CHAPTER XIII.

THE ECLIPSE OF THE MOON.

Ah! yes: the youth beheld her as the blind behold the sun, who see not the luminary planet, but feel its warmth in their dead pupils.

After so many years of solitude and trouble, after so many hours of mournful dreams, he, the Friend of Death, found himself engulfed in an ocean of life, in a world of light, of hope, of felicity.

What was he to say, what was he to think, if he could not believe that he existed; that that woman was Elena, his wife, that both had escaped the clutches of death?

“Speak, my Elena, tell me all,” murmured Tito at last, when the sun had set, and the birds had broken the silence. “Speak, my darling.”

Elena then told him of all her thoughts and feelings during those three last years: her sorrow when she ceased to see him, her despair at going to France, how her father had opposed this love, of which the Countess of Rionuevo had informed him; how happy she was at meeting him again in the porch of San Millán, and how she suffered at seeing him fall, wounded by the Countess’ harsh words.

She told him all, because it had increased her love instead of diminishing it.

The night fell and the darkness increased, but the secret anguish which disturbed Tito’s happiness was calmed. “Oh!” thought the youth, pressing Elena to his heart. “Death has forgotten my face and knows not where to find me. He will not come here. Ah! no. Our undying love would be able to put him to flight. What could he have to do at our side? Come, come, dark night, and envelop us in thy black veil! Come, even if thou must remain forever. Come, even though to-morrow should never dawn.”

“You tremble, Tito,” murmured Elena, “you weep.”

“My wife,” murmured the youth, “my own, my heaven, I weep for joy.”

So saying, he took his young wife’s bewitching head between his hands and fixed in her eyes an intense, delirious gaze.

A deep and burning sigh, a cry of wild passion met between their lips.

“My love!” they murmured in the delirium of that first kiss, at whose tender sound the invisible spirits of solitude trembled.

At this moment the moon suddenly rose, full, splendid, and magnificent.

Its strange, unexpected light startled the two lovers, who, turning their heads at the same moment towards the east, separated from one another through some mysterious instinct, though still retaining each other’s trembling, clinging hands, cold at that moment as the alabaster of the tomb.

“It is the moon,” murmured the two in hoarse accents, and turning to gaze at one another ecstatically. Tito extended his arms towards Elena with indefinable tenderness, and with as much love as despair.

But Elena was as pale as a ghost.

Tito trembled.

“Elena, what is it?” he whispered.

“Oh! Tito,” responded the girl, “you are so white.”

At this moment the moon was eclipsed; it was as if a cloud had interposed itself between her and the two lovers.

But, ah! it was not a cloud. It was a long black shadow, that appeared to Tito, from the bank on which he reclined, as if touching the skies and the earth, draping the entire horizon in mourning. It was a colossal figure, but increased by his imagination; a terrible being enveloped in a long, dark mantle. It stood at his side, immovable and silent, covering them both with its shadow.

Tito knew _who_ it was.

Elena did not see the lugubrious personage. She continued gazing at the moon.