arose rather from the nature of the weapon by which it was inflicted, than from its depth or direction; but his life hung on the termination of a fever, which, though it did not at first amount to absolute delirium, was continually hovering on its verge.

For swine time he remained in a strange dreamy sort of inanity, which threatened his wound with mortification. But no watching nor hopelessness, could weary[349] the cares of Cornelia. And though she was not the only attendant on his comforts, in his most trance-like distractions, he had yet perception enough to appreciate the tenderness of her hand, when it placed his pillows; and the gentleness of her voice prevailed, when no other could induce him to obey the orders of his medical attendants.

Louis also hovered near; and the medicines passed through his hand to that of Cornelia, when the burning lip of Wharton turned from all other persuasions. As the fever gained ground, his delirium became absolute. Yet it was never violent, but rather uttered itself in low and half articulate murmurs. In its fits, he often muttered the names of de Montemar and Ripperda. When she first heard the latter, her eye instinctively turned upon her cousin, who sat behind the bed curtain; and such an expression of horror was then in his countenance, that it struck her with a nameless terror[350] of some past or coming evil. Louis soon after quitted the room, and he did not return any more that day.

The next morning brought him intelligence that surprised, and increased the present agitated state of his mind. There was pleasure in it; but the accompanying circumstances were of such mingled nature, he could hardly trust his heart to say, "I am glad!"

This surprise was a letter from the Marquis Santa Cruz, dated from Harwich. It requested Louis to join him there without loss of time, to be the conductor of the Marchioness and Lady Marcella to the hospitable shores of Lindisfarne. The Marquis had a particular mission to the Spanish Embassador in London; therefore, could not himself proceed so far northward as the Holy Island, before he had seen that minister. Besides, his daughter's fatigues, from a very boisterous voyage, made his stay at Harwich a little excusable; and there he[351] would remain until his friend should arrive, and relieve him of the care of the two dearest objects of his anxiety, his wife and her invalid child.

On Louis turning to the date of this letter, he found it had been written several days, and must have been unduly delayed in its progress. No time, therefore was to be lost in welcoming his best friends; and, above all, the friends of his father's memory, to the land which, he trusted, was now to be his undisturbed home. And, having dispatched a messenger to prepare his uncle at Lindisfarne for his speedy arrival with the illustrious Spaniards, before he communicated to Cornelia the necessity for his temporary absence, he begged an audience of the Duke's surgeon.

"Sir," said he, "if a material change does not take place in the course of eight[352] and forty hours, he will not be alive the day after!"

He passed along the silent galleries, for it was now a very late hour, to the chamber of his friend.

"Wharton!" cried he, as he stood alone by the side of the Duke's couch, and gazed, as he thought, for the last time on his face; "Is it thus we are to part?" He took the inanimate hand; and, wringing it between his, held it there for a long time in the agony of his mind.

"O blighted affection! Tenderness mourning that man is frail! Here stand, and feel that thine is the canker worm that eats into the heart!"

The unconscious violence with which Louis clasped the hand of him he once[353] loved and trusted, roused the dormant faculties of Wharton to some perception. His eye opened; but it turned vacantly and without recognition on the anguished face of his friend; and, heavily sighing, he fell back on the pillow.

"Here, vanity of man, and pride of intellect, behold thyself!" cried the inward soul of Louis, smiting his breast. "Here is all that woman ever admired, or that man envied! All that betrayed him to dishonour! All that bound me to deplore him, and to love him to the end! Wharton,—farewell!"

Louis could not utter a dearer appellative, than the low breathing of that ever-beloved name; and, with a death-chill at his heart, he pressed the unconscious hand to his lips, and rushed from the room.

Cornelia met him in the anti-chamber. She observed his extraordinary agitation; and, without a preface, which he had not sufficient self-command even to attempt,[354] he informed her of his summons to the south-east coast, and of the probable event before his return.

"Cornelia," said he, "to what a scene may I leave you! But should the last extremity come,—should he then be sensible, and he chance to name me,—tell him under whose roof he dies,—and he will then know he may die in peace!"

"Louis," returned she, "you do indeed leave me to an awful task! I cannot regard one you appear to love so much, with a common compassion. Trust me, and tell me who he is?"

"I dare not.—On his life, short as it may be, I dare not," repeated her cousin. "Too soon it may be revealed, and then you will respect my reasons. And, for his knowledge of where he is; only in the case of his naming me, with the anguish that is now wringing my heart for him,—only, in that case, say, his last friend was Louis de Montemar!"

"Your emotions are terrible!" cried[355] Cornelia, clinging to her cousin's arm; "What do you leave me to suppose, by such inscrutable mystery? Oh, Louis, except when speaking of your father, I never saw you shaken thus!"

"On your bosom's peace, my sweet Cornelia!" replied he, "inquire no further. Should he be no more, preserve the sacred remains till I return. They at least, shall sleep with my ancestors.—There is no enmity in the grave."

The morning after that of Louis's departure for Harwich, the Duke awoke to a perfect perception of his state, his wounds, and his danger. He remembered every event which had brought him into that perilous condition. His secret missions from the Kings of Spain and of France, to examine into the aptness of the public mind in Scotland, and in the border counties of England, to receive a foreign army, headed by the exiled prince. To do this unsuspected, and to avoid the forfeiture of his head, should[356] he be found in England after his attainder, he disguised himself as a German merchant at Hamburgh, where he engaged two resolute men of the country to be his servants. They served the seeming trader with sufficient fidelity during his Scottish progress. He came southward; and now he had to recall what terminated his first day's journey. He recollected being thrown from his restive horse in the storm and darkness of Wansbeck Fells; also, that the accident dislocated his shoulder; and that his two servants, by his own orders, had taken him into the hovel, whose sudden discovery in the lightning, had frightened his horse.—In attempting to set the dislocated limb, which he had also directed them to do, their awkwardness occasioned him so much pain, that he fainted under the unsuccessful operation. When he recovered from his swoon, which he did with an extraordinary sickness at the heart; he put his hand to his side, where the peculiar[357] sensation was, and found it weltering in his blood. It was not needful for him to find no voice return an answer to his immediate call upon his servants. The previous silence, uninterrupted by any thing but the raging storm without, confirmed his suspicion that the villains had given him his death wound; and were fled with the booty. He, however, thrust the linen of his shirt into the wound; and lay half dead with pain and exhaustion, till all was lost in insensibility. He knew nothing from that hour, until he now opened his eyes from a refreshing sleep. He saw himself on a comfortable bed, instead of the wretched litter on which he had believed himself left to perish! He was then in the hands of some benevolent person!—But how brought, or where resident, he could not guess.

At this moment of conjecture Cornelia heard him move, and gently put aside the curtain. Her eyes met the surprised[358] fixture of his.—But it was no longer with the glare of fever, with the wild flashes of delirium; the light of recovered reason was there, and the inquiring gaze of gratitude. If she had thought his face perfect in manly beauty, while it was insensible, or only moved by a distempered spirit; what were her impressions, when his intelligent mind was restored to all its powers, and it shone out in those eyes, and in that countenance?

Even her self-controuled spirit, trembled before the resistless influence; and with a failing voice, she answered his respectful demand of where he was.

"You are under the roof of a gentleman who is my kinsman, and who has left you under my care."

"Your present critical state," replied she, "does not permit me to answer you that question."

An immediate apprehension that he[359] was a prisoner, shot through the mind of the Duke.

"I am then in the house of an enemy!" cried he, starting on his arm; "and your benevolence, Madam, would spare me the truth!"

"No," answered Cornelia, astonished at the suspicion; or, rather, gazing on him with renewed anxiety, for fear his delirium was returning. "He is your friend—your anxious friend. And, while he enjoined me not to mention his name in your hearing; he likewise refused me, and all in this house, the knowledge of yours."

"That is sufficient!" replied Wharton, "Madam, whoever your friend may be, this caution does indeed manifest him to be mine. I am without guess on the subject; nor will I seek to penetrate what he wishes to conceal. But you may answer me, how I came under this generous care!"

Cornelia briefly related, (though with[360]out betraying whence she came, or whither she was going;) the events of the Moor.

"Then I am still in Northumberland?" replied Wharton. He paused, and added; "there are some names I would inquire after in this county, but—" and he paused again. "It is better I should not. My last hours shall not injure any man."

There were sensations within him, that made him murmur to himself the concluding sentence. And Cornelia, seeing, by the sudden lividness which overspread his so lately re-animated countenance, that some unhappy change was recurring; rose from her chair, and summoned his medical assistants.

They were closed up for nearly an hour, with their patient. At the door of the anti-room, Cornelia met them; and, with a dawning hope in her heart, to which his recovery to reason had given[361] birth, she hastily inquired their opinion of the invalid.

"That he may last till to-morrow morning, but not beyond it," replied the superior surgeon.

She heard no more; though his colleagues spoke also, giving their various reasons for this judgement. She stood benumbed; but shewed no other sign of the blow on her heart, while bowing their heads, the party left her. She then walked steadily to her own chamber; and there, throwing herself on her knees before heaven, petitioned for its mercy to heal so prized a friend of her beloved cousin.

She was soon after summoned to the side of the dying stranger, by one of the female attendants who waited in his anti-room. He requested the lady he had seen, to have the goodness to grant him the use of pen and ink, and to allow[362] him to see her once more. Cornelia took what he required, and hastened to his apartment.

He was propped up in the bed, by the attentive hands of Lorenzo; who remained, by his directions, after the entrance of Cornelia. The paleness of watching and anxiety was in her face. The flush of pain, mental and bodily, on Wharton's. She drew near him.

"Noble lady," said he, "your physicians are honest men. They have told me, my hours are numbered; and, that I have a short time in which to express my thanks to your humanity; and to make up my accounts with the world. Will you indulge me with the means?"

And he stretched his hands towards the writing materials. Cornelia relinquished them to his eager grasp; though, at the same time, she expressed her dread of the exertion increasing his danger.

"This done!" replied he, "an hour[363] more or less, in arriving at the goal, is of no consequence.—Delay me, sweet lady," continued he, observing her reluctance; "and you may deprive me of the victor's crown!"

Cornelia gave him the pen; and bowing gratefully, he began to write. She moved to withdraw, but looking up with a beseeching eye, he entreated her, as well as Lorenzo, to remain, to bear witness that the papers he was writing were penned by his own hand.

She retook her place, and soon found her presence necessary; for he was often faint under his task; and, after taking a restorative from her hand, in spite of all her persuasions to the contrary, recommenced it.

As he closed one packet, to begin another, she laid her hand upon his arm. "For the sake of all you revere in earth and heaven, desist!" cried she, "this perseverance is suicide."

"No," replied he, "there is but one[364] man in the world, who could act by me, as your kinsman has done! And this deed is my last act of duty to him and to myself."

By the Duke's orders, Lorenzo sealed the first packet, and returned it into his hand. No one saw how he directed it. The second packet was then sealed, and superscribed, and both put into a cover. This was also sealed, and when directed by the Duke's hand, he put it into that of Cornelia. She glanced upon the superscription.

She read it, and for the first time in his sight, her eyes gushed out with tears. The burning hand, which then gratefully pressed her's as he relinquished the packet, would be cold and motionless, when she should break that seal![365] Human nature, pity, admiration! all struck at once upon her heart, and she trembled, almost to sinking.

The Duke observed her emotion, and made a sign to Lorenzo to withdraw. Both his hands now clasped her's, as with his dying eyes he gazed on her.

"Lady," said he, "when you open that packet, you will know that he who you now honour with your pity, was a being to be condemned; but, he trusts, to be pardoned also! I am a man, and I erred; but I am a Christian, and have contrition. When you know me, remember me with one of those tears, and my conscious soul will disdain the world's persisted obloquy!"

Cornelia wept the more at these words; but she strove to speak; and to gently extricate her hand from a grasp, which already seemed the convulsive pressures of death.

"You will tell de Montemar," cried he in great emotion; and in that moment, of[366] what he thought mortal fainting, forgetting his caution:—"You will tell him——" he paused, and struggled for a few seconds—then gasping—relinquished the hand he held, and fell back upon his pillow.

When she recovered, she found herself in another room, and supported by her uncle of Lindisfarne.

"Your fears are premature, my dear child;" cried the venerable man, as soon as she opened her eyes; "Lorenzo has just been in to tell me, your invalid guest is now recovering from the swoon in which you left him; and that the surgeons are in his chamber."

"Heaven has brought you my revered uncle!" cried she, "to sustain me. You will see him?"

Indeed, as soon as he received Louis's[367] few lines, imparting his indispensable absence, and obligation to leave Cornelia to take charge of his invalid friend; the good Pastor judged, that whoever this nameless person might be, and for whatever reasons his reception at Morewick was to be generally concealed; yet it was his duty not to allow his niece to be with servants alone, in the distressing scene which the agitated letter of his nephew confessed might be anticipated during his absence. Notwithstanding all Louis's caution in his first communications respecting his foreign friend; and his subsequent reserve while continuing his apologies from the same cause, for his and Cornelia's detention at Morewick; Mr. Athelstone drew his own conclusions, that there was more unexplained, than the fantastic mystery of a foreigner wishing to travel incognito. He knew Louis's mind too well, to believe that he would adopt with such carefulness of concealment, so trifling a whim. He was convinced that[368] danger to one party at least, hung over the discovery; and in his guesses, he was not very remote from the truth. The more his suspicions gained ground, from the style of his nephew's last letter, the more he saw the propriety of acting in defiance of Louis's positive request, that he would allow none of the Lindisfarne family to interrupt the charitable duties of Cornelia. The earnestness of this injunction; (for it was put, so as not to admit of a discussion;) confirmed Mr. Athelstone in an idea, that peril was attached to the entertainer of this mysterious personage; and resolving to protect his nephew and his niece in the possible dilemma into which humanity on one side, and romantic generosity on the other, might involve their safeties, he ordered a post chaise to await him on the opposite shore. Without imparting any thing of these reflections or motives to Mrs. Coningsby, he left his directions with her and Alice, to prepare every[369] comfort for the expected reception of the Marchioness and her daughter. Busy in the hospitable bustle of such arrangements, the happy mother and her favourite child, saw Mr. Athelstone depart to rejoin Cornelia, without a suspicion of the nature of his errand. He alighted in the hall at Morewick, at the very moment Lorenzo had found Miss Coningsby lying insensible in the room of the stranger, who at the instant seemed beyond all future pain. She was brought into the next chamber, and delivered into the arms of her uncle; while Lorenzo recalled the medical assistants to his master's friend: and the result he communicated, as soon as the Duke breathed, to the benevolent inquiries of the Pastor.

When Cornelia had sufficiently recovered from her swoon to speak with composure, she related with brief eloquence, all that had passed between her and the invalid since his restored senses. Unconsciously to herself, her heart spoke; and[370] she ended her communications by affirming, that notwithstanding his acknowledgement of errors, and the secrecy that involved him, she must believe him to be a man not less illustrious in the nobleness of his life, than in birth and station.

Mr. Athelstone listened attentively to all she had to say and to conjecture about the object of their discourse. She always distinguished him, by the approving and pitying appellation of the noble sufferer; and the penetration of her uncle, soon discovered, that his niece was no longer an impartial speaker.

"Cornelia," replied he, "I perceive you have no suspicion, who this noble sufferer may be?"

"But I have. I recognise him in every word you have uttered, except his repentance; and that may be yet the salutation of Iscariot!"

"My uncle! what do you mean?"[371] "I mean to speak of one," returned the Pastor, "whose heart was lifted up because of his beauty; and he corrupted his wisdom, by reason of his brightness; and where we should have found light, there was darkness, and the mouth of the grave!"

Cornelia sunk into a seat. "Sir," cried she, "you terrify me with an unutterable apprehension! If he be what you suppose, you are a Christian minister! Go to him, in this his last hour; and save him if it be possible, from the death whence there is no recall!"

Her hands were clasped over her face, as she pronounced the last words. Lorenzo at the same moment appeared at the door; and beckoning Mr. Athelstone, the pious man left the room, with the intention, if Duke Wharton yet breathed, to obey the prayer of his niece, in exhorting him to a sincere repentance.

CHAP. XXI.

On the evening of the second day after his departure from Morewick, Louis found himself clasped to the veteran bosom of Santa Cruz; ardently embraced by Ferdinand; and caressed with maternal fondness, by the enraptured Marchioness.

"We are come to live amongst you for a long time;" cried she, "to seek those blessings of health at Lindisfarne for my beloved Marcella, which her brother found so abundantly."

Louis assured her of the happiness such an intention would bring to his family; and he soon read in the looks of Ferdinand, that it was as a privileged lover, he was now returning to the feet of Alice. The present grief which Louis[373] had in the depths of his heart, he hid there, and smiled his congratulations to the animated eyes of his friend.

"Our Marcella," said the Marquis, "is suffering under sorrow as well as illness. While I went to Rome on a mission of consequence to us all, I left her with my wife, under the care of my sister, the abbess of the Ursalines; and on my return, I found I had lost my sister by a sudden death; and that my daughter, from the shock, was reduced to the brink of the grave."

"But she is now out of danger, I trust?" replied Louis in a tone, which could not be mistaken.

"And a letter from you, was our first comfort!" was the inward response of the Marchioness, though her lips made no reply. She left that to the calmer reason of her husband.

The letter, her thoughts referred to, was from de Montemar to Ferdinand, in answer to one, wherein he enlarged on[374] Marcella's changed wishes with regard to a monastic life. When Louis came to that subject, without being aware of the clearness with which his words unfolded his own heart, he wrote as follows:

"I begin to think my probationary conflicts, instead of confirming my spirit, have, in some cases at least, a contrary effect. I felt so much in reading your sister's wish to bury herself from all she has hitherto blessed with her virtues, that—I wish I could for ever be kept in ignorance of the time when she is really professed. At least, Ferdinand, do you refrain from telling it to me, and I shall not dread to open your letters."

Ferdinand shewed this paragraph to his mother. The lamp in his own soul had discovered sleeping love, in every unconscious line. The Marchioness had observed the powerful impression which de Montemar made on the memory of her daughter, when she first admired his filial enthusiasm in the Val del Uzeda.[375] From that hour, her distaste, as well as her religious opinions, was adverse to a monastic vow. But when her awakened sensibility comprehended the feelings of her brother; though unconscious of the new principle within her, which pleaded his cause even against her own heart, she became willing to sacrifice herself for his happiness. In Barbary, as in Spain, she found nothing but what increased her admiration, even to reverence, in the devoted son of the misled Duke de Ripperda. And, being so devoted a son, it never crossed the pure heaven of her mind, that any idea of her, but as a sister of Mercy, could ever occur to his heart. She believed, that she also thought of him as a "thing enskied and sainted," and that his remembrance would be as innoxious to her peace, after they had separated for ever in this world, as that of the most lovely characters she had read of, who were now in the grave; but whose society[376] would be one of her felicities in the life to come.

But she deceived herself. The sting was in her heart. She saw Louis de Montemar no more, but his image was ever before her, his words, his looks, his actions; and, finding the secret of her soul, in its anguish and her despair; she every hour urged her parents to shut her up from the world, which contained the object who made her feel that she was no longer mistress of herself. This fatal secret she revealed to no one. It preyed upon her heart, and her life; and, not until the Marchioness was secluded with her in the convent of the Ursalines, did she penetrate its depth and power. She also had wept in silence, over what she had too soon discerned; this unhappy, unuttered passion: and a sad immature grave, seemed ever opening before the feet of her most loved child.

But, when her eyes fell on the[377] paragraph concerning Marcella, in the letter from Louis to Ferdinand, she became convinced that the tenderness was mutual; and that mutual was the hopelessness and misery.

Without appearing to design any peculiar communication to her daughter, she read the letter to her; and dwelt with particular emphasis on that comprehensive sentence. Marcella listened, as if transfixed by a shaft. She durst not receive its import; she feared there would be crime in even wishing it real; although her abbess aunt had put a decisive on her monastic intentions, by telling her there would be positive guilt in her becoming a Catholic nun, with her religious reservations.

"Not a nun!" murmured she to herself, "but I have never been allowed to consider myself with any connection with the world. I feel as if I sinned in the very wish! and I must be a recluse." She leaned her throbbing head upon her hand.[378] "My child," said her mother, tenderly drawing near her; "what do you think of de Montemar's animated gratitude, in these touching sentiments?"

"That it is gratitude!" replied Marcella, rising with a forced smile, "and I am obliged to him for anticipating a pity, which my aunt teaches me, I cannot with conscience put myself into the condition to merit."

"And do you see no more than gratitude and compassion here?" asked the Marchioness, re-reading the passage, and holding her daughter's arm while she did so. "Were I to speak what I think, this matchless young man loves you!"

These words, from the lips of her mother, were more than Marcella could bear; she gasped and fell into her arms.

When the Marquis returned from his successful mission to Rome, he found his sister dead; and his wife in possession of his daughter's unlimited confidence; but that timid and self-accusing daughter,[379] was brought to the verge of the grave by sorrow for the deceased, and shame at the weakness of her heart.

His first communication to the Marchioness was to prepare her family for crossing with him to England.

"I have given my sanction to Ferdinand's attachment to the niece of Mr. Athelstone;" said he, "travelling and change of scene will be beneficial to Marcella; and our friends of Lindisfarne will give us the welcome of kindred."

Marcella obeyed the commands of her father in these preparations: and perhaps the more readily, since her mother's irrepressible and constant representations of Louis's demonstrations of a peculiar sentiment for her, had in spite of her own prepossessions to the contrary, and what she would not acknowledge to herself, given her an idea of the possibility of what her mother believed, being true. In urging these sometimes visionary ar[380]guments, the Marchioness at last said to her.

"Should you and the Marquis de Montemar meet as I expect, it is not probable that your father would be more inexorable to his daughter and best loved friend, than he has proved himself to Ferdinand and Alice Coningsby!"

"If I go to England," returned Marcella, and she believed she spoke the truth, "I will never meet the Marquis de Montemar at all, if you, my dear mother, are to draw any conclusions from that, that I expect, or even wish him to consider me in any other light than as a professed nun. That sin of my imagination is now over: I shall see my father's friend with the confidence of a sister. But no more."

If the Marchioness thought otherwise, she did not express it; and Marcella was not again persecuted on the subject.

Being in England; and learning from[381] her mother, (who glided out of the room with the information;) that the preserver of her father and her brother, was then in the house; she did not deny the next request, that she would obey her father's wish in joining the party in the drawing-room. She felt confident in her own resolves; and with a serene aspect, put her arm on her mother's to comply.

She was in black.—It was the first time Louis had seen her out of the dress of a nun; and, on her entrance, he started with an emotion that surprized him, at so unexpected a change.

Her face and hands were pale; but a gentle colour, like the soft reflection from the rose, passed over her cheek, as he approached her. She tried to meet him with tranquillity; and to look at him with the open eye of friendly cognizance. But the moment his hand touched hers, her eye-lids fell; and a chill ran through her whole frame, to blanch her cheeks; and shook her with such a trembling,[382] that the Marchioness made a sign to her husband to assist her in bearing her to the sofa.

The Marquis sat for same time, rubbing his daughter's cold hands in his; and the Marchioness touched her forehead and lips with essence. Louis did not venture to follow her to the sofa, but remaining standing where the group left him; and, as she lay, like a lilly on a velvet pall; so fair and fragile, in her mourning garments, he felt the possibility of his feeling a yet bitterer pang, than the death of his false friend. But the moment he thought so, he checked the selfish sentiment; and said in anguish of spirit to himself.—"O no! For with that gentle being dwells innocence and virtue.—When she goes hence her translation is to heaven:—And, can I mourn with bitterness, her who is in blessedness? But when the deluding, the betrayer, the impenitent! are called away! then my cry may be that of David[383] —Oh, thou who wert once my friend—would to God, I could have died for thee!"

Ferdinand observed his countenance, and touched his arm.—"Why do you gaze with such despair on my sister?" whispered he, "Her illness is merely weakness, from fatigue. Lindisfarne will restore us all!"

"Heaven grant it!" was the response of Louis, as he recalled himself from the momentary wandering of his thoughts.

Marcella soon after re-opened her eyes; and having recovered her perfect recollection, she also strove to rally her self possession; and, though with still down-cast lids, she stretched out her hand to her father's friend, as he again advanced to impress it with his lips;—and in a calm, but low voice, expressed her pleasure at seeing him returned in safety to the country of his dearest relations. Louis, without attending to all the import of his words, replied by saying, that he[384] trusted she would consider them as her own.

Many mutual inquiries now took place, and her share of the conversation was carried on for nearly an hour, with a composure, on the side of her daughter, that surprised and pleased the Marchioness. When she appeared exhausted, her mother rose; and she, following her example, took the parental arm, and with a bend of her head to her father, quitted the room.

Santa Cruz turned towards Louis, as his daughter disappeared; and observed, with a solemn emotion at his heart, that his eyes followed with anxiety, the slow progress of Marcella from the room; that he gazed on the door, a long time after it was closed on her; and then withdrew his attention, with a heavy, and deep-drawn sigh.

"De Montemar," said the Marquis, "come with me into my chamber; for I have much to say to you."[385] The conference lasted many hours.—Santa Cruz assured him, that he had left no power unexerted, day or night, to bring the prejudiced mind of the King of Spain, to a fair judgment on the Duke de Ripperda's political integrity, great exasperations, and religious penitence.—"The Queen was more placable on your behalf;" continued the Marquis, "since the subject in debate was a handsome young man, who admired her.—At least so Duke Wharton made her believe!"

"Yes," replied the Marquis, "that man was ever a Proteus; and never more so, than in the present instance. When I, and all the Spanish ministry, thought him the most active enemy you had; he became master of all the malignancy that was in arms or in ambuscade against you; and, by a generalship as effective as it was surprising, turned the whole battery against its inventors."[386] "Marquis!" cried Louis, starting from his chair; "What is it you say?"

"The truth, though a strange one," replied Santa Cruz, "and this ruse de guerre of his was so artfully managed, that not a man in the Spanish cabinet is aware of the hand that gave the overthrow. Being one in all their secret counsels, he influenced the separate members, to certain exaggerated conduct; and playing the one off against the other, in their allegations against your father, managed that contradictions should occur in every hearing before the King. And, by himself accusing you to the Queen, in terms to awaken her vanity against your enemies, and to influence it with a belief in your personal loyalty to her; he gained your point there. With your personal enemies, and his political friends, he affected to wonder at the Marquis de Montemar's restitution to the royal favour; while with me, he rejoiced in private,—laughing[387] at the absurdity of such grey-beards, as the frowning de Castellor, and that earthworm de Paz, making any tilt against the armed virtue of Æneas and his Achates.

"And his cloud is a bright one!" continued the Marquis, kindling with his subject. "It has absorbed the follies of his youth. And, gazing with wonder at his capacity, I beheld with admiration, the man I once despised. In short, his genius, with a sort of supernatural cognizance, darts into the views of men, and turns their devices to the side of justice and honour!"

Louis's deep groans burst upon the ear of Santa Cruz. His face, for some time, had been covered with his hands. An amazed inquiry, and an agonized reply, soon informed the Marquis of its cause. Wharton, that unalienable, that energetic friend, was then at the point of death, in the house of his uncle at Morewick! was dying, under an impression that Louis was estranged from him;[388] nay, had united with his father in denouncing him as a traitor! He might now be dead!—And he, who loved him to the last, never be able to pour out his gratitude for such noble assertion of that father's fame!

This information astonished, and distressed Santa Cruz; and the greater the extremity of the Duke, the more he thought himself called upon, to relate every thing explicitly to his agonized friend. In the course of this protracted conversation, he gave a brief account of all he knew of Wharton's conduct throughout the whole transactions relative to the Duke de Ripperda.

Wharton frankly acknowledged, that from the period he was convinced no impressions in behalf of the Stuart or Bavarian interests, could be made on Spain, he determined to overthrow the political power of him, who avowed himself the root of this obstinacy. Ripperda had proclaimed his devotion to the[389] House of Brunswick, more than once, at the great councils of Vienna. He had affirmed his implacability to both pretenders, at the table of the Cardinal Giovenozzi; and he did it, with circumstances of such personal insult to Wharton, that the English Duke, at once laid a comprehensive plan to make him feel his power.

Routemberg's conspiracy against the Spanish minister, did not originate with Wharton; but it was modified by him; he mounted the guns, and planted the circular batteries; and he did it, to bring Ripperda to a point, where none could preserve him but the man who held the springs of every movement in his own hands. This man was Wharton's self. Twice, at critical moments, in Vienna and at Madrid, he offered his terms:—to unmask every machination against Ripperda; and to maintain him in his seat against all the world; if he would at last oppose the house of Brunswick[390] in the empire and in England. Both overtures were rejected with disdain; and events took their course. Ripperda's was a fall, not a descent, and the ruin was terrible. The new ministers of Spain, who had bought their elevation by embracing Wharton's views, triumphed in every way over their disgraced predecessor. But the English politician was of another spirit. His enemy, once down, his care might be to prevent his rising to the same adverse station; but he told his coadjutors, he was not of the herd to strike his heel against the fallen lion.

It did not, at this juncture, accord with the interests of his two royal friends, James Stuart, and Maria of Bavaria, to make a full disclosure in favour of the overthrown Duke; but he made secret visits to the King's confessor, and to the Queen's, not to incense, as was supposed, but to propitiate each sovereign against the cabinet ministers' rancorous persecution of[391] their fallen rival. He denied all the circumstances which had been alleged by these men, to prove that Ripperda had negociated with him against the existing orders of Philip. He positively asserted, there had never been any amicable private meeting between them. He explained the adventure in the Carinthian post-house, where he returned the dispatches to the Duke; also another rencounter in the mountains of Genoa where he accidentally rescued him from a band of assassins, to whom he had been betrayed by a man who was a Spaniard; "and therefore," said Wharton, "I will not name him."

It were not possible to describe the varied anguish of Louis de Montemar, during this discourse, and the new discoveries it made at every sentence. He did not utter it, for he was on the rack. But when he found that it was Wharton's arm which had saved his father amongst the maritime Alps; that it was to him, though unknown, Ripperda had bequeath[392]ed the Gratitude of his son;—then Louis felt the iron enter his soul.

In short, Santa Cruz informed him, that Wharton proved to the King and Queen, that his enmity was against Ripperda's politics, not against himself; though he protested, there was not a man on earth who detested another with more determined hatred than the ex-minister detested him.

Things were in this state, when the Duke was summoned by the Chevalier St. George, to a conference at Rome, and the field being left open to Grimaldo and his colleagues, their violent proceedings ended in the flight of their proposed victim.

"What an extreme and false judge have I been of this unexampled friend! And just is my punishment, that I should lose him for ever, in the moment I know his invaluable worth!"[393] "Be not unjust to yourself, my dear de Montemar," answered the Marquis, "Philip Wharton did not open to me only half his soul. When we pledged our faith to each other, on two sacred subjects, (one of which was your restitution to your rights; but which coalition to your advantage, was not to be revealed to you till it was successful:) he confessed to me, that he deserved your warmest resentment; for, the sin of his life, since he knew you, was an incessant attempt at rendering you in all things like himself! De Montemar was bright and ambitious," said he, "too likely to outshine his master, unless I gave his towering soul a little of my own ballast. I tried him, where man is most vulnerable. Marquis! I was so very a wretch, that the clearer I saw my power over him, with a more devilish zeal I thrust him into the fire. In the garden of the Chateau de Phaffenberg was the scene of my last attempt! His[394] resolution, not only to meet ruin himself, but to consign his idolized father to the same, rather than rescue either by a dereliction from virtue, was a sword, that cut asunder marrow and spirit! Since that hour, I have regarded that boy as a Mentor, worth all the bearded sages, from Socrates to the Cambray Bishop!"—

"So spoke the animated Duke," continued Santa Cruz; "and he has honoured his model! For, from that time, (although it was long before I shared his secret,) he has been your unsuspected and efficient friend. The re-enrolment of your father's name in the national archives; and, these parchments, containing your own restituted rights without condition or substraction, but the Dukedom of Ripperda, (which none but a Catholic can bear,) are undeniable witnesses of this fact."

"Marquis!" replied Louis, walking the room in insupportable agony of spirit;[395] "you heap coals of fire upon my head! Oh, why must I remember, whose voice denounced him to this government; who proclaimed him a traitor to the House of Hanover!—His own rights in this country are wrested from him by that hand!—a price is set on his head,—and hidden like a thief, he lies, murdered by assassins, under the very roof which ought to have been rent with acclamations, when he sought it as a refuge!—Oh, my venerable friend, I cannot bear what is pressing on my brain!"

The Marquis saw that Louis was in no condition to listen with attention, much less with complacency, to any thing else he had to impart; and aware that his greatest proof of kindness would be to hasten his return to Morewick, to yield him some chance of seeing his friend alive; he declared that such was first in his thoughts; and he soon withdrew, to give corresponding directions to his family.

CHAP. XXII.

The morning's light saw the Marquis Santa Cruz step into the post-chariot that was to convey him to London. He had advised Louis not to distress the apprehensive mind of the Marchioness, by imparting to her, or to any of the travelling group, the afflicting scene at Morewick; besides, under the dangerous circumstances which enveloped Wharton's asylum there, the fewer who were privy to the secret, the better for all parties.

Immediately after a breakfast by sun-rise; when the Marquis had driven away, Louis led the Marchioness to her carriage. Ferdinand had already placed his sister within it, and Don Garcia de Lima, the family physician, with the female attendants of the ladies, took his station in de Montemar's travelling chaise.[397] A cold Northumbrian morning, which, though at deep Midsummer, is sometimes saturated with fog, chilled the delicate frame of Marcella, and wrapping herself within her pelisse, she drew close into the corner of the coach.

The first start of the horses from the inn-gate, re-lit hope in the breast of Louis. And as they flew along the northern road, the pinions of his soul seemed to extend themselves; while with the animating glow of renewed confidence in Wharton, and the sanguine expectation of soon avowing it at his side, dilated his heart, he appeared to the eyes of his companions a new being. Marcella sighed as she contemplated that radiant, unobserving countenance; she saw it was happiness that shone there. Happiness in returning whence he came! for his eyes were directed forward with an eagerness which plainly declared that at that moment he thought not of any one in the carriage. She was unconscious[398] that she sighed; and feeling the fresh air particularly bleak at that instant, even shuddered.

"You are cold, Lady Marcella!" said Louis, hearing the gentle shiver, and drawing up the window that was next her; "I fear our Northumbrian breezes are rough in their welcome!"

This little incident recalled Louis's attention to those around him. They remained ignorant of what was in his thoughts; and the mournful comfort which the Marquis's communications had infused there, influenced him throughout the journey, to complete it with greater cheerfulness than he could have affected, had his mind been still weighed down with the conviction that he lamented an unworthy friend.

Over and over again he felt that a perfect reliance on the virtue of a beloved object, and his acceptance with the source[399] of all-purity, is what takes the mortal sting from death; and though sorrow and anxiety were full in his heart, the shafts of despair and horror were extracted, and he thought himself equal to seeing his friend pass that bourne—where, he trusted, one day to follow him into the land of peace.

All this genial impetus of spirit succeeded very well, until the morning of the third day, when the travellers assembled in the breakfast-room of the inn where they had slept, and prepared to renew their journey. Marcella became so powerless of exertion, from the exhaustion consequent to the two preceding days rapid travelling, that she fainted in her way to the carriage, and was brought back in the arms of Ferdinand into the house. Her mother, (the physician's chaise having been some time driven on,) applied the usual restoratives; and when she was sufficiently recovered to comprehend what was said, the Mar[400]chioness tenderly assured her, she should not be hurried by proceeding that day; for the Marquis de Montemar was already gone out to order the carriage to be put up.

But how complied, the apprehensive eye of Marcella saw at once, when he re-entered the room. His countenance was pale and troubled. He approached her couch, but his eye roved over it.

"His wishes, his anxiety," said she to herself, "are in another place!—It is this incomparable Cornelia, this beloved cousin he is so eager to rejoin!—And my illness shall not detain him."

"I thank you, my dear mother!" cried she, "and you too, Marquis; but after this fit of weakness, I am well enough to go on."[401] "Impossible!" cried the Marchioness, "the fatigue would destroy you."

"No;" replied Marcella, with a wan smile, "I can only be destroyed by finding myself an incumbrance, and I know Ferdinand thinks every moment an age till he arrive at Lindisfarne."

"Not while you are so ill, my kindest sister," replied he, "to-morrow will find you stronger, and six fleet horses will soon make up for the delay."

Louis turned towards the window. It might in the meeting of lovers, who had yet many happy years before them! but an hour, or a moment, might be sufficient to divide him for ever in this life, from the friend of his heart!—Marcella was ill; but she was not dying; and the determination to delay a whole day and a night, struck him with an agony he turned away to conceal. But Marcella caught the look; its whole expression entered her heart, and she took an instant resolution.[402] Perhaps an emotion of resentment; the first she had ever known in herself, at least, the first she had ever acted upon, roused her to extraordinary powers; for she felt that no consideration of her possible peril, could awaken in this devoted, impatient lover, this ungrateful kindless de Montemar, one wish to linger a moment for her sake.

He kissed that soft hand, and immediately withdrew. The Marchioness, suspecting that embassy was to recall the carriage, hastened up to Louis, and whispering him in her turn, begged him to prevail on Marcella, not out of indulgence to her brother's haste to reach Lindisfarne, to run herself into any risk. Before she could receive an answer, she glided out of the room in pursuit of her son, to stop his counter-orders, and to reprove his persisted selfishness.

Louis turned round to utter persua[403]sions so foreign to his heart; but a severe look from Marcella checked him: yet he drew near. She again turned her eyes upon him; but there was an expression of distress in his face which disarmed her resentment; and being sensible to an undefinable sympathy, for whatever might be his motives for this, to her, unfeeling haste, she paused a moment to consider what she should say. A certain spirit of female dignity, that resisted, while it felt too powerfully his influence over her, and something of her usual habit of self-denial, impelled her to rally all her strength at once. And, alike contemning her body's feebleness, and that weakness of heart which had been its origin, she rose into a sitting position on the sofa; and, with every nerve braced, and a lofty, though compassionate air, she interrupted him as he began to speak.

"You are very kind, Marquis, to intend to obey my mother. But I am well, and shall proceed."[404] Louis made an attempt to answer, but again she intercepted his first words; and, rising, rung the bell.

"Tell my mother," said she to the person who entered, "that I am ready to attend her to the carriage."

Louis looked on her with agitation. She observed him, and turned away her head, though with an air of unaffected serenity. Marcella was always serene after any struggle in her soul, when the conquest was gained.

The Marchioness, on receiving the message hurried into the room, and found her arguments for delay, answered in every point by the steady step and cheerful voice of her daughter. Ferdinand rejoiced in the change, without investigating the cause; but his mother looked towards Louis. She saw that it was some observation Marcella had made upon his conduct, which had produced this dangerous resolution. Experience convinced her, that so quick an alteration could[405] not arise naturally; but she feared to oppose the effect, and durst not conjecture the cause.

In half an hour, they were re-seated in the carriage; and, by the orders of Ferdinand, who had received a whispered command from his sister, the drivers kept their horses to their fullest speed.

Little conversation passed in this day's journey. The spell of the two former ones was broken by the check in the morning. Louis wondered how he could have felt the ignis fatuus hope which that check had extinguished; and, with proportioned despondency, he silently counted the hours which, he believed, had too surely cut him off from the last moments of his friend.

Marcella spoke little; for she durst not spare any waste of strength, from the exertion necessary to bear the casualties of the journey and to satisfy the frequent anxious inquiries of her mother. The eyes of Louis turned often on her,[406] with an expression of solicitude that penetrated her heart. But the effect it produced, favoured the first deceit she had ever practised in her life. It drove the blood from that heart to her cheek; and she looked well when her soul was almost fainting within her.

It was ten o'clock, on the third night after their leaving Harwich, that the harassed party entered on Morpeth-moor, within a stage of Alnwick. The darkness, during this latter dozen miles, concealed from his companions the increasing discomposure of Louis. Every step drew him now so near to Morewick, he was ready to break from the carriage, and escape at once to the side of his dying friend. These twelve miles seemed a hundred to his impatience; and, when the drivers drew up before the door of the inn at Alnwick, he sprung out, as if it had been into his Uncle's house.

Marcella would fain have made a proposal to go on, even during the night; but[407] nature was at last subdued; and she did not chuse to speak, when she knew, that the now hardly articulate powers of her voice, would too truly proclaim that she had already done too much.

The Marchioness having alighted, Louis drew near to assist Ferdinand in bearing out his sister; but Marcella merely bowed to him, and gently waved him away with her hand. Ferdinand threw his arms round her waist, and supported her failing steps into the house.

She was seated, pale and silent, in a chair by the fire-side, (for the night was cold and wet,) when Louis re-entered from giving orders respecting their apartments. Don Garcia's hand was upon her pulse.

"Donna Marcella had best retire immediately," said the physician. "You want rest, my child!" rejoined the Marchioness, putting her daughter's arm within her's.

"But I shall be ready to re-commence[408] our journey to-morrow at day-break!" answered she, gently turning her head towards Louis. He bowed, with a full heart; and she left the room, leaning on her mother and the physician.

"Ferdinand," said Louis, "it is not necessary to disturb your sister so early as she intimates. I have business at Morewick,—it is only a few miles off,—I shall take a horse immediately; and return—" His lip became convulsed, and he could not proceed.

"Why, what is the matter at Morewick?" hastily inquired the young Spaniard; "Your family are at Lindisfarne!"

"All excepting Cornelia. But spare me further questions. When we meet again—" Again he interrupted himself, and then resumed in a more collected voice. "Rest is necessary, both for your mother and your sister, after the hard travelling of three such days; therefore, do not allow them to be disturbed[409] till noon. I shall be with you long, very long, before that!"

"This is very strange, de Montemar!" said Ferdinand, with rather a tone of offended pride.

"For no other cause than the one that impels me," returned Louis, "would I leave their side. But when you know it, they and you will pardon and pity me."

CHAP. XXIII.

The horse was fleet that carried Louis that dreary night, without star, or guide of any kind, over the lonely heaths which lay between Alnwick, and the little bye road which led through Warkworth to Morewick hall. But he knew every dell and dingle in that near neighbourhood; and without once going out of the direct track, soon found himself under the tall elms of the avenue, which now groaned in the blast around the old walls that sheltered his outlawed friend.

The porter, whom he had aroused at the lodge gate, followed to take his horse. But the bell at the great door was rung twice, before there was any appearance of its being answered. At last he heard voices, as if in consultation within the[411] door. He rung a third time. They receded; and in a few minutes, a window was cautiously opened above his head. He could not see objects in the darkness, but he looked up, and impatiently demanded to be admitted.

"It is my master!" exclaimed Lorenzo; and quitting the window, hurried down stairs. The door was instantly opened by him; while immediately behind, a little within the hall, stood Mr. Athelstone.

At sight of him, Louis felt that the object of his haste must be no more. The shaft of death seemed struck into his own soul, as he desperately stepped forward, Mr. Athelstone clasped him in his arms.

The Pastor drew him into a room, and Lorenzo followed with a lamp. Louis stood so calm, so unshaken, under the belief that his friend was dead, that the affectionate Italian gazed at him with[412] surprise. But Mr. Athelstone read under that fixed endurance, a sensibility to the shock he had anticipated, which made the good man only too eager to unfold his better tidings.

"Does my presence, my dear nephew," said he, grasping his marbled hand; "only speak of death? Your friend's fever has left him; and his wound has begun to cicatrize."

Louis had armed himself to bear the stroke of consummate grief; but this turn of joy being beyond his hopes, was also beyond his manhood, and with his first step towards the parlour door, he staggered and fell. But an insensibility which is the effect of happiness, is as mists before the sun. A few minutes recalled him to perception; and the blissful tears which flowed from his eyes, bathed the hand of the venerable messenger of such good tidings.

"They are full of peace to me!" cried Louis.[413] "They ought to be so," replied Mr. Athelstone. And then his nephew listened with a chastized anxiety, while the pious man explained his own presence at Morewick; and that his first meeting with Cornelia, confirmed his suspicions that Duke Wharton was this secret and cherished guest.

"I went to him," continued the Pastor, "to arouze his spirit from the deleterious slumber of this world, ere he should sink into that sleep which might prove eternal. At the first sight of me, he knew me; and by that knowledge was confirmed in his own belief, that he was under a roof which belonged to you. I confess to you, Louis, that though I had suspected it, I receded a step, when I found that it was the treacherous Wharton! When I knew that by granting him this protection, you laid yourself open to the condign punishment he might escape! He who had cozened you of your friend[414]ship; who had rifled you of your father's honours and life."

Mr. Athelstone put forth his hand with a sign, that he wished to be heard to the end; and then he benignly resumed:—

"But I went forward; and repeated those blessed words of the giver of all pardon:—

"When I drew near, the Duke stretched out his hand to me. "Mr. Athelstone, (said he) you do not visit the pillow of an impenitent. But where is my friend?" And he looked as if he thought you were behind me."

"But your spirit entered with your uncle!" replied the Pastor, laying his hand gently on the bent head of his nephew. "And a better spirit, my child:[415] that which, as a minister of Christ, I derived from his holy word!" The succeeding two hours I passed by the bedside of the Duke of Wharton; and when I left him, that resplendent countenance of his was lit with a new light; the effulgence of heaven shone on it, and pressing my hand to his lips, he called me his father! his better father!— "For you have poured on me, (said he,) not the unction which gives temporal, but that which dispenses eternal life!"

Two similar hours were now passed between Louis and his uncle. During that time, all was communicated, which the former had learnt from Santa Cruz relative to Duke Wharton; and Mr. Athelstone unfolded to his nephew what the sealed papers in Cornelia's possession contained, and which, as a full avowal to his Christian confessor, the Duke had permitted the Pastor to read.

The night that followed Wharton's[416] first conference with Mr. Athelstone, was succeeded by a comfortable sleep. And then it was, that on the ensuing morning, before he would venture to partake the holiest rite of the Christian church, with the Pastor, and his still hovering attendant, Cornelia, he entreated both, to break those seals, and read the contents. The packet that was addressed to de Montemar, did not contain the later circumstances which Santa Cruz had mentioned, for those particulars it referred Louis to that mutual friend. But the narrative generally and briefly explained his antecedent conduct with regard to Ripperda and his son; and ended with affirming the spotless fidelity of the former, both to the sovereigns of Austria and of Spain, until he passed from Europe into Barbary. His concluding farewell to Louis was short, but to the soul; yet, still the usual spirit of the writer prevailed, to cloathe his last[417] words in the cheerful garb of verse—and he wrote:

The second paper was to the secretary of state in London; declaring on the word of a dying man, that he only suspected, under whose protection he was.

That he believed, none of all who attended him in his asylum, but the one romantic friend who brought him there, knew they were harbouring an outlawed man. He therefore wrote this, on the truth of an accountable being, ready to be called into the presence of his Creator; to exonerate all, and every one, who had granted him protection in these his last hours, from any implication of disloyalty against the existing government of England: though, with his last breath, he would say, "Long live King James!"[418] "Cornelia," continued the Pastor, "has been an unwearied watch in his apartment. She is now reposing with her maid, in a room adjoining to his, while he sleeps; and this is his third night of undisturbed rest."

To invade those hours of genial slumber, was the last thing to which Louis could have been brought to consent. But neither he, nor his uncle, felt any thing dormitive in their faculties, while conversing on a subject so dear to both their hearts; to the one, a restored friend; to the other, a redeemed fellow creature.

During these precious vigils, Mr. Athelstone learnt from his nephew, the true object of the Marquis Santa Cruz's visit to England. It was not merely a private mission to the Spanish embassador in London; but to give his personal sanction to the attachment of his son to Alice; and to use his influence with the Pastor and Mrs. Coningsby,[419] to accord their consent to the marriage.

"Which we shall readily grant," replied his uncle, "for the hearts the Almighty hath joined together in innocence and virtue, let no man put asunder! And that He has done so by an awful covenant between the Marquis's family and ours, is distinctly marked by the mutually shedding of their blood for each other, in the terrible fields of Barbary."

Mr. Athelstone dwelt with the tenderness of a parent, on the fading health of Lady Marcella; and while he eulogized her benevolent care of Louis during his wounded state at Ceuta, he could not refrain from expressing a regret that so much active virtue should be intended for the living tomb of a convent.

"And yet," added the venerable man, "there are excellent divines of our own church, who tell us, that a vestal life is an angel's life. Being unmingled with the world, it is ready to converse with[420] God; and, by not feeling the warmth of indulged nature, it flames out with holy fires, till it burns like the seraphim; the most ecstasied order of beatified spirits!"

"Is that your sentiment, Sir?" inquired Louis, looking down; and quelling the palpitation of his heart.

"No, Louis; my opinion of an angel's life, both on earth, and in heaven, is, that it must be one of ministry. And that cannot be fulfilled, by retiring to a solitude beyond the stars; or immuring one's-self below them, in monasteries and loneliness."

"Then, to covet one, likely to be so immured," replied Louis, with a mournful smile, "is not a very mortal sin!"

This remark put his uncle to painful silence. He understood its import, though he had never before suspected the possibility of its existence. The moment he heard it, he wondered that he should not have foreseen the birth of such a sentiment, in such a character as Louis, for[421] such a mind as Lady Marcella's. And, in the moment of apprehending this affection, being also aware, that it was awakened only for disappointment, he paused, and fixed his benign eyes on his nephew. The venerable man, had in early youth, once known to love, and to resign its object; and, now remembering something of the pangs he had so long forgotten, he exclaimed, "alas! alas! I was not prepared for this!"

Louis took his hand with the enthusiasm of a manly heart re-illumining his momentarily saddened countenance.

"But I am, my uncle!" said he, "and when she, who alone I ever truly loved, has indeed uttered the fatal vow; I will do my best, to reconcile your plan of ministry, with that of Bishop Taylor's celibacy: and, so tread in the steps of my revered Pastor, to the end of my days!"

He put his uncle's hand to his lips, to[422] conceal the sigh that would have ended the sentence.

Mr. Athelstone thought it best to pass immediately from a subject on which hope could have no footing; and he proposed, that as heaven had seen it good to spare the life of Duke Wharton, their next object was to preserve him from the knowledge of the government, until he were sufficiently recovered to pass beyond seas. To effect this concealment with the least mystery, he recommended entrusting the Marchioness and her family with what had happened. Don Garcia, the physician, would be bound to keep the secret, on account of the Duke's power in the Spanish court; and then he might be removed to Lindisfarne, as part of the travelling suite. In that remote place, he would be attended by Don Garcia; and might await his convalescence without much alarm for his personal safety.[423] Louis highly approved of these suggestions; and settled, that as soon as he had seen Wharton in the morning, he would return to Alnwick, and make the necessary arrangements with the Marchioness.

Towards dawn, the Pastor dropt asleep in his great chair, and Louis was left to his meditations. He too well remembered the distressed, and almost reproachful looks, with which the mother of Marcella had regarded him, when he so quiescently permitted her daughter to hurry forward to the danger of her health; and also, the uncomplaining perseverance of Marcella, for the two first days; and the unselfed, and almost indignant firmness with which she bore the third. There was something in these remembrances, which, while they overpowered him with regretful shame at his seeming ingratitude, yet awakened a countless train of recollections that flowed like balm into his soul. With his lips, he[424] foreswore all hope of Marcella; but there was a subtle something in the bottom of his heart, that would not allow him to feel that he must absolutely seek the resignation he professed.

He ruminated on the consolations he had received at her hands when he lay in sickness and in sorrow; on the gentle virtues, which, like silent rills, only betraying their hidden course by a brighter green above, shewed their foundation in the beautiful composure of her character. Her tender cares had been as unremitting as efficient; and made her influence be felt throughout his whole soul, even as the atmosphere that surrounded him; soft, balmy, and inspiring!

Louis knew not that he loved her, till he believed he took his last leave of her, on the steps of the altar in the chapel of Ceuta. He knew not how he loved her, till the burthen of his friend's delinquency was taken from his heart; and its first spring was to pour the rapture of[425] the conviction into her pure bosom. He would not, however, acknowledge to himself, that he thought she loved him. But he felt it in every nerve of his body, in the dearest recesses of his soul, in every heaven-directed aspiration of his grateful spirit.

CHAP. XXIV.

The morning's sun witnessed the agitated, though happy meeting between Louis and Cornelia, while their venerable uncle was gone to prepare the awakened invalid for the entrance of his friend. Much circumlocution was not suffered to precede a re-union, after which the Duke panted, as if it were the earnest of all his future good. Louis was not less eager to forgive, and be forgiven; and to throw himself on the breast of the man he had always loved, (whether in admiration, or in forbearance;) with at last the sanction of the best guardians of his youth and virtue.

When he was told he might approach the chamber; the permission, and the[427] clasp of Wharton's arms around his body, seemed the action of one instant. Mr. Athelstone closed the door on the friends, and left them alone. The gallant heart of the Duke, and the soul of Louis melted at once into one stream of mingling tenderness; and, sweet were those manly tears. They were as the "Pool of Bethesda;" whence each arose strengthened; and restored to a friendship, deathless as their souls.

All was recapitulated; all was explained. And Wharton now stood before his friend, without a shadow, without a mystery. But in the deep and intricate enfoldment of the snares which lurked in the gay assemblies of the Hotel d'Ettrees, Louis often shuddered in the depths of his heart.

"I found you there;" continued Wharton; "I doubted, and I tried you! But like the light, you pass through the impurest objects without defilement!—Yet, when you are a father, de Monte[428]mar, never advise your sons to make a similar experiment."

The Duke resumed; and as he, in like manner, unwound the devious clew of policy, and shewed him all its labyrinths, and gins, and hidden places—where

The spirit of Louis mourned within him, that such paths had been those of his friend; that in those trackless wildernesses his beloved father had perished.

"Yes," answered Louis, "but you did not escape the taint of his breath!—Let me thank Heaven, I was so soon beaten from the same ground!"

"No;" replied the Duke, "the politics of Europe are only to be redeemed[429] from Machiavelian villanies, by honest men turning their talents to fulfil the trust, of which those talents are the warrant."

"But then the mode of warfare!" rejoined Louis, "all the evil passions are aroused; and who would enlist with such leaders?"

"Reverse the order, and make them your followers!" replied Wharton. "Man must be ruled by our knowledge of his nature. To the noble, give noble stimulus; to the base, the scourge. You must take the world as you find it; use it according to its own worthlessness, and not by the measure of yourself. To talk of virtue to some statesmen, would be casting our pearls before swine! And, we should certainly share the mud in which the hogs would trample them. To act virtuously is our command; and obedience will work its way. Your uncle reads us a parable to this effect?"

"He does, Wharton!" replied Louis,[430] pressing his friend's hand; "But he also reads—Let not thy good be evil spoken of! and, has it not been too much the case with thine?"

"Granted!" returned the Duke, "What has been, shall not be again. And, if God grant me life," continued he, "you shall hear of me, to the satisfaction of your heart, and to the confusion of my enemies!"

The spirit of Wharton seemed in such vigour during this lengthened interview, that it embraced every subject that could interest Louis or himself; and readily fell in with Mr. Athelstone's project of his accompanying the family of Santa Cruz, to Lindisfarne.

"And will those holy walls open to receive me?" asked the Duke; "de Montemar, I have not seen the rocks of Lindisfarne, since I forced you into its waves! It is not my interest to woo your Cornelia on that spot."

"Take her then, to the mountains of[431] Genoa!" replied Louis. He had not, before mentioned his knowledge, that it was Wharton who preserved his father from assassination in those mountains; and, the reference now, shot such a hope into the breast of the Duke, that catching the hand of his friend to its beating pulse, he exclaimed:—

"Be you my advocate with that unsullied being! Oh! how different from the meretricous syrens who beguiled me of my youth—who made me doubt all of her sex's mold, till I beheld her! Her sentiments, language, and manners, are like her frame; made in the image of man, but possessing every softening grace of female nature. Four years ago, little did I know the treasure that islet contained; else I would have leapt the rock, by your side:—And, what a waste of life, might then have been spared me!"

This avowal from Wharton enraptured his friend. His former Duchess, (a wife, only in name,) had been long dead; and[432] Louis would have been glad that Cornelia had been his sister; that the bonds which might unite them, could have been nearer to himself; he expressed this with animation; and the Duke as earnestly replied:—

"My dearest Louis! Is not kinsman, brother, cousin, all comprised in the precious name of friend? Intercede as such, for me, with your beloved cousin: and she will not then silence the pleadings of her own generous bosom. I am too well-read in woman, not to see she does not hate me. And I also see she can reject the thing she loves—when she doubts its worthiness!"

"Cornelia, could never love, what she thought unworthy;" replied Louis, "therefore, my friend, repose in that faith, till we meet again!"

CHAP. XXV.

Ferdinand had just left with his sister, a few hasty lines which had preceded Louis from Morewick, when the writer himself entered, like Maia's son breathing hope and happiness, into the room where the Marchioness was preparing breakfast.

"Whatever your secret may be, it is a pleasant one!" cried she, "your countenance is a brilliant herald."

That of Marcella's (as she was dismissing her maids from the adjoining apartment where she had just finished dressing) was blanched, pale as the trembling hand which closed upon the unread letter.

"Oh," sighed she, to herself; "would to God, that I had never left Spain—or never seen this land!"[434] What were Louis's answers to her mother, or her brother (who both spoke at once) she did not hear. The pulses of her head beat almost audibly, and seemed to exclude all other sounds from reaching her ears. She was separated from the room by a slight door only, which, standing ajar, discovered his figure to her as it animatedly moved to and fro, as with similar energy, but in a lowered voice, he imparted his secret to her mother and brother.

Ferdinand came in; and finding her thrown back into her chair, he gently touched her arm; and entreating her to allow him to lead her into the breakfast room; added, if she still felt too fatigued to be anxious to pursue her journey; he was sure she would think otherwise, presently; for de Montemar was come back, and had much to tell her!

"He has told you, and my mother;" said she, "and that is enough. I shall soon have no interests in this world!" but[435] the last, was only murmured to herself. However she rose; and leaning on her brother, walked steadily and serenely into the next room.

"Were I a Catholic, sweet saint!" said he, inwardly; " how would I worship thee!" and his head bent with the sentiment, upon his breast.

"My child," said the Marchioness, "we are to pass this day at Morewick; where you will meet Mr. Athelstone, and Miss Coningsby."

"And am I to witness their nuptials?" cried Marcella to herself; "but even that I will endure!" And forcing a smile, which gleamed like a moon-beam on a flowery grave, she answered,—"Just where you please, madam." And took her seat.

The Marchioness turned from her to Louis; and observing the deep and pene[436]trating tenderness with which he regarded her; she drew near her son, and while a tear started in her eye, whispered him. "Surely your father may consider of his daughter's happiness too long; and withhold the dove of promise, till there be no resting place for its foot."

Ferdinand saw his mother was affected; and making an excuse to attend her, to consult with Don Garcia respecting their proceeding, he took her from the room.

Marcella was now left alone with Louis. She sat like a cold statue. His joyous heart was overclouded at once; and with a slow step he approached her. Her eyes were cast down, and fixed on her clasped hands, in which she still held the letter. At that moment all his love, and all the agonies of her displeasure, were apparent in his countenance. She looked up; and received its full import direct upon her heart. The confusion in her's, the gasp with which she recalled her eyes, and covered them with her hand,[437] proclaimed her whole secret to Louis; and wrested from him all his own; but not a word could find utterance on either side. He was at her feet on his knees, and with the hem of her garment pressed to his lips.

But how different was the sentiment which then rendered him speechless, from the tumultuous emotion which arrested him in the same position before Countess Altheim! There his spirit was divided against itself. His reason doubted the admiration of his senses; and a racking indecision checked his wishes and his lips. Here his whole soul consented to the perfect love, with which the virtues of Marcella had possessed his heart. The passion that she inspired was like herself; a sacred flame, and lit for immortality: and Louis avowed its imperishable nature to himself, even while he struggled for words, to foreswear it at the feet of the future nun for ever.

Marcella's faculties, so lately possessed[438] with the idea of his devotion to Cornelia, were all amazement. Surprised out of herself, by the look she had momentarily seen; and immediately feeling him at her feet; she became so overwhelmed by her own consciousness, and his irrepressible emotions, that she shook, almost to the parting of soul and body.

"Pardon me, lady Marcella!" cried he, "pardon my first and my last disclosure of a sentiment, which as it has no hope, I trust, has no sacrilege! But to love all that is pure and noble in idea; and not to love its living image was impossible to me. You confirmed me in the virtue I might have deserted! You consoled me when the world had abandoned me! You have even now, exerted yourself beyond your strength, in compassion to a desperate haste for which I durst not assign a cause. This last goodness leaves me no longer master of myself. It has precipitated me to the avowal of a sentiment, which in my breast, shall[439] never know a second object. The hour that consigns you to a cloister, seals my heart for ever."

This was spoken with agitated rapidity; but no answer was returned. Marcella felt her own tenderness for him was no longer a secret to him:—She had betrayed it herself! and her horror at this conviction, overwhelmed all other considerations. She attempted to rise, he did not venture to withold her.

She had arrived at the door of the inner room, when he repeated the demand, with an anguish of expression she could not mistake. Turning round, she faulteringly replied.—

Louis was springing forward. She saw the movement, though with still down-cast eyes; and putting out her hand,[440] with an air of vestal reserve, decisively, but gently pronounced,—

The emotions in his breast were inexplicable to himself. He was awe-struck, by her manner. His sentence of perpetual silence was in those words!—And yet the flood of happiness which burst over his whole heart, at the conviction her first moments of confusion inspired, would not be driven back.

He was standing in this agitated state, when the Marchioness entered, followed by Ferdinand and Don Garcia. On perceiving that Marcella was not in the room, she expressed some alarm at her disappearance; and accompanied by the physician, hastened to seek her in the adjoining apartment.

Ferdinand glanced in the kindling face of his friend, and conjectured better than his mother. He drew near him.[441] "De Montemar," said he, in a lowered voice, "shall I guess your meditations?"

"No, Ferdinand, I would not extend my offence; and yet you have read me ill, if I have been able to hide it from you!"

"And who have you offended, my brother?" asked Ferdinand, drawing close to him, and in a tone so peculiar, that Louis's bounding heart beat against the side of his friend as he rapidly answered,

"De Montemar," returned Ferdinand, "hope, as I have done, against possibilities!"

Ferdinand continued; "I dare not say more: my father's return will tell you the rest!"

Louis was now in air, in the dawning[442] light of paradise; nor were the interchanges produced by suspense, more than passing shadows, to the luminous hope that shone upon his soul.

He and Ferdinand took horse for the short ride to Morewick; and during their drive the Marchioness communicated to her daughter, all that Louis had confided to her, respecting the cause of his late eagerness to return thither. As Marcella listened to the history of his friendship for Duke Wharton; its trials, its sufferings; and now its triumph, in the reformation of his friend from all his errors, and final restoration as from the grave; her tears bore too true a witness to the interest with which she hearkened to every circumstance that related to him. She hardly allowed herself to breathe, during that part of the narrative where her mother particularly enlarged on Cornelia's cares of the Duke; and repeated the observation of Louis, that such cares seemed his friend's best sa[443]native; for that he believed, if any two persons were fitted by Providence for each other, it was the nobly eccentric mind of Wharton, to the celestial harmony of his cousin's.

"She is my ruling planet, that I have found at last," said the Duke to his friend, "and her attraction will keep me in its orbit."

Marcella was too confounded by the last scene between her and Louis, to confess a word of what had passed; she had been even more ashamed to communicate her apprehensions to her anxious parent, concerning this boasted cousin of the Marquis de Montemar. Therefore she now looked down, believing the fulness of her secret yet unknown to all but to its object, and gladly would she have died, rather than be conscious to the degradation of that hour.

She knew that her father had obtained from the Pope, a dispensation from his vow, relative to immuring her in a con[444]vent; and she did not doubt that Louis had been told the same in their first meeting at Harwich.

Though she had pined in thought, from the hour of her losing sight of him; and felt how hard it was to do, what she most inconsistently wished to accomplish, to make monastic vows, when her heart lingered after an earthly image!—yet, though the canker preyed inwardly, she knew not the extent of her love, till she found its fangs of jealousy, when she first heard him speak of Cornelia being at Morewick, and that he must hasten to rejoin her. His conduct during their last day's journey to Alnwick, filled her with all the tortures of passion; for not until then, had she known, by the reverse and the disappointment, the incipient hope which had lurked at the bottom of her heart,—that she was not indifferent to him!

Louis in the last interview at the inn in Alnwick, had avowed something of[445] this sentiment, but the circumstances overwhelmed her; and wishing to forget the whole for ever, she did not even make a remark to her mother on what she imparted.

Louis and Ferdinand having preceded the carriage half an hour, they stood with Mr. Athelstone under the porch of the hall, to receive the travellers.

Marcella's eye instantly fell on the silver-headed Pastor of Lindisfarne. He seemed to stand, like the benignant saint of Patmos, venerable in years, and reverend in the spirit of holiness. He saluted the cheek of the animated Marchioness; but when he put out his hand to support the advancing steps of Marcella, her knees obeyed the impulse of her heart, and she bent before him, kissing his sacred hand.

"Bless you! bless you, my child!" said he, laying his other hand upon her head. Louis's ready heart could not bear the sight of such a recognition, with[446]out a sensibility he feared to shew; and he vanished into the recesses of the hall. The Pastor raised her in his arms, and bearing her gently into a room, put her into those of Cornelia, who had just embraced the Marchioness.

Cornelia dared hardly venture to clasp the beautiful phantom to her bosom; but tenderly supported her tremulous frame to a sofa, where she gently seated her; and, pressing her soft hand in her's, gazed at her through her crowding tears. Was this fragile being, just hanging like a broken lilly, between the next breeze and the cold earth; was it she who had stood the fearful thunders of Ceuta? who had raised her head amidst the storm of war, to staunch the bleeding wounds of Louis de Montemar? to cherish his life at the expence of her own?

"It was!" cried the full heart of Cornelia to herself; and, in inarticulate, but ardent, language, she uttered her welcome.

The kindness of her voice drew the[447] last sting of jealousy from the bosom of Marcella. She looked up, and thanked her with her eyes. There was something which passed from them, so powerful to the heart of Cornelia, that she gave way to the impulse of the impression; and, clasping the interesting Spaniard to her bosom, imprinted on her cheek a sister's kiss. That glance of Cornelia's noble countenance had struck Marcella with its general resemblance to that of her cousin; and she seemed to feel a pledge of something more than the welcome of a stranger, in this repeated embrace of Louis's most beloved relative.

The Marchioness was soon at home with the benign Pastor of Lindisfarne; and both she and Ferdinand were inquiring of him various particulars respecting their suit with Alice and Mrs. Coningsby, when Louis entered the room, after having introduced Don Garcia to the Duke.

Cornelia stretched out her hand to him.[448] "Louis," said she, "you must make an interest for me, in the heart of Lady Marcella before she sees Alice, whom she will doubly love, for her own sake, and for Don Ferdinand's."

Louis approached with happy trepidation. What he said was as little to the purpose, as it was unheard by Marcella; and would have been marvelled at by Cornelia, had she not lately found a key in her own bosom, to explain language that had no visible meaning, and certain inconsistencies in demeanour, which betrayed all they meant to conceal.

CHAP. XXVI.

A sojourn of several days, in which other feelings besides those of personal weakness, influenced Lady Marcella to keep her apartment, sufficiently restored the whole party, to enable them to recommence their journey northward without fear of fatigue.

The skill of the Spanish physician, (who united surgery with his medical science,) was so successful with Duke Wharton, that he, too, was pronounced capable of partaking the removal. A litter conveyed him to a hired yacht, which lay at the mouth of the Coquet. This mode of travel was chosen as the easiest for an invalid in his case; and Louis, with Don Garcia and Lorenzo, were his attendants. The wind was fair for Lindisfarne; and[450] the smooth sea, sparkled under a bright noon-day sun, when the little party embarked.

Mr. Athelstone and Ferdinand accompanied the ladies by land. They had set off early in the morning, to travel by easy stages, so as to reach the island before night.

Though no words of mutual confidence on the subjects nearest to the hearts of Cornelia and Marcella, had passed the lips of either, yet each read the secret thoughts of the other, and soothed, or cheered, with a reciprocal delicacy, as amiable as it was salutary. The little taper in the bosom of each, which each covered with the care of a vestal, to conceal, but not to extinguish, gave to its owner the power of discerning the locked mysteries of her friend.

Cornelia had been benumbed with horror, when she first discovered that the noble invalid she had cherished as some illustrious foreigner, worthy to be loved by[451] her virtuous cousin,—was the Duke of Wharton!—Illustrious, indeed, in birth, and station, and talents; noble in figure, and beloved by her cousin!—But the man, of all others in the world, whom she had most abhorred for the abuse of those faculties, which had been so richly bestowed, and so shamefully abandoned to the worst of purposes. She stood aghast at herself when she found, that she now not only knew him to be that reprobated Wharton, but that when he should close his eyes in death, (which was then hourly expected,) the world would then be a desert to her.

It was in the moment when Mr. Athelstone flashed it at once upon her mind, who was her guest, that as soon as the venerable man had left her to herself, she exclaimed in the agony of such a recognition,—

"Oh, Wharton! what the Prophet said of the Prince of Tyre, may too surely be said of thee: Thou didst seal up the sum![452] Full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty! Thou wast prosperous in thy ways, from the day thou wast created, until iniquity was found in thee. And, now, they draw the sword against the beauty of thy wisdom. They defile thy brightness, and bring down thy glory to the ashes of the grave!"

And who dare lament over such a grave? There is no sympathy for her who deplores a dishonoured name. There is no pity for her who weeps that the traitor is no more. She must glide by stealth to that lonely tomb. Her tears must fall in solitude on the trackless path; and, when lying on the neglected sod, there she may cry to Him alone, whose eye is over all, to pity and to pardon erring man!

But, when her uncle informed her that this once offending and deprecated Wharton, regretted, with religious contrition, the transgressions of his youth, the severest pangs in her bosom were laid to[453] rest; and she resumed what she believed her last duties about the dying patient, with a chastised tenderness, as soothing as it was pure from any earthly sentiment.

When her cares, and the will of Providence, recalled him from the brink of the grave to all the cheering promises of a speedy recovery; then she remembered what he had been, and armed herself against the external graces of his person, by recollecting the snares they had been to his virtues. The enchantments of his conversation, and the subduing influence of his mute gratitude, his eloquent looks, and often implied love, she shut from her heart, by recalling the various reported instances of his former delusions over man and woman. Cornelia believed that she had disgracefully deserted the best principle of her sex, in having admitted any sentiment more than compassion, for a stranger under the circumstances in which she found the Duke; and, when known, to continue to prefer him who had once been[454] the world's idolater; she deemed so unworthy of herself, of all her declared opinions, that, stern in her self-controul, she turned from all his ardours with a coldness not to be subdued, and a resolution not to be shaken. In the dignity of unsullied virtue, Cornelia often strengthened herself by inwardly repeating, "Wharton, thy former sins must be thy temporary punishment; and my present weakness, the lasting scourge of mine!"

Marcella's meditations were less painful than Cornelia's; for the object of her thoughts was spotless as her own purity. There was no torture in her retrospections, excepting the memory of her last interview with Louis in the inn; but, as she now intended to obliterate its impressions on him, by an unchanging distance in her manner; she flattered herself that he would doubt the evidence of her former confusion; and that, hereafter, they might resume the character to each other, of mere mutual benevolence.[455] She believed this, and she was tranquil; but she deceived herself on the grounds of this serenity. Hope was the spirit of peace, which had taken its hidden station in her heart; and health dawned, and spread upon her cheek, as the inward principle slowly, but surely gained power.

The reception of the party at Lindisfarne, was that of the re-union of dear and long acquainted friends. Mrs. Coningsby and the Marchioness, met with the frank cordiality of persons who already held that connection, which the marriage of their children would confirm. Alice was bathed in tears, when her future second mother folded her to her breast, and put her hand into the rapturous grasp of Ferdinand. Marcella was greeted with equal kindness; and Mrs. Coningsby herself, drew the old abbot's ebony couch into the circle, for the accommodation of her gentle guest. Peter, the grey headed butler, placed its cushions with assiduous care; and as she thanked[456] him in the English language, but in the Spanish custom stretched out her hand to him; he kissed it respectfully, and prayed God to bless her!

Tea was soon prepared in that room, where Ferdinand had first beheld the lovely sisters; and compared their unsophisticated beauties, with those of more worldly charms. He was then a despairing wretch; he was now a happy lover! The same moon seemed shedding her silver light through the feathery shrubs at the window. The evening was chill, with all its brightness; and a fire blazed as before, under the Gothic mantle piece. The cat and the dog were also there; and the venerable Pastor completed the picture of delighted memory:—He sat by the side of the glowing hearth, smiling in conscious piety; as with one hand leaning on the couch of Marcella, he addressed her with all the tenderness of a parent. The Marchioness conversed animatedly with Mrs. Coningsby. His own Alice, was at that moment dispensing the[457] fragrant tea, in the very china from which he had drank it three years ago! Cornelia was by her side; enjoying with a fond sister's delight, the perfect happiness of this evening's re-union.

When the tea equipage was withdrawn, and they all drew into little groups, the artless Alice exclaimed, "oh, how I wish Louis were here!"

"I wish so too," rejoined Ferdinand, in the same affectionate tone; and glancing at his sister, who had heard the tender apostrophe, though spoken in a half whisper; and her kindling cheek bore witness that she shared the sentiment.

She was near Marcella; and Marcella understanding whose image was in that invisible sign, almost unconsciously pressed the hand of her friend, and softly whispered, "and the Duke too!" Cornelia's blush was now more vivid than[458] Marcella's; and it was accompanied by a glow of gratitude to her, which shed a distant gleam on him, she before shrunk at remembering. His idea then was not so obscured to the eye of virtue, but that Marcella, the all pure and saintly Marcella, could think of him at that moment, with the approbation of a wish!

The embrace with which the two friends parted at night, told much of this without the agency of words.

That night, when all else in the family were gone to rest, Mr. Athelstone imparted to Mrs. Coningsby, the whole history of Wharton; from the commencement of his friendship with Louis, to the time of his being found by him, wounded and dying in the herdsman's hut.

When she listened to the explanation of his most suspicious, and even hostile proceedings against her nephew; when she was told the dangers he had exposed himself to, to shield that nephew; and[459] considered his generous forbearance with regard to the Duke his father; when she comprehended all his late exertions for the reputation of the one, and the rights of the other:—she was in an ecstacy of amazement; and with all the usual ardour of her nature exclaimed,

"How is such a man to be sufficiently admired! How can he ever be repaid for such unexampled friendship?"

"Yes, give him Cornelia! and I am mistaken, if he would accept the future Empress of Germany in exchange."

A full explanation immediately ensued. And, after having mutually agreed, not to notice the latter discovery to Cornelia, until the Duke should avow his sentiments to her guardians; Mr. Athelstone, and the happy mother parted; he, to his midnight orisons; and she, not neglect[460]ful of the same, but also to plan every comfortable accommodation for the reception of him, whom she now hoped, would be her second son-in-law.

CHAP. XXVII.

The next day rose in storms. The sky was covered with clouds, flying before the wind in infinite volumes of rolling blackness. The sea raged against the beetling rocks of Lindisfarne, as if it menaced the existence of the island; and the fishers, who had prepared their little barks all along the beech, for embarkation at the dawn, were seen on every side, drawing them ashore, to prevent the mischief which threatened such small craft, from the beating of the waves.

Some, that had been more adventurous, and set forth during the night, notwithstanding the warning elements, met the fate their more prudent comrades averted; and Peter came in, to take away the almost untasted breakfast, with[462] the melancholy tidings, that the wreck of several boats had been dashed on shore.

Mr. Athelstone anticipated a sad summons from many a bereft family in his flock; and his own anxious fears for the yacht that carried his beloved nephew, unfolding to him what were the apprehensions in every breast around him, he gently reproved the old man, for bringing in the reports of the hour, to wound the tender spirits of invalids; and glancing at Marcella, who had turned her death-like face away, he piously ejaculated:

"But, the Lord makes darkness his secret place! His pavilion round about him is dark water, and thick clouds cover him. But at the brightness of his presence, the clouds shall be removed, and he shall take them who trust in him, out of many waters!"

Cornelia rose from her seat, and withdrew. And when the encrease of the[463] storm became too intolerable for Marcella to endure with any apparent tranquillity, she too, left the Abbot's chair, and putting her unsteady hand upon the arm of her mother, hardly sustained herself out of the room.

The sky was red on the horizon, as if dyed in blood, and the lurid clouds, tumbling over each other, like an upward sea of molten fire, roared in the blast, amid the thundering of the waves below, which dashed their boiling surges in mountainous and foaming heaps, against the stupendous cliffs of the opposite shore.

Mr. Athelstone and Ferdinand were both on different parts of the rock, each with his telescope in his hand, looking afar for the only object which now possessed their thought. But a furious tornado of sleet and rain, accompanied with thunder and lightning, and a darkness at noon-day, black as midnight, shrouded them at once; and the re-doubling tem[464]pest which burst forth above and beneath, seemed to shake the old rocks of Lindisfarne to their foundations.

At the fearful concussion, which appeared to the inhabitants of the Pastorage, like the awful summons on the judgment-day, Marcella threw herself on the bosom of her mother, and murmured, "Louis!" till her swooning voice was heard no more.

Cornelia was alone, and fell from her knees, prostrate on the floor. She was found in that position, and insensible as her friend, when Alice ran into the room in the agony of her fears; and her screams brought their terrified mother into the same apartment.

Mr. Athelstone's look-out of utter hopelessness, was succeeded by the now doubly afflicting duty of visiting and consoling the widows and the orphans, which the present horrors had rendered dependent on his spiritual comfort. More than one drowned body was carried before him,[465] into the sorrowing cottage which had once been its home; and, after he had soothed the wretched inhabitants with "the hope which is to come;" he took his way to the Parsonage, to prepare his own family for the dreadful catastrophe to its happiness, which, he did not doubt that night, or the next morning, would unfold.

Ferdinand would not relinquish his more cheering expectations, till despair should appear before him, in the lifeless bodies of his friends.

Noon, and evening, and approaching night, were only marked, to the lately so happy Pastorage, now the house of mourning, by the fits of the storm. Marcella lay weeping in her mother's arms, no longer disguising the condition of her heart. And the Marchioness, in more audible anguish, wrung her hands over her, frequently exclaiming—

"Oh, most unholy Island! Would to God we had never seen its rocks! Mar[466]cella, my child, my child! Still live for your fond mother."

Cornelia lay buried in the coverlid of her bed, in that terrible stillness, which alike disdained further concealment of her grief, and rejected the comfort that could not reach her heart. Mrs. Coningsby knelt by her bed-side, and Alice, ran weeping from room to room, offering her insufficient consolations to all.

Mr. Athelstone knew that this terrific hour of suspense, was not the time to do more than repeat his first injunctions to hope even while they feared; and to trust in the preserving power, or the support of Him, who alike commanded the great deep, and the firm land.

None in the island slept that tremendous night; but those whose eyes the surge had closed, never to wake again till time should be no more. Mr. Athelstone remained alone in his study, composing himself for the task he dreaded the morning would call upon him to fulfil; or[467] walking to and fro, struggling with the human affections in his breast which unmanned all his resignation, when he pictured the weltering waves which were then washing the lifeless body of his beloved Louis.

"Oh, my child!" cried he, "was it for this, that all those endowments were bestowed?—That all these trials have been sustained!"

But he checked the rebellious grief that channelled his venerable cheeks with tears; and, bowing before Him, whose gracious providence he preached, he exclaimed,—"Not my will, but thine be done! For I asked of thee life for him, and honour; but thou hast given him immortality, and glory, even for ever!"

Whilst he was in the depths of these devotions, the violence of the storm gradually subsided, and a stillness, horrid to meditation, succeeded. It was a pause in nature, that seemed to declare the[468] work of destruction was accomplished, and the destroying agents might repose.

The dawn slowly broke, and found the pious man with his Bible before him. A suppressed bustle, sounded from the hall. He started from his seat, and entering the intervening room, met Ferdinand with his cloaths and hair dripping, having neither hat nor cloak; but joy was in his countenance, and seizing Mr. Athelstone's hand,

"They are safe!" cried he, "My father, and Sir Anthony, bring the good tidings! The yacht is safe!"

The Pastor bent his silvered head for a moment on the shoulder of Ferdinand, and the holy man's sacred response ascended to heaven. When he looked up, the Marquis Santa Cruz, and Sir Anthony were in the room; and they replied to his grateful questions, by informing him in detail, of what the following is a brief account.

The Marquis and the Baronet met at[469] the young King's levee. They mutually recognised each other, and when their respective businesses in London were finished, they agreed to return together to Lindisfarne. The tempest which produced such calamitous effects at sea, extended itself far on the land; and the travellers encountering its worst fury in the road near Bamborough, the Baronet deemed it prudent to proceed to the castle, and remain there till the state of the weather would allow a boat to cross without risque.

During the night, and in the greatest press of the storm, he heard a gun of distress. A beacon always burnt on what was called the beltale-tower of the castle; but on the present intimation of some ship in danger, he ordered other lights to be lit on a promontory which shot farther into the sea. His life boat also was dispatched to the assistance of the vessel. It came up with her in the crisis of her fate; "and the result was," cried[470] Sir Anthony, "she was hauled safely into the Castle-creek."

"And her freight," rejoined the Marquis, with a smile and a humid eye, "was Sir Anthony's old friend and our dear de Montemar!"

"Oh, Providence!" piously exclaimed the Pastor, "how measureless ought to be our gratitude unto thee!"

"It shall be registered on those very rocks where he might have been wrecked!" returned the Baronet. "When Louis blessed the well known lights of Bamborough, which had rescued him and his friend from a watery grave, the proper act of gratitude struck at once upon my mind. He is to be my heir, and I told him that my ghost should haunt him day and night, if he did not make those towers for ever after a beacon for the mariner, and his asylum from the waves! And they shall be so!" added the Baronet, solemnly striking his hand upon his breast.[471] The news was soon spread throughout the house. And when Mr. Athelstone returned from imparting it to the two chambers of the deepest anxiety, it was with the grateful tears of both Cornelia and Marcella, yet wet upon his venerable cheeks, that he re-entered the room.

He found that Ferdinand, who was now gone to throw off his wet garments, had never been within the whole night, but had passed it in traversing the island from rock to rock, vainly listening to the roaring ocean; and gazing through the darkness for what he feared, she should never see again. He was the first object the crossing boat of Sir Anthony saw on the western cliffs of Lindisfarne. Ferdinand had descried the little vessel at a distance; and hastening down to see what it contained, he recognised his father, and soon after was told the joyful tidings which brought them so early across the strait.

The perils which the yacht had wea[472]thered, were not to be described; and the Duke was so exhausted in consequence, Don Garcia would not allow him to attempt the island until he had obtained some repose.

"I'faith," continued the Baronet, with a thoughtless laugh; "I believe I gave my worthy friend but a thorny pillow for his opiad, by telling him my reception from the young King! Indeed he is so gracious to all ranks, the friends of a certain Prince may consider it the worst thing that ever happened to their cause, when their prayers were answered by the demise of George the First! George the Second understands that Englishmen are born free and will remain so; and while he, and such as he, hold the British sceptre, I shall always be one to say, Long live the House of Brunswick!"

"I do not dissent from your sentiment!" rejoined the Marquis "and whatever may be my impressions in favour of[473] his royal competitor; I must admit that while the house of Brunswick is represented by such a character as the present Prince who fills the throne, James Stuart can have no hope. To attempt the subversion of a power, founded on the virtues of the possessor, would be to outrage heaven, and lead on to unavailing bloodshed. Of this Louis has so thoroughly convinced Duke Wharton, that even he acknowledges, the little probability of any sword being drawn again in the contest, either in his life time, or in that of the present monarch."

This information was very grateful to Mr. Athelstone, as a friend to freedom and to the church, and also as the guardian of Cornelia Coningsby. To give her to a man, however estimable in himself, who was actively engaged against the royal protector of the political and religious liberties of his country, he hardly knew how to reconcile with his own loyalty and faith. But the present[474] judgment Duke Wharton had passed on his own party, seemed to untie the knot, and the worthy Pastor was satisfied. With this difficulty happily settled in his mind, it was with a smiling countenance that in the course of the morning, he re-visited the chamber of her most interested in the subject.

Cornelia was too much shaken by her late mental suffering, to be yet able to leave her room; but it was with a sensation of some heavenly balm distilling upon her heart, that she listened to all these things. That he she loved, was not only reconciled to his God, but had ceased to deserve the indictment of outlawry, were precious convictions! though not with any relation to her future union with him; that she declared impossible.

Mr. Athelstone attended to all she professed, and with the benevolent spirit of Him who said;—"Neither do I condemn thee.—Go, and sin no more!" he combated all her agitated arguments[475] against uniting her fate with the person, she confessed to be dearest to her in the world.

"My Uncle," said she, "am I not commanded, in some cases, to cut off my right hand? I would do it now."

"But be careful to distinguish!" replied he, "ask yourself what duty you will transgress, in becoming the wife of a man, whose errors have been expiated by repentance; and whose reformation has been proved by his conduct towards the memory of the Duke of Ripperda, and his zeal for the rights of his son. I leave you my Cornelia, to ponder on these things. Be merciful to yourself, and just to Wharton, and heaven will bless the sentence of your heart!"

CHAP. XXVIII.

In the evening, when every breeze was calm, and "the bright-haired sun was making a golden set;" the Marquis Santa Cruz sat alone with his daughter, in her dressing room. Their conference had been long and salutary to both their hearts, and even as it closed with a communication to convince Marcella she entirely occupied that of Louis de Montemar; Lorenzo entered to summon the Marquis below.

Mr. Athelstone feared to agitate her, by an abrupt enunciation of the arrival of his nephew, but the appearance of Lorenzo, who had been the companion of his perilous voyage, was enough; and in speechless gratitude, she pressed her fa[477]ther's hand to her lips as he rose to obey the call.

The Marchioness and Mrs. Coningsby, and all of the family, excepting Cornelia and Marcella, were in the drawing-room with the Marquis. The Duke still lay on the litter on which he had been brought on shore; and he was looking around, with a melancholy smile, on the rapturous greetings with which every body met his friend. They were the sacred transports of dear, domestic kindred, where all was pure, and full of innoxious pleasure.

"I never had a family!" said he to himself, "and yet I have seen, and felt transports! and may their memory perish!" cried he, in the same inward voice, "for nothing but selfish passions were there."

Mrs. Coningsby approached the Duke, and welcomed him with her accustomed hospitable grace. Every one had now something of the same import to say to him; all but Alice, and she still continued[478] to view from a distance this formidable Wharton, whom she had so often designated under the alarming appellatives of hideous, wicked, and detestable. Cornelia had, as frequently as herself, given him these abhorring epithets; and that Cornelia should now be as much infatuated with him, as had ever been their cousin Louis, Alice could not consider as the least enormity of his art.

The Marquis was at that time observing on the happy circumstance of the yacht standing for the mainland instead of the island. "In the latter case, old Peter tells me, you must have been lost upon the southern reef!"

"And it might have been our fate," rejoined Louis, "if Wharton's resolution had not mastered mine. On an obvious argument, I wanted to avoid the mainland, dreading the exposed condition in which he must have gone on shore."

"Yes," returned the Duke, "that boy was always wiser in his own conceit, than[479] seven men that could give a reason! and so I even laid him under hatches, till we hailed Queen Bebba's flambeau!"

"How wicked is that gaiety!" whispered Alice to Ferdinand, "when we have all been so miserable!"

Wharton heard the whisper, and turning his head, met a smile from Ferdinand. The Duke bowed to Alice, who blushed angrily, while he requested Mrs. Coningsby to present him to her youngest daughter. Mrs. Coningsby took her hand and drew her reluctant steps towards him.

"Sweet Lady," said he, with a gentle seriousness passing over his face; "you are the sister of my best benefactress! and all of my heart I can spare from her virtues, I lay at the feet of yours."

There was a melody and a charm in these tenderer tones of his voice, the effect of which astonished her; for feeling as if she had heard the voice of truth itself, she lingered to hear him speak[480] again; though she only answered him by a silent courtsey. Ferdinand observed the sudden change, and repeating his smile more archly to the Duke, whispered:—

"I shall be jealous, if you breathe that vox amantis again—or, you must teach me your note!"

"Apply to her sister!" replied Wharton, turning his brightening countenance towards approaching steps in the adjoining room. The careless hilarity of his features vanished at once, and gave place to an agitated sensibility, that sufficiently shewed, if his voice were the organ of tenderness, the power itself dwelt in his heart. He half rose from the sofa, to which he had been removed from the litter; and Louis with an emotion not less apparent, started towards the opening door.

Marcella was led in by her mother, and she approached with a faultering and conscious step.

Cornelia, who had taken her resolution, (whatever Wharton might be, and however he might profess himself) to make that just sacrifice to public opinion and to her own consistency, which should demand of him to make a probation at least;—drew on her own strength, and entered the room alone, and in an opposite direction.

She was advancing with a modest dignity, towards the happy group; but her step was hasty, as her eye instantly fell on her beloved cousin, and all the dangers he had just escaped, rushed at once upon her heart. Marcella entered at that moment, and looked confusedly round. She also saw the object dearest to her, but she durst not allow her eye to rest there. The same glance shewed her Cornelia, and being near her, unknowing what she did, she threw herself into her arms.

But the soul's unutterable language was not confined to the bosoms of those two[482] conscious friends. In the same moment, Cornelia's hand was pressed to the lips of Wharton; and Marcella's to those of Louis. They knew whose lips were there, and, for that moment, they did not recall the hands so transiently blest.

The Marquis raised his daughter from the neck of her friend; and, having embraced her himself, as she leaned on his bosom put her hand again into that of Louis, and pressing them together: "There, my children!" said he, "receive a father's blessing, as you continue to love each other; and are worthy of this providence of God!"

Marcella fell on the breast of her lover, and Louis bore her in his enraptured arms into the next room, to the extended ones of her mother.

Mr. Athelstone had not stood mutely by, during this blameless eloquence of nature; but in the moment of the Marquis's separating his daughter from Cornelia, he clasped the hands of Wharton[483] and Cornelia's in his;—and said, in a low and impressive voice:—"Though he has lain in ashes, yet he shall have wings like a dove! And, against what the Lord hath purified, who shall dare make an exception!"

Cornelia trembled every where, but in her stedfast heart. She could not withdraw her hand, or speak; and Wharton softly whispered:—"Oh, my Cornelia, what that sacred hand has joined together, let not thy voice put asunder!" With the words, he gently glided a ring from his own finger, upon hers; and firmly added—"We have met to part no more!"

She sighed convulsively, and her head fell upon the shoulder of her Pastor-uncle. He had seen the ring; and pressing her to his breast, tenderly rejoined: "Be to him, my Cornelia, as a lamp to his paths! and, at the resurrection of the just, he will be to you as the sun at noon-day; encreasing your glory, by the brightness of his light!"

She put the hand of her uncle, which[484] again clasped her's and the Duke's, to her lips; and her tears were left on Wharton's in the action. "Oh, the bliss of virtue! and of virtuous love!" exclaimed he, to himself as he dried them with a fervent kiss.

Those tears relieved her oppressed bosom, oppressed by the love she bore him; oppressed by the boundless and precious disclosure of his; and with her determination to inflict a penalty on each. She raised her head from Mr. Athelstone's breast, and turning upon Wharton, with a look which betrayed all the tenderness of her soul while she declared her final sentiments, she gently, but steadily said:

"I do not return you, your ring:—It shall go with me to my grave. But, I was weak; and you know it. I must redeem myself to you, and to the world, by not giving you this hand, until a year's trial at least. When you are far from me, and the precepts of my uncle, your conduct must prove to all, that his niece gives[485] herself to the virtuous, as well as charming Duke of Wharton!" She uttered the last epithet, with a tearful smile; but she would hear of no change in her resolution; and as it was dictated by the truest principles of love and honour, Wharton was at last prevailed on by her approving uncle, to acquiesce.

This scene passed without any other auditor than themselves; for when Mr. Athelstone first perceived the great agitation of his niece, he had made a sign to her mother, to draw the rest of the party into another apartment.

The next day saw the Marquis and Marchioness Santa Cruz, with the elders of the Athelstone family, meet in the Pastor's library, to arrange every plan for their children's future happiness.

Meanwhile Louis sat at the feet of the lady Marcella, in a little summer-house in the garden, exchanging with her the long concealed tendernesses of their united hearts. Theirs was already a[486] union of tried virtue with nobleness; and neither needed, nor admitted of any disguise.

Cornelia would not listen to the earnest supplications of him, whose voice, she tremblingly believed, might charm an angel from its orb; till Mr. Athelstone himself prevailed on her, to beguile his yet lengthened hours of confinement to his couch, by her society. There, she heard him tell of all his plans for rendering her union with an outlawed man, less like a banishment to herself. He spoke with reverence of the Electress of Bavaria; with enthusiasm of James Stuart.—"But there, Othello's occupation's gone!" exclaimed he; "the character of the present George of Brunswick has made my commission a sinecure."

"Your commission, my dear Wharton," rejoined the Pastor, "is a general one.—From Heaven, and not from man.—And it consists in properly applying your vast endowments of mind and fortune."[487]

"To do that, can never be a sinecure. Whether you are to remain a statesman, or to commence a private career; to cultivate in yourself a disposition to befriend your fellow-creatures by every means in your power; whether by your purse, your influence, or your talents; is my acceptation of that difficult text in the Gospel, which says "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations!" We know that the mammon of unrighteousness is riches; or, in other words, worldly-power. We make these our enemies, when we use them to selfish and unworthy purposes. But we turn their dross into real gold;—we make them our friends, when, by their benevolent application, we lay them up as treasures in Heaven;—and, they will receive us there, into everlasting habitations!"

Wharton bowed his head, with the ingenuous docility that was in his heart;[488] and the benign teacher left his pupil to the dearer, though no less serious converse of his niece.

With less profundity of feeling, but not less vivacity of happiness, Alice walked by the side of Ferdinand in the garden, and artlessly expressed to him her wonder, how any body could help admiring, and even loving Duke Wharton, who had ever passed an evening in his company.

"He is so very handsome;" said she, "and so very gay! and so very commanding in all he does, and says, and looks, that, at first sight one is quite frightened at the power all this threatens. But when we know him, he is so exhilarating, so amiable, that—that I do not wonder Cornelia should love as she does!"

"But you must not!" rejoined Ferdinand, putting her hand to his lips, "else I shall wish the storm had sunk him fifty fathoms below this island."[489] "Don't be afraid of that!" returned she, blushing while she laughed; "Louis is fifty fathoms handsomer, and so much more joy-inspiring, that, in days of yore, I used to call him the angel Gabriel, always coming on some blessed salutation; if I escaped falling in love with him, I am sure you ought not to fear the Duke."

"Then, I am to suppose you love me, because I am the reverse of these two worthies?" returned Ferdinand, archly glancing in her face.

"There is so much of the coxcomb in the question," answered she, sportively shaking her head, "that I will gratify your vanity by the expected compliment."

A fortnight's tranquil residence at the pastorage drew the whole circle into that "sober certainty of waking bliss," which no language can describe, but happy are they who understand it by the knowledge of experience. Cornelia was, however,[490] still steady to her virtuous resolution; and the Duke arranged with the Marquis Santa Cruz to relieve his English friends of his dangerous presence a few days before the celebration of their nuptials. He meant to sail direct from Lindisfarne to the nearest foreign port; thence proceed to Spain, and there enter on the probation which, he trusted, would end with the year, by the re-union of the whole party at Paris; where Santa Cruz was appointed ambassador, and his children had promised to rejoin him.

The Duke's wounds were healed, and a pause stood in every happy heart at the near prospect of his departure. He was trying his last entreaties, for a shorter term of separation, when a stranger was unguardedly introduced by one of the under-servants, and it proved to be a messenger from the Secretary of State. He was a younger brother of General Stanhope's, and brought communications of the utmost importance. Wharton was[491] sitting in a distant recess with Cornelia, when he entered; and the instant bustle in the room, with some words that dropped from Mr. Athelstone, respecting the Duke, so alarmed her, that turning in agony towards him, she fainted on his breast.

The Duke was under the same impression with herself; and, relinquishing her in some agitation to her mother, walked calmly towards the group in the room, while the other ladies assisted Mrs. Coningsby to bear her insensible daughter from the expected trying scene.

But such was not the import of Mr. Stanhope's dispatches. Some were dictated by the King himself, and others by his ministers. Part informed the Marquis de Montemar, that His Majesty had received from the Empress of Germany, an exoneration of all that had been alleged against him at her court. A favourite mistress of Count Routemberg, in her dying moments, had declared the whole[492] conspiracy of the Count and others against Ripperda and his son; and the Empress now made the only atonement in her power, to the memory of the one, and the honour of the other, by thus clearing the Marquis de Montemar in the eyes of his present Sovereign.

Her royal kinsman noticed also the accounts he had received from Gibraltar, of Louis's disinterested conduct as a son, and a Protestant, and a free born descendant of one of the most ancient families in England. These virtues, the gracious Monarch added, should have an adequate reward. Extraordinary disinterestedness could only be repaid by something of the same character!

By such a disinterestedness did this noble representative of the long line of British Kings, uniting the royal blood of Scotland and of England in the bosom of George of Brunswick, rivet the loyalty of Louis de Montemar to the country of his maternal ancestors! Certain well[493]informed agents of the crown, had lodged private information with the Secretary of State, that Philip Duke of Wharton was secreted at Lindisfarne. But the same agents had also reported the calamitous circumstances which had thrown him under that protection; and the King, knowing the friendship which had subsisted between the Marquis de Montemar and the outlawed Duke; for the sake of de Montemar's virtues and approved loyalty, transmitted to him a free pardon to his friend,—an amnesty that re-invested him with his former rights, as a British Peer and Landholder!

"'Tis well!" answered the Duke, with a kindling cheek, when this part of the dispatch was read to him; "I accept the amnesty, that I may now witness the nuptials of my friend in the face of day; and, that hereafter, my Cornelia need not shrink from giving her hand to a man under sentence of the scaffold! But, for my rights[494] as a British Peer, I derive them from the House of Stuart, and will not hold their possession by the sale of my honour. George of Brunswick may be the people's King;—James Stuart is mine! I give what I claim. And, while your Sovereign reigns in their hearts, I shall not dispute his possession. Meanwhile, Saint-Germains is my country;—though my sword may sleep in its scabbard!"

There was no voice in that room to expostulate against principle; and the messenger himself, who was a soldier and a man of honour, venerating the same, though it pointed differently from his own, merely answered:

"Permit me, Duke, to explain the mistake of those who suppose that the throne of Great Britain came to the House of Brunswick, not by the right of blood, but by virtue of an act of Parliament. George the First was descended from a daughter of James the First; and the[495] act of settlement neither creates nor confers any new right, but only confirms that which was inherent in the House of Brunswick upon the exclusion of the Papist branch of the royal line. To assert the contrary, is to subvert the ancient constitution; and from an hereditary, to turn this into an elective monarchy."

"This is an intricate question; but I am the last man to dispute its consequence. However, happy is the prince whose throne is so well founded, that it may be disputed whether it rests most on his birth-right, or his people's will!"

With this remark he quitted the room; and, leaving all other thoughts but those of love and gratitude behind him, hastened to the suite of chambers, where he hoped to find her whose arms had never closed on him, till she thought he could receive no other comforter.

Louis had left the room in the midst of Mr. Stanhope's conversation with his[496] friend, to relieve the suffering groupe above stairs, of the alarm which he guessed had caused the insensibility of his cousin. Wharton met him at the door of Cornelia's chamber, where she was resting from the awful interchanges of her feelings, on the breast of her mother. Louis pressed the hand of his friend as he passed him.

But in this, even her cousin, who best knew the movements of her soul, was mistaken.

Cornelia suffered the grateful, the happy Wharton, to fold her to his heart, in the sacred emotion of a meeting, redeemed as from the grave; for, when they parted a few minutes before, the scaffold appeared to each, the scene of their next separation; and the world to come, where they could only meet again! But Cornelia remained firm to her first resolution.[497] "In Heaven's eye," cried she, "I believe you are as pure as in mine. But the World must be convinced of the same. Your happiness, as well as mine, compels the sacrifice; and, dearest Wharton, it shall be made! Another year, and instead of my going to seek my affianced husband in a foreign land, he will come to claim me in the hall of my fathers!"

Mr. Stanhope did not pass that day only, with the Pastor and his interesting household; he remained to witness the most heart-felt ceremony that ever took place in the little humble church that succeeded the once magnificent abbey of Lindisfarne.

The double marriages of their beloved Louis and Alice were to be solemnized there; and every fisherman's hut sent forth its inmates to honour the holy ceremony.

The stars of many orders might have glared on the noble breast of Wharton,[498] as he followed the happy groupe under the rustic archway; but he chose only the badge of the garter. It was bestowed on him by James Stuart, when three of the greatest kings in Europe, signed the league for his support; and it was the Duke's pride, doubly to acknowledge the hand that bestowed it, by wearing it now, in the utter despair of his fortunes.

Louis, looked so like his former self, in the brightness of unclouded happiness, that every lip moved in rapturous blessings as he passed; and so great was the acclaim of the honest fishermen, around this their often venturous companion, and ever darling master; that no sense was left unoccupied, to bestow a glance on the waving plumes of Ferdinand, though many a benizon followed the down-cast looks of his blushing Alice.

Mr. Athelstone stood on the steps of the altar. He began—and he finished[499] the holy ceremony, which was to bind so many faithful hearts into one interest, in this world, and in the next. And when he consigned the married pairs to the benediction of their parents, (in the light of one of whom stood Sir Anthony Athelstone,) he raised his devout hands, and solemnly pronounced his general blessing.

Cornelia wept in sisterly congratulation on Alice's bosom; and when she relinquished her to the enraptured Ferdinand, her sweetest tears dropped on the shoulder of the no less happy Louis. Wharton's arm supported the agitated frame of his future bride, while he clasped his friend's hand in his with a felicitation that knew no utterance. Mr. Athelstone looked on the kindred group with the feelings of a parent; and piously exclaimed,

"O! how amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of Hosts! For here, mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other!"[500] "And may such, dearest sir," said the Duke, turning his bright countenance towards him; "be ever the Guests of the Pastor's Fire-side!"

Transcriber’s Notes

page 8, subtelty changed to subtlety (abruptness of consummate subtlety)
page 35, faitful changed to faithful (and that faithful servant)
page 100, road changed to rode (Aben Humeya rode forward)
page 110, revolved changed to resolved (resolved how he should)
page 117, assersion changed to assertion (the assertion of his character)
page 126, comma changed to a period (Louis rose and followed his conductor.)
page 137, holdly changed to boldly (came boldly forward)
page 140, persistance changed to persistence (persistence of Ripperda)
page 150, anwered changed to answered (The Moors answered)
page 170, dutchy changed to duchy (Emperor to that duchy)
page 180, sactified changed to sanctified (offspring of our heaven-sanctified)
page 183, subtilty changed to subtlety (subtlety of this apology)
page 184, your's changed to yours("will determine the fate of yours!")
page 187, sieze changed to seize (courage to remain and seize the aimless weapon)
page 201, kimself changed to himself (Santa Cruz had made himself)
page 202, extroardinary changed to extraordinary (without any apparent extraordinary)
page 208, retrogade changed to retrograde (same retrograde motion)
page 215, recal changed to recall (trumpet of recall)
page 247, clapsed changed to clasped (clasped his arm)
page 259, Recal changed to Recall (Recall the promises of the Scriptures)
page 268, corse changed to corpse (heart would have been with that cold corpse)
page 269, Christain changed to Christian (other Christian captives)
page 279, removed quotation mark at beginning of paragraph (On my father arriving at the palace)
page 296, removed extra "he" (where he had imbibed the first)
page 319, posponed changed to postponed (was to be yet further postponed)
page 329, changed overturn to over-turn to standardize spelling (threaten its instant over-turn)
page 341, removed extraneous period after it (for it was he that Louis)
page 418, extra set of quote marks removed (continued the Pastor, "has been)
page 419, quotation mark added (I derived from his holy word!")
page 439, quotation mark added (shall soon have no interests in this world!")
page 457, exclamation point changed to a comma (artless Alice exclaimed, "oh, how)
page 459, removed unncessary quote (replied the Pastor, gently smiling.)
page 462, ncrease changed to encrease (And when the encrease of)
page 466, suspence changed to suspense (this terrific hour of suspense)
page 468, yatch changed to yacht (The yacht is safe!")
page 472, decribed changed to described (were not to be described)
page 482, recal changed to recall (did not recall the hands)
page 484, n changed to in (meet in the Pastor's library)
page 488, neice changed to niece (no less serious converse of his niece)
page 491, Mr. Sanhope's changed to Mr. Stanhope's (But such was not the import of Mr. Stanhope's dispatches)
Quotations errors have been left as is.

List of Archaic and Variable Spelling (not an exhaustive list)

portray is spelled pourtray
achievements is spelled atchievements
alleged is spelled alledged
ante-chamber is spelled anti-chamber
ante-room is spelled anti-room
burden is spelled burthen
cloths/clothe are spelled cloaths/cloathe
chase is spelled chace/chase
chequered is spelled checquered
desert is spelled desart
doting is spelled doating
expence is spelled expense
faltering is spelled faultering
havoc is spelled havock
increase in spelled both increase and encrease
lily is spelled lilly
negotiations/negotiated/negotiating are spelled negociations/negociated/negociating
self-controlled is spelled self-controuled
surprise is spelled surprize/surprise
steadfastly is spelled stedfastly
valleys is spelled vallies
squalid is spelled squallid

THE PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE, Vol. IV.