Chapter IV: Part 4

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 consummate 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 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 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! 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.

"Aben Humeya!" said he, "what unmans you thus, before the eyes of slaves?"

"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 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 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 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 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 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 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.--

"Explain yourself, Lorenzo."

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 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:--"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. "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 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." "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?" 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 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 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 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 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 manoeuvres 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 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 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 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 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; 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 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.

The slaughter was as tremendous as the discomfiture was signal and conclusive.

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. 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 distinction 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 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 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 victorious 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 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 committed during the present campaign.

Santa Cruz inquired the fate of the late Basha.

"He fled from the field of battle," replied the Moor, "and has not yet been heard of."

"Your information is false," returned the Marquis; "I myself saw him streaming with wounds and insensible, borne out of his consuming camp by a party of your own countrymen."

"I speak on the word of my commander," replied the Moor.

"You must bring me better evidence of his truth," rejoined the Marquis, "before I trust him. Return this day week to Ceuta; and, as he dissembles or fairly represents the last act of his fallen rival, I shall shape the terms my Sovereign may empower me to make to your Emperor."

Santa Cruz was not long in receiving ample credentials from the court at Seville for all he might wish to do in re-establishing the Spanish interest in Barbary. At Seville, as in Ceuta, it was believed that the Duke de Ripperda had expiated his crimes with his life; and, in answer to the evidence which Santa Cruz transmitted, of the inextinguishable loyalty of the Marquis de Montemar, the King issued a new edict, granting him the restitution of all his late father's hereditary honours and possessions. But there was a clause in this munificent investiture. The future Duke de Ripperda must avow himself of the Roman Catholic communion.

The re-opened wounds of Louis were just cicatrized; and he was leaning over the table on which he was writing to his friends in England, when the Marquis entered with the official letter from the King. He read it aloud. At the end of the catalogue of the Ripperda territories and titles, before he opened on the clause, Santa Cruz paused.

"De Montemar," said he, with solemnity, "hard trial has separated the gold from the dross in your heart; and you will not esteem the last title with which your King would invest you, the least honourable,--a true Christian!"

He then read the condition: "That all these restitutions should be ratified by the royal seal, on the day that the Cardinal-resident at Madrid should witness the baptism of Louis, Duke of Ripperda, into the bosom of the Church of Rome."

"I am sensible to the gracious intent of my Sovereign," replied Louis; "but that name I once idolized, I would now hear no more. It shall never be borne by me! And for the rest,--I am a Protestant, and I will die one."

Santa Cruz urged him by religious arguments and persuasions, drawn from the reasonableness of maintaining the rights of his ancestors. He spoke of the justice he owed to himself in restoring the illustrious name of his family to its pristine lustre; and, at any rate, it was his duty, when so offered, to transmit it, and the inheritance that was its appendage, unimpaired to his posterity.

"I shall have no posterity," replied Louis. "My father died an Infidel, and his name and his race are no more."

"What do you mean, De Montemar?" demanded the Marquis, regarding with alarm the countenance of his young friend.

"Nothing rash; nothing that this venerable man would not approve," said he, laying his hand on the letter he was writing to Mr. Athelstone. "But Marquis!" cried he, "Is there not matter enough to break a son's heart?"

Santa Cruz replied, by turning the subject to Louis's own great endowments of mind and figure; and tried to awaken his ambition, by dwelling on the impression his high principled conduct at Vienna had made upon his Sovereigns. It could only be equalled, he said, by their admiration of his late intrepid defence of Ceuta. On these grounds, the Marquis added, he had only to chuse, and the first stations in the state, or in the army, must in process of time be at his command.

Louis shook his head.

"I was not born for a statesman," replied he. "I acknowledge no morality but one; and I have known enough of the ethics of cabinets to loathe their chicanery. I have seen that in the adjustment of their respective interests, the principles of common honesty may not only be dispensed with, but that no subterfuge is too mean for adoption, when expedient to disguise truth or over-reach a rival party. Where every man is supposed a deceiver by profession, no man can really trust in each other; and I will never be one of a set of men, where all are suspected of dishonour. As to the army!--I have had enough of that also." He shuddered as he spoke, and covered his face with his hand.

Santa Cruz did not require that shudder to be explained; but he affected to 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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, "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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 respective 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.

"I must see him this night."

"That is impossible," replied the prior, "but within an hour," continued he, "I expect a visit from Martini d'Urbino, the alcaide of his Christian slaves. He will judge of the practicability of your demand."

Louis inquired how the alcaide reported the state of the Basha; and asked the purport of his visit to the cell.

The prior hesitated to give a candid 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 master's requisition?" demanded Louis.

"At his servant's," replied the prior; "the Duke himself is yet lost to redemption."

Louis sighed heavily. He wrapped himself in his mantle, as he took his station by the low embers of the hearth; and spoke no more, till a hasty step in a distant passage announced the approach of Martini. The friars had respected the abstracted taciturnity of their stranger brother; and did not even obtrude on him by an observation, when 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.