3. CHAPTER III.
It was while they wound through a lovely valley, on their approach to Toledo,
that they encountered a procession of holy men bearing the image of the Virgin.
They were returning to the house of the fraternity, which picturesquely crowned
an eminence that stood at a little distance and within sight. Though engaged in
holy offices, the brothers did not think it unseemly to pause in their progress to gaze
upon the royal cavalcade, which was so much more gorgeous, if not so much more
imposing than their own. It was this purpose of curiosity which Roderick had
ascribed to them, but it may be that there was yet another motive, for, as the king
approached, one of the venerable men emerged from among the crowd which gathered
upon the hill-side to let the royal train pass, and threw himself directly in the way
of their progress. Once seen, the countenance of that singular man was never to be
forgotten; and long ere the king drew nigh, he was troubled with the recollection
of circumstances which had not a little annoyed him when they had taken place.
The person was that of Romano, who had been the chief keeper of the house of
Hercules. He filled the very spot over which they were compelled to pass, and he
seemed resolute to maintain his position. His hands were uplifted as much in sign
to his bretheren—who looked on with mixed feelings of veneration and dismay—as
to the heaven to which they were raised; and with his white beard streaming to the
wind, his uncovered and shaven crown, his wild, fierce, and even haughty expression—as,
in his secret soul, he held himself the representative of God in his anger—
he was altogether the embodiment of a majesty before which even that of Roderick
was compelled to quail. While the monarch drew nigh, and when within hearing,
the words of Romano were heard addressed to his company:
“Witness for me, witness for me, my brethren, that I do what God has appointed.
That I stand without fear in the presence of the tyrant, and denounce upon his head
the wrath which is to come. I call ye to heed me now, my brethren, as ye shall
be asked for your testimony hereafter; look upon him, the enemy of God, walking
in the vain confidence of his earthly power—behold the servant of Heaven, humbled
of earth, and despised of man, yet strong of heart, as I feel that a power greater
than that of earth, and a sovereign before whom this tyrant is a shadow and a
worm, is my confidence and support. Witness for me, my brethren, witness for the
father and the king, whose servants ye are!”
“Now, what does the old dotard mean?” demanded the king of those about him,
as these words reached his ears. “Ride forward, Edeco, and command him from
the path.”
Edeco rode forward as he was bidden, but Romano heeded him not:
“Not for thee—not for such as thee, are the words of Heaven. Thou art the
creature and the worm. I have no mission for thee. But I have that for the ears
of thy master which shall make him tremble in his secret soul. Bid him ride forward
and learn my message. Bid him haste that he may hear it. Let him not delay
to receive what I do not delay to impart.” And he turned from Edeco to the
brethren, while he continued to speak:
“There is a Daniel for every Belshazzar, my brethren, since by God's abundant
mercy it is that He wills not the death but the repentance of any sinner—no, not
even the vilest and the worst, which is always he whom power and the vain conceits
of earth have hardened into the enemy of Heaven. It may be that He means
not the destruction of this mortal, and that I am but to warn and to terrify, that the
repentance of Roderick may be free and flowing, and abundant like his sin. I know
not—I but speak as I am bidden: and I speak not for myself. If my words this
day, fall not upon unheeding ears, like good seed washed upon stony places, then
am I thrice blessed, since I am the minister of God's indulgence rather than of his
punishments. Let us pray, my brethren, that it be as I have said. Pray quickly,
all, for the sinner approaches.”
He crossed himself devoutly as he uttered these words, while his lips murmured
the prayer that he had prescribed to his brethren. A universal murmur of supplication
went through their ranks, in compliance with his suggestion, for the venerable
Romano had long been regarded among his fellows as one chosen of Heaven.
But the wrath of Roderick was scarcely restrainable when Edeco bore back the
answer of Romano. Hastily leaving the side of the carriage in which Cava rode,
he made his way to the front, and a few bounds of his steed brought him directly in
the presence of the zealot.
“Madman! wretched and reckless fool! get ye from my path!” cried Roderick,
fiercely, while his teeth were gnashed with such vexation that his words were
scarcely articulated.
“I do my duty!” cried Romano. “I speak for thy Master, Roderick. It is for
thee to hear!”
“Take him hence!” cried the king to the priests. “It is ye who encourage this
madman in his insolence. Take him hence, ere I strike him to the earth.”
But the timid priests manifested no disposition to interfere. The words of the
king were far less imposing to their senses than those of Heaven's messenger, as
they believed, or affected to believe, that Romano was. They only huddled more
closely together as the king spoke, as the timorous sheep crowd with apprehension
when the howl of the wolf reaches their ears, at evening. This movement only
left Romano more distinctly opposed to the king, and the soul of the venerable enthusiast
seemed to expand in its confidence, as the isolation of his person, which it
left more exposed to danger, served to increase the commanding character of his appearance.
“I need no encouragement from man!” exclaimed Romano. “I am commissioned
by Heaven, and the glory of my commission gives me the strength which I
need.”
“Get from the path!” exclaimed the monarch, hoarsely.
“Not till I have said Heaven's judgment, or, it may be, its warning only. That
shall be as thy pride or thy humility wills it, oh Roderick! when thou hast heard
me.”
“Will no one drag this miserable madman away?” cried Roderick.
A dozen of the king's attendants sprang forward at these words, but ere they
could lay hands upon Romano, the brotherhood had closed around him, with their
uplifted and extended crosses; they seemed to defy the soldiers, who shrank in hesitation,
as they feared to encounter that power which ruled monarchs, and had
shaken them from their thrones. The zeal of Romano received new encouragement
from these signs. Encircled as he was, by the priests, he showed no token
of apprehension; he extended no cross for his own protection, but with hands
stretched out to heaven,
“Be witness,” he cried, “be witness of this violence, and of my faith in Thee,
oh Father of the Universe! I fear not the shaft of the tyrant, while I speak Thy
vengeance upon his head.”
The fury of Roderick was indescribable, but Romano, utterly unaffected by it,
proceeded to address him:
“I call upon thee, oh Roderick! to read the writing of heaven—it is upon the
sky before thee—it is written in flames and blood, and it is spoken in words of
thunder. Look there—as upon a wall,” and he pointed to the eastern heaven, while
his eyes watched the same quarter with a devotion that conclusively proved to his
brethren, if not to the king, that he really saw what he called on them to witness.
It is indeed more than probable that many among them saw it also, and even the eye
of Roderick, like that of his followers, turned once involuntarily in the same direction.
“It is there!” cried Romano. “The letters—ye see them, ye see them! Ye cannot
help but see them, for they are written in flame. They have a deadly meaning.
oh Roderick! and the writing is for thee. It is fitting that, as thou hast been the
Belshazzar of this land, that as thou hast been voluptuous, and profligate, and cruel,
that as thou hast scorned the words of the wise, and trampled upon the things that
are holy, that thou shouldst have the warning and the doom pronounced against
thee which was written by the Eternal finger on the palace walls of the Assyrian.”
“Madman—away—away all, or I urge my horse upon ye!” exclaimed the king,
and he advanced as he spoke, though his limbs seemed to be feeble, and he trembled
even while he proceeded, with an ague that seemed to have arisen from his fears,
though it was most probably in consequence of his anger. The monks half receded
as they witnessed his movement, but Romano yielded not an inch, nor showed any
apprehension. With exulting eye as he witnessed the tacit homage which the king
by his seeming apprehensions, paid to his ministry, he continued to speak in the
same fearless and enthusiastic strain.
“Wo! wo! Behold the writing: `MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN!”'
Roderick urged forward his steed, but the wild look, the free, enthusiastic action,
and the supernatural elevation of Romano, seemed to have its effect upon the horse,
not less than upon his rider. The noble animal reared and receded, sinking back
upon the crowd that followed.
“Orelio! Orelio!” exclaimed the king, patting the steed upon his neck while
striving to urge him forward.
“Take counsel from thy beast, oh king!” cried the zealot, whose exultation was
now unbridled. “He has a better knowledge than his rider of what is due to Heaven's
messenger. He will not move forward till my mission is completed!”
“We shall see that, madman!” cried the king, and he drove the rowels into the
the sides of the reluctant animal. Romano neither shrunk back as he beheld these
efforts, nor paused in his speech.
“The writing, the writing is before thee, Roderick. Hear, and be wise in season,
for, of a truth, even as He spake to Belshazzar through the prophet Daniel, doth the
Lord of Hosts speak to thee through my lips. He hath numbered thy kingdom—
He hath finished it.”
“Dog!” cried the now desperate king; and he snatched a javelin from one of
the soldiers.
“Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting!” continued the fearless
enthusiast.
“Not in strength to punish thy insolence am I wanting.” cried Roderick, hurling
the shaft with a desperate arm. Heedless of the bolt the zealot continued:
“Thy kingdom is divided,”— the arrow quivered in his thigh, and the sudden
pang of the wound broke the sentence of his lips, which was concluded by a slight
cry, the involuntary acknowledgment of the suffering flesh. In the next moment,
the snorting and terrified steed was driven forward by his raging rider, and the feeble
but erect and fearless form of Romano, was hurled aside and thrown against the
rocks. A cry of horror rose among the monks, as they beheld the injury done to
their comrade—an injury esteemed by them a sacrilege. They gathered around him
where he lay, and raised him up in their arms; and, even while Roderick rode on
with his train, his denunciations followed the monarch, and filled with gloom and
apprehension such of his company as honored the existing forms of religion, and
regarded with respect those superstitions of the time, which held a sway among the
lberians of far more potency than any in possession of the throne.
“Wo! wo!” was still the burden of that voice: and even the fears of Roderick
were aroused when he coupled what he had witnessed in the cave of Hercules,
with the report of the Moorish invasion, and these words of Romano, which he continued
to hear, even when out of sight of the enthusiast, and which predicted to
him the loss of his kingdom. It needed not then that Roderick should desire free
access to the daughter of Julian, in order to prompt him to urge the instant departure
of that warrior for the protection of the coast. Even in his voluptuous fancies,
there came to his mind dark pictures of his land's distress, his own overthrow, and
scenes of strife and bloodshed, which a prescient imagination might safely paint to
a tyrant and usurper, and which the coming time was not slow to realize, in all their
truth, and with increased and indescribable terrors.
“Now the garden which the king Roderick had made for the gentle queen Egilona,”
says a chronicler of the time, “was of a curious and a foreign elegance. It
stood upon the banks of the golden-bedded Tagus, and the sweet murmur of the waters
as they rolled on beside its walls, made a fitting refrain for the pleasant bird-music
that was for ever heard from within. Aromatic shrubs, which had been gathered
and brought from the far east, filled the air with fragrance; and, after the
Moorish fashion, gushing fountains were made to jet from the complaining well, so
that an ever-going murmur kept the solitude of the garden wakeful. The trees,
many of which were of distant lands, brought by the Roman conquerors into Iberia,
were carefully trained into curious shapes, and made to yield the goodliest fruits;
and Roderick commanded that a hundred of his Moorish slaves should be busy at
all hours, in the building of the garden, and of the palace which stood in the midst
of it, so that, long ere the people had dreamed of the curious labor, which was carried
on, within the massy walls which surrounded it, the nice perfection of king
Roderick's wish had been attained, and the palace and the gardens sprang into existence
as it were by magic, in the brief space of a single night. Thither in the oppressive
days of summer, would the queen Egilona retire, and secure from intrusion
relax from the toils of the court, and attended only by her favorite maidens, enjoy
the perfect privacy and the soothing luxuries of so charming a retreat.”
It was to this garden of delight that the enamored, but as yet cautious Roderick,
conveyed the lovely Cava. It was here that the queen received her, and, pleased
with her sweet and modest appearance, nor less so with the singular simplicity of
her manners, she took her almost immediately into favor. While count Julian remained
in Toledo, and for a brief season after his departure, the king, with an exercise
of forbearance which was unusual with him, did not approach the maiden,
and Cava might have enjoyed almost perfect happiness in that fairy abode, the
beauties and sweetness of which had sunk into her soul, but that her heart was
too full of the desolate Egiza. When her father departed for his command at Cueta,
the tears of the maiden were unaccountable to him, as they spoke for the secret sorrows
which he did not conjecture. He left her with reluctance as he beheld her
grief, for she was as the apple of his eye, and something of a mournful presentiment
weighed down his heart, as he uttered his hurried language of farewell. It
was with an earnest solemnity of manner, that he yielded the sacred trust to king
Roderick.
“Be her friend and protector, oh king! while I serve in your wars abroad. It is
my wealth and my joy, my treasure and my blessing, which I yield to your protection;
and should it please Heaven, Roderick, that I perish in the strife with the infidel,
I pray you to remember that though you should lose a soldier and a faithful
servant in me, it is not fitting that you should suffer my child to feel that she has
lost a father.”
Roderick scrupled not to promise the noble soldier, and Julian departed, half relieved
of the gloom which had weighed him down. It had been well for Roderick,
and well for all, had he been less free to promise, or more scrupulous in performance
