University of Virginia Library

9. IX.

Let us now seek the Prince Pelayo, whom we left
about to proceed in search of his truant brother. Assured
that Egiza haunted the dwelling of the maiden

Cava, it was thither that he bent his steps. Yet he did
not dare now, as before, to present himself openly before
Count Julian. That nobleman, since his last interview
with the princes and the Archbishop Oppas, had received
instructions, as the king's lieutenant, to arrest the young
princes as traitors to the realm; for they had forborne
to appear before the usurper, as had been especially
commanded them, and profess their obedience. They
were now outlawed men. The practices of Oppas had
been conducted with too much secrecy to provoke the
suspicions of Roderick, and—such had been his address—he
was then actually in the royal palace at Toledo,
in council with the usurper on the condition of the
kingdom. The visits of Egiza were addressed, therefore,
to Cava, in despite, and without the knowledge of
Count Julian, who was rigidly faithful in the assertion
of his loyalty. The heart of the maiden had been too
deeply impressed with the reards and the person of
Egiza to heed altogether the commands and counsels
of her sire; and the two met in secret when opportunity
allowed, in the neighbouring grounds and garden of
Count Julian's castle. It was beneath the twinkling
olive-leaves at evening, or in sweet and haunted dells
among the neighbouring mountains, that they enjoyed
their stolen moments of delight; and the eyes of Pelayo,
as he wandered in search of his brother, beheld the mutually
devoted pair seated in a little hollow of the hills,
which gave them a fitting shelter from the keen eye of
observation, though scarce a stone's throw distant from
the castle, and in the immediate grounds of its noble
owner. The thought of Pelayo grew softened, though
still indignant, as his eye took in the loveliness of the
scene. The sun was just then setting, and his yellow
robes rested upon the summits of the brown and distant
hills. The leaves were died in his light, and the dark,
topmost towers of the castle still kept some few but fleeting
glances of his smile. The silence that rested upon
the scene was like the whispering spell that seems to
follow the thrilling music of some wizzard instrument,
and a haunting glory seemed to gather and to grow with
the increasing march of the twilight up the swelling and
increasing mountains. The love of the two sitting at
their feet, though a love injurious, if not fatal, to the
cause in which the whole soul of Pelayo was interested,
seemed fitly to mingle in and harmonize with the scene;
and the prince, as he approached the unconscious pair,
half paused, and the thought came to his mind to leave
his brother to his idle but winning dream, and pursue
the strife for empire alone. He would have done so,
but that no one stood nearer to the seat of royalty, after
Egiza, than himself; and his was a spirit that would not
only be pure in performance, but would seem pure also
in intention. As he moved towards them, his eye discerned
the shadow of a third person, also approaching
from the western rock—a shadow not perceptible to the
lovers, but readily so to himself. Apprehending some
treachery—for the strifes in which he had been for so
long a time engaged had taught him to look for treachery
as one of the attributes of warfare, if not of life—he sank
behind a projecting ledge of rock, which gave him a perfect
shelter, determined to await the approach or action
of the new comer. In the mean while Egiza, in the
arms of the maiden of his desire, indulged in those visions
of the heart and youthful fancy which conceal the
gloom and the tempest, and array earth in those features
of perfect and true beauty which only belong to heaven.
And, as he surveyed the pair, Pelayo muttered thus to
himself while throwing his form at ease behind the
rock:—

“It was a true saying of our dam, that, at his birth,
Egiza had all the ballad minstrelsy, and would better,
in future years, desire the music of the shepherd's reed
than the clamorous ringings of the trumpet. I would
she had spoken less truth in this. He hath grown utterly

sinewless, hath no purpose, and would seem better
pleased to pipe away, than to command, existence. It
were less than folly to look to him for manly endeavour
in our sharp controversy with Roderick. He can strike
well, but what avails the muscle of the arm when the
heart lacks, when the soul is sluggard? There he sits
as he were dreaming, with a head that drops upon his
palms—with half shut eye, and words which, when they
flow, break into murmurs that speak for his sad unconsciousness
only, and have little meaning else. What a
thing were this to rescue a people from their tyrant, to
revenge the wrong of a sire, to set the times right which
are now so turbulent! And she, too, the witless damsel
who sits beside him, with a beauty that must blaze only
to be extinguished—bloom only for the blast—its own
worst victim. They deem themselves happy now, as if
they were secure. Could they see the clouds—the storm
that hangs upon the hill—would they dream thus idly?
'Tis well for them, perchance, that their eyes are with
their thoughts, and either turn within or hang upon each
other. They live, and are conscious only in the mutual
sighs and smiles, which is love's idle barter.”

While he spoke thus to himself his eye caught a
glimpse of two persons approaching cautiously towards
the unconscious lovers from an opposite hill, clinging
carefully to its shadow as they came, and having an air of
premeditation in their movements, which was visible to
the prince even at the distant eminence from which he
gazed.

“Ha! some treachery awaits the turtles. Their
commerce is like to have interruption. Two men steal
along the ledges — both armed. I see the shine of
steel. Now, by Hercules, but Egiza deserves not that
I should help him in this strife; and the enemy, who
now steals on him thus, may save me the stroke of
justice. I am sworn to slay him should he deny our
people, should he refuse to seek them with me; and

will he not refuse? Hath not this woman defrauded
him of his better purpose? is he not already a traitor?
And what hope is there that he will be true in time to
come? But no! I will not think it. He will—he shall
go with me, and I will save him yet. A bound will
bring me to his help; there are but two, I will manage
the one, and he—he hath not surely forgotten the use of
the weapon he would seem to have forsworn—if he
cannot keep the other harmless, he will well deserve
the harm. He will surely battle for his mate, if not
for his people. Soh! they speak together—their loving
words come up to me at moments with the wind. They
dream not of the danger while they prate of their delights;
and—”

He paused, and the words of Egiza, sitting with the
Lady Cava upon a little table of the rock below, came
distinctly to his ears.

“Thou dost, indeed, distrust me wrongfully, sweetest
Cava. I have no such purpose as thou fearest. Freely
will I forego the crown which, heretofore, I've sought—
refuse the hope which would have me toil for it.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Pelayo, “then may the assassin, if
such he be, do his work.”

Egiza continued—

“To be a quiet cottager with thee, sweetest Cava,
would be my best ambition. Thou shalt teach me to
forget that I was born to high estate—thou hast taught
me so already—and in some deep wood, some quiet
glen like this, sweetest Cava, I will content me to be
only happy, and share my happiness only with thee.”

“Well said—well promised! Shall he perform it
well?” were the muttered words of Pelayo. The reply
of Cava, though doubtful also, was uttered in far other
language.

“Ah, my lord, this is thy promise now; but when
thou hearest the tidings of the fight; when it is told thee
how this brave warrior battled, and how this; and, perchance,

when it is said to thee that the fight went against
thy friends—thy brother—ah, then! then will thy heart
burn and chafe to mingle with them.”

“Would it were so!” exclaimed Pelayo, with a sigh.
The next words of Egiza almost vexed him into open
rage, and it was with difficulty he restrained himself from
shouting his scorn to him aloud.

“Believe it not, Cava; let the warriors strike as they
may, I shall not envy them. Let the fight turn as it
will, it shall be no fight of mine. As for my friends and
brother, they will be but the happier at my absence.”

“Perchance the better for thy loss, thou craven!”
was the bitter speech of Pelayo, which broke through
his clinched teeth.

“Ah, my lord, but when thine eyes look upon thy
sword,” said the maiden.

“They shall not, sweet lady. I will straight turn it
to a reaping-hook.”

“Ah, but thy pride, my lord—”

“I am proud no more, dearest Cava, unless it be of
the blessed love thou hast given me. Believe me, I do
not thirst now for glory as I have thirsted, and the hope
is gone from me for ever that promised to make me
famous. I care no longer for the dazzling shows, the
thick array, and the clamour that belongs to princely
eminence. Ambition works no longer in my heart.
The trumpet moves me not; but, in place of it, a
softer, a sweeter note of music comes from thy lips,
and I know not that I have had a loss. Thou hast
blessed me with sweeter joys than all that I yield. I
think only of thee, my Cava, and my dream is only and
ever of some far solitude, where the quiet love broods
for ever over its own visions, and lacks none other.
Thither could we fly, my beloved—ah, wilt thou not?
I feel that I should be no less happy, than it would be
my happiest labour to make thee. My glories then
should be in those bright sweet eyes; in those dear lips

that mock the redness of the rose; and in those words
of music which thou breathest into a speech of the
heart that goes with every utterance into mine. Oh,
we shall be most happy, dearest Cava, thus to fly to
each other and from the living world beside.”

“Could I believe thee, my lord; but the heart of
man, it is said, soon tires of the love of woman, and
needs better employment than tending its devotions.”

“The girl's no fool,” said Pelayo, above.

She continued—

“In a little while, when thou hast seen the eyes of
the poor Cava until thou tirest with the gaze, and
hearest the words of her lips until they sink into a forgotten
sound, then will thy hope strain for empire—for
the brave toils which thou now profferest to lay down
for the poor Cava.”

“No, sweet lady, no! My hope has been subdued
to suit the desires of my heart, and that lives only in thy
smile. Believe me, I seek no higher throne than thy
bosom; no sweeter toils than those taken in thy service.
Once more will I resume with thee, in our woodland
home, those labours of our nation's father, when he roved
along the hills a fearless peasant, having no greater victory
than to tame the wild steed of the desert, or contend
with some neighbouring hunter touching the common
spoil.”

“Could I think it,” said Cava, with a happy smile
overspreading her yet girlish features, which freely declared,
by their expression, the pliant yielding of her
heart to the desires of her lover—“could I think it, my
lord—but no! Thou smilest—it is in a pleasant scorn
that thou speakst to me as to a child too willing to believe
what she wishes. I am foolish to think that thou
shouldst love so weak a maiden as I.”

“By Heaven, I swear to thee—”

“Nay, do not, I pray thee—do not swear. It is not
well; and yet thou mayst tell me thy thought without

thy oath. It is so sweet to hear that we are loved from
the lips we love, we may not even chide, if there be a
gentle falsehood—a trick of speech too beguiling to the
fond ear, and the ready believer in the words they utter.”

“Not from mine, Cava, shalt thou hear the trick thou
speakst of. Believe me true, dearest lady, though I
swear it not. Dost thou not believe me, sweet?”

“Oh, indeed, I wish it, my lord,” was the unsophisticated
answer of the damsel.

“I bless thee for the word, dear lady. Thou mayst
believe me. 'Tis my soul that speaks to thee, and not
my lips only. My love is no idle wanton to go abroad
in fair disguises seeking but to blind fond belief, and
deceive gentle faith to its undoing. Mine is not the
false mood so current with the world.”

“It joys me to believe thee, my lord,” replied the untutored
damsel; “and yet I doubt—”

She paused. The hand of her lover clasped hers
as he demanded—

“What is thy doubt, dear lady?—doubt me not.”

“I doubt—I fear, my lord, that thou art fashioned
like the rest of men. Hath not the world taught thee
its erring practices. Art thou not one of the youth of
the court, of whom it is told me, that they give but refreshment
to a weary mood, and come not with any
love when they come abroad into these mountains.
Thou wilt return soon—wilt forget thy promise to the
too believing Cava, and in the crowd—”

“The crowd!” exclaimed Egiza, interrupting the
fond reproaches of the maiden—“oh, keep me from the
crowd, I pray. Thou little knowst how thou wrongst
me, dear lady, by that thought. Even though I loved
not thee, I should still pray for protection from the
crowd—the coarse, the base, the wild, the clamorous—
the beings most inhuman that prey upon their fellows,
and lose humanity in the possession of themselves. I
have no wish, no desire for life in their communion,

and, loving thee, the very thought of the crowd is loathsome
to my soul. The pomps of state, the pride of
place, the noisy strifes and pleasures of the court—if,
indeed, they be pleasures—are hateful to my thoughts
since I have known thee, and their presence would but
trouble me and torture. No, dearest lady, sweet were
the doom of exile, perpetual exile from the court and
the crowd, wert thou doomed to share it with me.
With thee, in some distant wilderness, having no hope
but in ourselves, no joy but that which springs from
our fond communion, how sweet would glide away the
hours—how happy, could we hope that the world would
leave us thus to ourselves and one another, as two poor
idlers, who, having nothing but their own loves, which
the world seeks not, are unworthy its observance!”

The quick eyes of Pelayo from above beheld the
shadows in motion of those persons whose cautious advance
before had controlled his attention.

“Patience, good dreamer,” he exclaimed, “patience!
The world, or a portion of it, is not over heedful of your
prayer; and, if I greatly err not, you are soon to have
more of its heed than is altogether grateful. They
move again. One seeks the western path, the other
stoops; he crawls aside. I see him not—ah! there he
moves; he seeks a fissure to the right, through which he
glides. Well, let them come. Meanwhile, I must
beg my uncle's boon of patience, and keep quiet as I
may.”

Thus spoke Pelayo to himself, while the amorous
Egiza, unconscious of all matters but his newborn admiration
for Cava, was discoursing to her of that sweet
and selfish seclusion which forms no small part of the
dreams of young lovers in general. The reply of the
maiden to his declamation showed a spirit no less willing
than his own for such seclusion.

“'Tis a sweet thought, my lord, and it were a blessed
destiny to have no hope hanging upon the capricious

will of the crowd. And yet I would not, when I have
thee to myself—I would not that we should utterly lose
sight of the world. I would that the world should
sometimes see the gifts of my fortune. Methinks
'twould give me pleasure to behold great lords and ladies
watch thee at coming, and follow with a long glance
thy departure. It were but half a blessing could we not
challenge the eyes of others to behold it.”

“Dear lady, if thou speakst to me soothly, then are
thine eyes but traitors to thy heart. Thou holdst me
too high for justice, and wilt cease to love me when
thou comest to better judgment. So long hast thou
been a dweller among these lonely hills; so few have
been the gallant gentlemen thou hast seen among them,
that thou errest when thou deemst me unrivalled in all
estimation as in thine own. When thou seest more of
that world from which I would have thee fly with me,
thou wilt wonder at thy credulous eyes which, with such
favour, have beheld me.”

“Nay, my dear lord, thou wrongst my judgment. I
have seen many gentlemen, and lords of high pretension,
and of claim allowed, who were cried by herald when
the court was at its fullest, and did not shame, by free
comparison, among the proudest for valour and all noble
exercise. I do not fear to have you show with them;
nay, I would have it so. It were my wish to have you
conspicuous with the rest, that I might love yet more,
as I behold the admiration of all yielded up to him I
love. I feel, my lord, I should be the envied of my
sex, calling you mine own.”

The sarcastic Pelayo could not forbear comment
upon the fond eulogium of the maiden.

“Now, had he better die!” he exclaimed; “he shall
not have more lavish eulogy if he live a thousand years.”

With becoming humility, but increased fondness,
Egiza replied—

“Thou art rash, dear lady, in thy unlicensed flattery.

By my faith, if thou speakst in such measures often, thou
wilt tempt me to become a very puppet of the court—a
noble fit only to bear the shining ring from the gallery,
join in a sportful fight with home-valiant boys, and take
any pretty labour in the eyes of noteful dames which
shall vex a rival on holydays. If thy pride be of this
fashion, sweetest Cava, I fear me thou wouldst soon
deem me wanton or unworthy.”

“Not so, my lord; my pride would have it as thou
sayst—not always—not often—nor would I have thee
lose in these skirmishings thy truer thought of me.
What though thou shouldst turn thy curious eyes upon
all the gallery, and smile with this fair dame and toy
with another; it were all well if thou wouldst then,
when the game were over, come to me, and press my
hand, and whisper in my ears, and say how tired thou
art, and how much better thou wouldst love to be alone
with me, as thou art now.”

“He were much wiser, and both much safer,” said
Pelayo, “if ye were as far apart as the crowd could
make ye. The enemies are upon ye, and, with eyes not
less keen than mine, watch all your practises. Ye were
better at prayers than kisses, and your coming lessons
will, I doubt not, make ye think so too. But stay—
the minstrel prates anew.”

“Ah, sweetest,” cried Egiza, fondly, “thou persuadest
me to be vain with thy free flatteries and with thy
lip so wooing—nay, do not chide me, dearest, such coy
denial dwells not with the true affection, and is less than
the love deserves which is now hooded and bound down
before you.”

His lips were pressed upon hers as he spoke, and
though she resisted with a maiden's might, he succeeded
in kissing her. Her head hung down in a sweet bashfulness,
and her words trembled as she spoke.

“Love me not less, my lord, that thus I favour you.
It is little that I can deny you when you plead, and the

wrong, if it be wrong, is surely yours when you press
so earnestly.”

“It is no wrong, dearest love.”

“And if it be, I forgive you, my lord, so that you
take not from me the esteem in which you hold me now.”

The comment of Pelayo upon this proceeding was
of a different order.

“A goodly smack!” he exclaimed, as Egiza kissed
the struggling maiden—“a goodly smack! and had
this valley the echo of Agarillo, it might have shaken
down yon castle. As it is, the echo hath alarmed other
ears than mine, and you shadow comes from the gorge.”

Then, after a brief pause given to keen observation,
and while the approaching figure came out more distinctly
into the light, he continued—

“By Heaven, it is Julian himself, the stern old father,
and in his hand his bared weapon. Now would I
gather from his words how far he doth approve of this
tenderness. It may be that it shall strengthen our claim
upon Julian if Egiza were allied unto his daughter. He
might gladly desire to give to his son a throne which he
would not toil to bestow upon a stranger. We should
then prosper without the sacrifice of this poor maiden's
fondness. She is a sweet and an innocent, frail, fond,
gentle creature. 'Twere pitiful if she were wanting.
Ha! the doves see the fowler. They are on the wing,
but fly not.”