University of Virginia Library

3. III.

It was the lost peace of mind—it was the sleep of a
reproving and feverish conscience, for which the unhappy
woman prayed; but this she did not herself so well understand.
It was a fond and natural desire which she

felt to return to her home of infancy, and the thought
was no less natural to one in her situation, that there
only could she recover the innocence which she had
there lost. With the purely innocent the heart is never
from its home. The sweet hopes, the pleasant joys, the
cheering affections attend it ever, and cluster around its
steps, and hallow all its emotions. Amri gave Urraca
the promise which she sought, and she was, for the moment,
satisfied. He gave it unwillingly, however, and
without the most distant intention of its fulfilment. He
could do no less than promise. He feared once more
to provoke the paroxysm of her passion, the consequences
and character of which he well knew, and which he
had long since learned how to dread. And even had he
not this fear, a common show of gratitude would have
called for the concession. To have denied her at such
a moment would have been ungracious in the extreme.
Her fond nursing and gentle cares had recovered him
from the stunning, but not serious, injury which he had
received from the blow given by Pelayo; and, bending
over her as she lay sleeping upon his arm, he half reproached
himself, at intervals, with the base selfishness
of his own spirit, that would not allow him to estimate as
it deserved the willing devotedness of hers. But these
moods were only momentary—of little strength, and of
no duration. Other thoughts soon filled his mind, and
a succession of dark and criminal purposes expelled from
his bosom the better impulses. These purposes were
many, yet not various in their character. They all bore
the same family likeness, shadowed from his own vile
and malignant soul. At one moment he meditated the
destruction of Melchior, whom he had half sold already
to the mercenary Edacer. A strange feeling of kindred
—strange in him, though natural enough to others—
alone made him hesitate; and when, at the next moment,
he thought of Thyrza, his scruples and hesitation
could not but increase. The thought of the Jewish
maiden soon usurped the place of all other images; and
as, through the aid of his active imagination, her perfect
and sweetly beautiful features rose before his mind's eye,
he turned away, with instinctive aversion, from the contemplation
of the face of her who lay sleeping beside
him. She too was beautiful; but oh! how different her
loveliness from the loveliness of Thyrza! Where was
that angel purity, that heavenly grace, that sanctified
look, in which no expression ever made its appearance
inconsistent with a heart full of holiness, and a hope full
of innocence and truth? The face of Urraca, beautiful
though it might appear, was like some rich and decorated
casket, in which lay concealed the elements of evil
and of terror—wild, fierce passions, unholy desires, and
any thing but innocence, and every thing but truth! It
is in the sovereignty of virtue to command even the admiration
of that vice which yet does not sufficiently admire
to seek to emulate it; and the thought of Thyrza
in the mind of Amri, and the comparison, or rather contrast,
between herself and Urraca which that thought
forced upon him, moved him to detach his arm from the
neck about which it had been wound so fondly ere she
slept, and to withdraw the close embrace, in the seemingly
fond folds of which the unhappy woman had given
herself up to a pleasing unconsciousness. His eyes
now looked upon the closed orbs of Urraca as earnestly
as they might ever have done before, but, certainly, with
no such feeling shining within them as had once possessed
his heart, and spoken for it through them. Hate,
scorn, contempt, hostility, now formed the expression of
that look, which, but a little while before, was all love
and adoration! His mind revolted as he gazed; and,
rising with the utmost caution from the couch where he
had lain, he resumed the dress which, in part only, had
been thrown aside before. A busy and a black thought
in his mind prompted him to rapidity in his movements;
and, when he had resumed his habit, he went to a recess
in the chamber which was hidden from all eyes by the
falling folds of a curtain, and there, undoing the sash
which usually bound his middle, he drew from a little
pocket artfully concealed in its foldings a small envelope
of parchment, which he transferred from its former
place to one more convenient of reach in his bosom.
This done, he girded himself with the sash hastily; then
re-entering the chamber, he approached the couch where
Urraca lay, still wrapped in the deepest, though most unquiet,
slumbers. She murmured and sighed in her
sleep, and the tears, even then, hung upon the long,
black, and folded eyelashes of her large and lovely
eyes. He gave her but a single glance as still she
slept, and in that glance the murderous design in his bosom
was fully apparent. Cautiously then he stole away
from the apartment, and seeking an adjoining chamber,
he summoned one of the female attendants who usually
waited upon the person of Urraca. The intimacy of the
Hebrew with this woman seemed to have been of a nature
which rendered much formality unnecessary between
them. He spoke to her as if she had been his creature,
and one whom he could most certainly command.

“Zitta, she sleeps. Thou hast so far well performed,
and here is thy reward.”

He gave her money, which she readily received.

“Thou hast promised me, and the time is at length
come when thou must do as thou hast promised. She
will not free thee. She has resolved. Thou must free
thyself—and me! I have striven for thee until I have
angered her, and she has resolved, more firmly than
ever, to keep thee in her bondage. She has sworn it.
There is but one course for thee. Art thou ready to do
every thing for thy self-mastery—for the tie which is between
us—and remembering and desiring what I shall
do for thee in Merida when thou shalt be free to go
there?”

The woman promised him, and he then took from his

vest the parchment envelope which he had there hidden
after withdrawing it from his sash. This he placed in
her hands, with these words—

“For the wine she drinks! It is fatal—but it gives
thee freedom. It gives us both freedom; and when
thou hast that, I will do for thee, and be to thee, all that
I have promised. Thou wilt do it—thou hast sworn?”

“I have sworn—I will swear again, Amri,” responded
the woman.

“'Tis well!”

“Thou sayest, Amri, that she has denied you—”

“Utterly, and with anger in her words and looks.”

“Yet once she promised that I should be free to seek
my mother in Merida? 'Twas thus thou saidst.”

“She did—but revoked the promise in her evil mood.
She is now resolved to hold thee with life.”

“With life!” exclaimed the woman, bitterly. “And
this,” she continued, holding up the packet, “this is fatal
to life, Amri, thou sayest?”

“It is,” was the reply. “Drugged with it, the wine-cup
which she drinks is death.”

“Then she keeps me not long. Hold it done, Amri,
as I have promised thee before. Again I promise thee.”

She extended her hand as she spoke, which he pressed
with a pleasurable grasp. Then, giving her some directions
touching the manner of using the deadly potion with
which he had provided her, he bade her take heed of the
proper moment to administer it. This done, he left her
to proceed to other and not less evil projects.