PART II.--THE GIPSEY.

Among the gipsies!--the gipsies--then, as now, and as who knows through how many hundreds of years?--daring, brave, handsome, light hearted rovers!

In Spain the zingaras, or gipsies, have ever increased and multiplied. The land seems to foster them kindly; and, at the period of our tale, they were so numerous, that quarrelsome or rebellious nobles would frequently enlist the sympathies and strong arms of the tribe. Often and often the prowess of the zingaras provided the turning points of the Spanish victories.

The band of gipsies to which the troubadour, Maurico, belonged had taken part in the rebellion against the king. Hence the expressions used by the count when he discovered Maurico in the palace gardens.

The gipsies were encamped within and about a dilapidated old building, amid the mountains of Biscay, not far from the castle of the Count di Luna. In their encampment they sang, and laughed, and danced as though they were masters of the earth, instead of being surrounded by danger, and, possibly, near to death!

The flickering flames of a wood fire, which shone on the faces of the wild band, paled before the coming day. But there was yet sufficient light to see Maurico, muffled in a cloak, lying at the feet of a stern-looking gipsey woman, whom they called Azucena.

Suddenly this woman started from her sleep--stood up--came a step or so forward--and cried, “Look--look ye! See how the flames dart at her, as she is dragged along. Look ye, how they all crowd about, and are merry over her trouble--a poor gipsey led to death! See how their faces are bathed in blood! There! she screams in her agony; and higher, and yet higher the mocking flames rise about her; and now I see her no longer. Gone--gone--gone!”

Suddenly she came to herself, and half whispered, “Vengeance! I will have vengeance.”

“Still that word, mother,” said the troubadour, Maurico, rising from his hard bed.

As the sun lit up the shadows in their dark skins, the gipsies moved away in various directions. Presently, the gipsey-mother and gipsey-son were alone together.

Suddenly she began again to speak of her terror. “She was accused of witchcraft--my mother; and they burnt her here--here, on this very spot. I see her, thick chains hanging about her limbs, dragged to this very spot. I stood near, holding thee in my trembling arms. In vain she sought to bless me; they struck down her hands, and drove her forward. Then it was she cried aloud, ‘_Avenge me!_’ And canst thou not read the words here--here on my face?”

“And thou didst obey, my mother?”

“I stole the old count’s son. The child wept and clung to me. Why should I pity him? They had shown her no mercy. Here with him I came--a fire blazing as when my mother died. I closed my angry eyes, raised high the child above my head, and dashed it screaming on the burning embers. Then, looking forth again, I saw--I saw--the count’s own child still living.”

“Then thou hadst destroyed--”

“My son--my own dear son.”

And she grovelled on the ground, hiding her face with her hands.

“Then am not _I_ thy son?”

Suddenly she looked up fearfully. “Yes--yes, boy, thou art my son--my own dear son.”

“And yet thou didst say--”

“Ne’er heed what I say, son, for am I not sometimes daft? Thy mother--have I not been a tender mother to thee all thy life?”

“There’s not a day that I recall when thou wast otherwise.”

“Did I not save thy life, my son--my own dear son? When they said you lay dead on Pelilla’s field, did not I seek thee--find thee--cure thee? Thinkest thou I would do all that for the stranger?”

“A noble wound! If, when Di Luna rushed upon me with his score of men, I fell--I fell as falls a soldier, mother.”

“Di Luna! And so he rendered thee reward for the life thou gavest him, when he stood before thee in a duel, and was conquered. Thou shouldst love Di Luna, e’en as thy brother; Di Luna, whom thou, my son, hast spared.” And she laughed scornfully.

“I may not know wherefore, but when my sword was pointed at him--when the next moment I should have slain him--some power held back my sword, and I heard whispered in mine ear the word, ‘Mercy!’”

“But if again thou meetest him, thou dost promise to slay him--without mercy? Slay him,” she said again, as if to herself, and turned away without waiting for his reply.

As she turned, a trumpet sounded near at hand.

A herald appeared, and brought Maurico a scroll from the rebel chief, in whose ranks he and his people now fought. The stronghold, Castellor, had been wrested from the royalists, and Maurico was ordered to take its command. The scroll also incidentally mentioned that the Lady Leonora, believing in Maurico’s death in the late fight, was about to take the veil in a neighboring convent.

The gipsey-mother saw him turn, and quickly fling his cloak about him, and place his helmet on his head.

“Whither goest thou?”

“To duty.”

“I command thee, stay.”

“But my _general_ commands me.”

“And thy wound! thou must not leave me. It may open again; and if I am not near thee, son, thou mayst die; therefore thou shalt not go.”

For answer, he wrapt his cloak more closely about him.

She threatened him, but it was useless. Soon she was gazing after him as he wended his way down a mountain pass.

* * * * *

Go we now to the cloisters of the convent, where the luckless Lady Leonora was about to take the vows that were to separate her for ever from the world.

Love had humiliated and degraded the count, as it hath humiliated and degraded many a better man. As he could not honestly possess himself of the Lady Leonora, he had now come to steal her--tear her away from the altar. He had not come alone, for love had also made him a coward. He had brought with him a score or so of his followers to snatch her from amongst a host of women.

See them hiding behind pillars, and in shadows, creeping softly and meanly, as robbers and cowards do.

Then came the widowed Lady Leonora, surrounded by old friends, who would fain accompany her to the door of her life-long prison.

She sighed as she heard the low religious chant from within the walls of the convent--henceforth to shut in all her hopes. But she was determined. He was dead--her love. Killed on the battle-field, and she would mourn for him in the silence of a convent cell.

“With good, hearty old friends,” said she to the attendants about her, “see me to the altar, and then--a long farewell.”

But as she turned towards the sacred door the count came quickly from behind a broken pillar, and tremblingly said, “Nought can save thee--thou art mine.”

“Mercy!”

“There is no Maurico now to save thee. He is dead--he is dead.”

He ran towards her, but suddenly he stopped, and trembled like a coward, as he was. For there, standing between him and his expected prize, was the minstrel, Maurico himself! Standing there was the very man he had seen fall on the field; or--or, was it his shade?

And Leonora? After an instant of doubt and hesitation--for she, too, believed her lover was not of this world--she ran to him, and, with a great cry, threw herself upon his breast.

The consternation of the dastardly count hardly gave him much time for deliberation; but, on a signal, his followers swarmed out from their hiding places, and surrounded the lovers. But they reckoned without their host. The next instant Maurico and the Lady Leonora were protected by trusty arms.

In vain the count drew his sword and rushed upon the troubadour. Twenty swords were pointed at him--twenty swords that in an instant would have touched his heart. But their leader, Maurico, who still suffered from his wound, bade them spare him.

So the count yet stood alive in the midst of his followers. Stood unsubdued by the mercy which had now been shown him; stood, and vowed vengeance against his gentle foe; stood and cursed him as he led the lady away. Away from him, the rival; away from the convent, away to Castellor, which had fallen into the rebels’ hands, and whose governor was Maurico, the Warrior Minstrel.