Part 3

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

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

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

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

"If you would belong to me, forswear all of which this is the emblem."

Louis was dumb.--The Duke resumed with wild solemnity.

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

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

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

"What, if I make their faith my own?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh my father, it may then be too late!"

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

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

"They come! In another hour, I shall be sealed an enemy of Christendom."

Louis comprehended all that was intended.

"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.