Chapter II: Part 2

"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 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 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 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--"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 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 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. 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 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 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 rejoiced when their whole train parted in the morning on their various trafficks, and he was left alone to convey his master from the cavern in the best way he could. Finding him restored to sensibility and speech, he did not venture to ask him the cause of his so terrible trance; for Martini had warned him, neither to make such enquiries himself; nor to satisfy the curiosity of persons in Spain, by recounting any part of the incidents in the Sierra de Ronda, nor hinting at his transitory visit to the opposite coast.

Louis listened, with a very few observations, to all that Lorenzo said. As the fresh and balmy air of the morning breathed into the cavern, his frame became braced; and, though still bewildered in his thoughts, he rose; and walking out into the dell before the cave, dispatched his companion to procure mules, for re-crossing the mountains. The animals were soon on the rock: and, with an aimless mind, he commenced his return to Madrid. A film was over every faculty, as he mechanically pursued his journey. Lorenzo watched anxiously the rayless fixture of his eye, which turned to no object, nor his ear to any sound, during their rapid posting through the champaign country. But all his haste was vain to check the fire that was preying on his master's veins; or to arrive at Madrid, where alone he could expect relief or comfort.

In the Val de Penas Louis became too ill to proceed; and, happily, the alarming symptoms seized him in sight of a monastery. Lorenzo, left him in the carriage, and went forward alone to solicit the hospitality of the Brotherhood. They were as eager to bestow, as he to ask, the benevolence required; and Louis soon found assistance under their charitable roof.

For three long weeks, he lingered between suffering and the grave. His fever was on the nerves, and attended with delirium, and every other prognostic of a speedy termination of his days. Lorenzo shared the constant vigilance of the good Fathers, in watching by his side; and at the commencement of the fourth week, the delirium left him. His present recovery to recollection was not like that in the cave, dim and distressing. He spoke with so much strength of voice, and clearness of perception, that his affectionate attendant was transported with hope; but the priest, who considered it as a last gleam from the departing soul, (which often sheds its brightest beam on the earth it leaves for ever,) bade the happy Lorenzo wait without for a few minutes, while he discoursed, as became his faith, with the restored Marquis.

When he found himself obeyed, and that he was alone with his patient, he cautiously apprised him of his approaching dissolution; and then as piously exhorted him to dedicate the sane hour which had been granted to him, in making his peace with God. "I have one act to perform," said he, "before I am called into the presence of my only father. Give me writing materials."

The monk laid paper before him, but held the pen in his own hand.

"Dictate, and I will write, what, I trust will bring peace to your soul."

"No," replied Louis, "my own hand alone must record what is on my soul. And no eye, Lorenzo,"--he looked for that faithful servant, and finding him absent, requested the monk to call him in. "He must be a witness, with you Father, that the probably altered characters are mine."

Lorenzo was summoned, and the monk briefly told him the cause. He was transfixed, till the gentle voice of his master addressed him.

"Lorenzo," said he, "your fidelity to me has been more that of a brother than of a servant. I trust you with the charge of my last testament, for I know you will 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 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! Meanwhile, in this my last act, I recommend him to your sacred exhortations:--To the prayers of my saint-like uncle of Lindisfarne."

Here Louis paused, and a tear fell upon the paper. It was the first that had moistened the burning surface of his eye, since the calamity which had stretched him on that bed of death. It mingled with the ink in writing the dear and honoured name.--He resumed.

"This paper must pass from your hands, my revered friend, to his. Let those kindred eyes alone share the confidence of this sad narrative. Let him know that his nephew, the child of his nurture, dies happy! Happy in the hope that is, and that which is to come."

As he added an awful farewell to his beloved aunt and cousins, a crowd of tender recollections thronged upon his soul. He hastily addressed the packet to the Marquis Santa Cruz. Besides 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 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, manoeuvred 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 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 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 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. Ripperda's treasures had then spread the Spanish seas with depredators; his domination had concentrated the states of Barbary into one interest; his resentment had turned their whole force against the power of Spain! She had but one policy; to wrest this mighty Son of Vengeance from his passion and his influence. And, having determined it as most prudent to conceal the discovery from the King and his ministers, she gave her present 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." With this commission, though without a hope of seeing the son of Ripperda yet an inhabitant of this world, Santa Cruz took the convent in his way to the plains of Valentia. When he alighted at the gate, the Abbot met him; and answered to his fearful question, "That the Marquis de Montemar not merely breathed, but he trusted was far advanced in his recovery."

From the night in which the dispatch left him, the virulence of the fever disappeared. He felt and bewailed himself as a man; and the fiend which despair had locked within his bosom, fled with the genial flood. He remained in a state of calm that astonished himself; while it amazed all around, to see one who was a heretic, so evidently comforted by an influence from on high.

Santa Cruz sent to inform him of his arrival, and was immediately admitted to his cell. Lorenzo withdrew as the Marquis entered. Louis was dressed in his usual cloaths, but from present weakness yet lay on a couch. The window of his cell was open to admit the mountain air, which blew fresh and cheeringly over his face. That face was not to be described:--It spoke of heaven, and his whole form harmonized with the celestial witness.

Santa Cruz stopped and gazed on him; while Louis, raising himself on his arm, stretched his hand towards him with a smile that made the veteran's head bow before the youthful saint. He advanced and embraced him. Louis bent his face upon the Marquis's hand.

"You will live my son!" cried Santa Cruz, in a burst of manly sensibility; "you will recover your father to his God, and to his country!"

"I could wish to live for that purpose!" replied Louis, "but be it as heaven wills. My prayers may be effected without my own agency."

When recovered from his emotion, the Marquis communicated his present commission; and in recapitulating the tidings from Morocco, the mantling colour on the hectic cheek of Louis shewed, that he too, recognised his father in the new Aben Humeya. In narrating the rapid successes of the apostate Duke, Santa Cruz dwelt on one circumstance, which contained some antidote to the poison of the rest.

Muley Hamet, with a large army of disaffected Moors, had appeared on the plain of Marmora, about half a day's journey from the capital of Morocco. Aben Humeya assembled the household troops; and on the same day the tidings arrived, marched to oppose him. His forces were inferior in number to the enemy; but their leader gave them an example of confidence, telling them they must strictly obey his orders, and on his head he would assure them victory. Muley Hamet practised the usual Moorish stratagems, which the discipline of his adversary so completely baffled, that enraged with disappointment he dared a general engagement in the very worst position he could have chosen. Aben Humeya had drawn him into the declivities of the mountains, where the cavalry, his principal strength, could not act; and sending a detachment to block up the regress, by occupying the pass of Cedi Cassem, the rebel Prince suffered a total defeat. Every soul might have been cut off, but the new Mussulman had not yet forgotten the warfare of Christian nations. He called to his men to remember that the misguided followers of Muley Hamet were their brethren; and that after the signal chastisement they had received, it was the victor's duty to suffer the escape of the remnant. Aben Humeya pursued the same conciliatory conduct in taking Tetuan and Arzilla from the power of the rebel; and an offer of general pardon being spread amongst the refractory Moors, the troops 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, 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 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 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 celebrated engineer, was most especially the object of their anathemas; as, from his skill, they expected some protraction in the glory of repelling Aben Humeya from the walls of Ceuta. When these discussions began, Louis usually retired to a distant corner on the quarter deck, to commune with his own thoughts; and while his upright mind armed itself in its own integrity, his body derived its wonted vigour from the genial breezes of the sea.

On the night of the sixth day after they had set sail from the port of Carthagena, the little fleet entered the bay of Ceuta; and, on a wave smooth as glass, the troops stepped into boats which rowed them to the perpendicular walls of the town. Here all was deep shadow. Louis saw nothing through the universal blackness. Nor did he note the dreary splashing of the boats in the fathomless water; nor did he feel the chilling vapour 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 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 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:--

"_Proceed! to exceed is no longer possible!_"

Santa Cruz replied to the urgency of de Blas for an immediate attack, that he had orders from his sovereign to act with peculiar circumspection. He must communicate with the Moorish general; and to do this with the necessary knowledge, he must have time to make his military observations, and to estimate their relative strength.

In the course of these investigations, in the prosecution of which Santa Cruz was always attended by Louis, the group 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, revolved how he should 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 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

"Aben Humeya!"

took the handkerchief from his breast, and held it forth with a commanding air towards the tent. He had not even repelled the weapons with his hand, so firm did he stand in apparent inward dignity. It awed the negroes, who stood for a moment gazing on each other; Louis profited by their suspended faculties, and was passing on, when one in the dress of an officer intercepted him. He addressed the intruder in a barbarous attempt at the Moresco language, but really in a jargon, comprised of every tongue on the Mediterranean shores; and saluting Louis by the opprobrious appellation of slave, demanded, with other viler epithets, how he presumed to violate that sacred threshold.

Louis saw the miserable soul of some base renegado of the Balearic Isles, in this insolent attack; and answering him at once in Spanish, warned him in laconic, but haughty language, to beware how he insulted a man who came in the face of three hundred cymetars, to lay the spoil of a brave Spaniard at the feet of Aben Humeya.

"Conduct me to his presence;" continued he, "or know, that he who can speak Spanish like his native tongue, is not less able to prove a Moorish sword his native weapon!"

The renegado eyed the speaker with a trembling suspicion. His head might pay the forfeit, should he introduce an improper person into the pavilion; and 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.

"Your name?" said he.

"That the Basha will know when he sees me."

The officer feared to hesitate, and he preceded him to the first range of the pavilion. Like the outer-court, it was lined with guards. The renegado in a tone of some respect, told Louis he must stop in this vestibule until his credentials in the handkerchief were delivered to Aben Humeya. The alcaide of the guard, who carried it in, returned in a few minutes with consternation in his countenance; and beckoning Louis to follow him, passed through several chambers before they arrived at the sacred inclosure; within whose sacred vestment none durst penetrate without an especial summons from the Basha. The officer drew aside the curtain, and pointing in silence to the door, Louis entered alone. The Basha stood by a Moorish couch, directly under a lamp in the centre of the place. A table was near him, on which lay a naked cymetar, and an open casket containing the koran. He had the picture in his hand.

Louis's face was overshadowed by the dark folds of his turban; and as he did not assume the usual position of all who (less than of equal rank,) approached the august presence, the Basha fell back a step and exclaimed!

"Who art thou, that darest so to approach Aben Humeya?"

Louis with clasped hands, bowed his head upon his breast, but could not immediately answer. It was his Father's voice, and he had not ventured his life in vain!

"Whence came this Christian spoil?" demanded Ripperda, "was it taken from the living or the dead?" The voice was firm. But the tension with which he grasped the picture, was sufficient assurance that an exerted nerve was necessary to enable him to put the question with the steadiness of one indifferent to the owner's fate.

"I took it from the living!" replied Louis, "To pass me into the presence of him who gave me life."

An inarticulate sound burst from the lips of his father; he moved a few hasty steps towards him; but as suddenly starting back;

"Presumptuous boy!" cried he, "what do you promise yourself by this temerity? Are you not aware that the act which made me a Mussulman, separated me from all former relations; and that in Louis de Montemar, I can see no other than a Spanish spy?"

"No act of man," replied Louis, "can cut asunder the bands of nature; can separate the unity of Son and Father, in the great objects of time and eternity: And in that faith, I appear again before you, on a second mission from your religion and your country."

"This told me a braver story!" returned Ripperda, sternly putting the picture into the hand of his Son; "But speak your errand, that I may dismiss the messenger."

Louis bore the taunt without reply; and with brevity, but energetic persuasion, he repeated to his gloomily listening Father, the new proposals from the Queen. They assured the banished Duke that the decree of his exile was not merely recalled, and the King ready to publicly declare the charges his enemies had alleged against him, to be false; but His Majesty would grant him a general amnesty for his present proceedings in Africa; and on his return to Spain, invest him with a new and extraordinary trust at court, to the confusion of his rivals, and the assertion of his character in the minds of all men. The church 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 unnatural pride; and resume at once the patriot and the Christian. None, excepting the King and Queen, and the Marquis Santa Cruz, know that Aben Humeya and Ripperda are the same; and having been spared that open stigma, your religion and your country may yet be that of Spain."

Ripperda grasped the still un-read letter of the Queen; "De Montemar!" said he, "and is it you that can think I would live under shelter of any shrouded act? No; I have dared to be a Mussulman! To resume the name of my Moorish ancestors; to tread in the unreceding steps of Julian and de Valor. What I am, I am; and my banners, here, and in Spain, shall proclaim to all the world, that Ripperda's injuries are in the breast of Aben Humeya."

Again Louis urged him to read the last appeal of his former Sovereigns, contained in the packet he held in his hand; and 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 firm voice, he asked, what was his reply to that petition from a Queen and a woman?

Ripperda turned on him a penetrating and contemptuous look.

"Have you read that petition?"

"No, my Father; but I know it is to ratify all that I have assured you."

"I know not what it would ratify!" cried the Duke, stung by a sudden recollection, and snatching up the letter, he tore it in pieces. "It shall never be witness, that any one dared tamper with my honour; that he who once commanded nations--But no more. I will answer this letter to-morrow, on that field; and they who survive, may bear the writing to their Queen."

"My Father!" exclaimed Louis.

"I have said it, young man," interrupted Ripperda in a voice of thunder; "go, and tell them so--and it shall be finished."