University of Virginia Library

6. VI.

That night Urraca was in the highest spirits. She
never looked so beautiful—she never was more witty or
more eloquent before. She had attired her person with
the nicest and most elaborate care; she had exercised
her mind, and drilled her thoughts, now made obedient
and docile as the humblest slave's, by the intense will
which she had brought to bear upon them; and her utterance
was clear, unimpeded, and musical, and her
fancy flashed out like a star, which some hidden minister
is continually replenishing with light from an exhaustless
fountain. She was gay and elastic almost to extremity,
but there was a sarcastic scornfulness sometimes in the
glance of her eye, and a tone of bitterness in the utterance
of her tongue, which, while they added to the intensity
of her grace and eloquence, were not always innocuous
in the estimation of her guests. Much did they
wonder at her improved loveliness; and even the voluptuous
and gross Edacer, to whom, hitherto, the charms
and enticements of animal passions alone had proved
wooing and attractive, began to awaken, under the exciting
influence of her mind, into a partial consciousness
of his own; while Amri, who did not, however, abate a
single purpose, hitherto entertained, of crime against her,

could not help admiring the mental resources and the
graceful spirit of that person whom he had learned to
fear, if not to hate, and had determined to destroy.

Nor was it the feast of intellect and female spirit and
vivacity alone which Urraca employed to give pleasure
to her guests. The table was sumptuously spread with
every luxury which could be found in Cordova. The
tastes and appetites which had been transmitted to the
coarser Goths by the voluptuous people of Byzantium,
and which had enervated them in due course of time, as
they had done the nations from which they came, had
been studiously exercised in procuring the various viands
which loaded the table of Urraca. Every refinement of
Greek effeminacy and Roman licentiousness was there;
and the dulled appetite, surveying the crowded board,
would not long want the necessary provocation to sharp
improvement and free exercise.

Edacer surveyed the table with a complacency which
prompted him to speech, but with a delighted surprise
which, for some moments, kept him silent.

“Truly, Urraca,” he exclaimed, at length, “thou hast
gone beyond thy former self—thou hast surpassed all thy
own frequent extravagances heretofore, and hast given
a fitting climax to thy feasts of delightful memory in
seasons overpassed. What new triumph hast thou made
to prompt thee to all this? What conquest over a thoughtless
noble, fresh come from Toledo, with full purse and
empty mind—good treasury, but heedless treasurer?
Say, Urraca, and speak quickly, for great is my amaze.”

It was in such language as this that the coarsely-minded
Edacer uttered himself in inquiry respecting the
sumptuous supper which he saw spread before him.
Yet the smile was playful and unresentful which accompanied
the reply of Urraca.

“Be no longer amazed, my Lord Edacer, nor longer
affect ignorance as to the occasion of my present excess.
Well hast thou called this the climax to my excesses of

the past. It is the climax; and what fitter occasion
could I choose for such climax than the entertainment
of the new Lord of Cordova. Is it not enough that I
would do thee honour, my Lord Edacer? The supper
is provided for thee.”

“Thanks, Urraca—many thanks. Thou hast proved
to me that I am valued by thee beyond my own previous
estimation. Thou hast flattered me beyond my thought.
I shall grow vain after this.”

“Grow, indeed, my lord! wherefore? you are already
of sufficient height. To change would be to risk
a loss, and thy shadow, now, more than covers one half
the walls of my chamber.”

The dull Goth looked round upon the walls as she
uttered these words, and seemed to find pleasure in the
discovery that, in a physical point of view, Urraca had
only spoken the truth. The latent meaning of his mistress
was visible to the acuter mind of the Hebrew, who
smiled significantly to Urraca, catching her eye, as he
did so, fixed curiously upon him. As one who had been
detected in a secret watch, she turned away quickly as
the glance of Amri met her own, and spoke in a low
voice to a servant who stood in waiting. By this time
Edacer had turned from the survey of his own cumbrous
person, and addressed Urraca again in compliment to a
splendid cluster of polished steel-reflecting mirrors, that
gave a burning light upon the opposite wall.

“These are new to me, Urraca—have they, too, been
procured to do honour on this occasion to your guests?”

“They came but to-day from Toledo, my Lord
Edacer, and were procured for the occasion.”

“Truly, thou hast spared nothing, Urraca; I must
chide thee for thy improvidence, though it pleases me
to behold it.”

“Nay, do not chide, my lord—I will bribe thee to indulgence,
for I will send the lustres to thy palace on the
morrow, as a gift from Urraca to Cordova's governor.”

“Wilt thou?” exclaimed the selfish and delighted
Goth. “Wilt thou indeed bestow them on me?”

“Thou shalt have them,” replied Urraca, calmly and
indifferently.

“But they are fitted—they seem almost necessary to
thy walls, Urraca—the spot will seem bare and cold if
thou remove them. I fear me thou dost unwisely to rob
thyself in this disposition of the lustres. I shall not
soon be able to require thee for so rich a boon.”

“I ask for no requital beyond thy graces, my Lord
Edacer; and, for the walls, I care not how bald they
seem to others—to me they will be nothing ere long;
they will not often challenge my sight after the lustres
are gone!”

The Goth turned upon her with an inquiring look,
and, after a brief pause, she continued—

“You have yet to know, my Lord Edacer, that I have
another reason for making this feast the climax of my
excesses—that which is to exceed them all, and throw
all of the preceding into shadow. It is the last feast
which I make in Cordova—it is the farewell which I
make at parting from it, my lord, and leaving it for
ever.”

The governor was astounded. He replied, breathlessly—“At
parting from Cordova—at leaving Cordova
for ever. Speak! how! what mean you, Urraca?”

“What! hast thou not heard? has not Amri told
thee?”

The eyes of the Hebrew sought those of Urraca, and
their expression was clearly that of expostulation and
entreaty. She paused—her resolve to declare the truth,
so far as the removal of Amri and herself from Cordova
had been determined upon, was abridged in compliance
with the evident wish for forbearance which was shown
in the face of the former; and she proceeded only to a
partial development of her intention and the truth.

“In three days, my lord, I leave Cordova for my old

home—my father's home—among the mountains of
Guadarrama. I retire from the city for ever.”

“Ha!—but with whom? Thou goest not alone, I
know. With whom dost thou fly? Thou hast not told
me that.”

“Nor will I, my lord, until I send thee the lustres.
It is a little secret now, but—”

“Is he rich? is he noble? Tell me that, Urraca, or
I will not let thee go. As Governor of Cordova, I will
arrest thee as one suspected of treason to the king, and
will imprison thee in my own palace till I have thy secret.”

“Thou shalt not have need to give thyself such unworthy
trouble, my lord, for I will tell thee freely what
thou desirest to know. He with whom I fly from Cordova
is rich as any Jew in Cordova, and, after the fashion
of the time, as noble as any Goth. That is my
thought of him, at least, my lord.”

“Beware, Urraca—beware that he does not deceive
thee. Be sure of him ere thou confidest, or bitterly wilt
thou weep thy confidence. There are few of our Gothic
nobles in Cordova that have much wealth, and not one
of them who would not lie freely to thee for thine.
Take the truth and my good counsel in payment for thy
lustres.”

“What! dost thou think them all so evil, my lord?
Is not one reserved from thy suspicion?” demanded
Urraca.

“Not one! they are all alike! Evil is their good,
Urraca. A virtuous Goth is always sure either to be
too poor for indulgence, or too great a fool to be knavish,
and help himself to the wealth of others. I know thee
too well to think that thou couldst regard the fool with a
favourable thought; and if thou takest up with the other,
I look to see thee back in Cordova after a little month
of absence, in which he will have stripped thee of all thy
wealth, and beaten thee half to death in charity.”

“Verily, my lord, the Goth has need to thank thee.”

“Ha—ha—ha!” exclaimed Edacer—“think not I
do them wrong, Urraca! By my faith, not so. Nor
would they chafe to hear me speak of them in this fashion.
'Tis their own boast, Urraca. 'Tis no shame to
do dishonour here in Cordova, save with the vulgar and
poor citizens. We laugh at shame, and with a fearless
front we brave the exposure which the coward shrinks
from. Having the power, we make the principles; and
that which fools call virtue, we call shame, by virtue of
this power!”

“A goodly power,” said Urraca.

“Of a truth it is—there were no freedom else.”

“But wherefore keep the church—maintain the priest
—dress the high altar—make the sacrifice—and clothe
in state the solemn ceremonial? Wherefore all these?
They do abridge the license which you love, and stop
your way to freedom.”

“Not with us, Urraca. The church is of our side
—one of our arms, by which we keep the animal man,
who might grow troublesome, in wholesome order. It
teaches him judicious fears of something which he knows
not, and so fears. 'Tis a dull blind we set up by the
wayside, and, in proportion as our virtue stales, we evermore
put out some shows of it; for as we all know that
the shadow points some form from which it springs, so
do we toil, building the shadows of a thousand forms,
which all seem good. We thus avoid their substance.”

“That is wisdom—is it?” said Urraca, musingly, in
reply to the Goth, who had not only described the condition
of his own time and people, but of other times
and other nations, before and after. There was little
more of this spoken between them, and the conversation
was soon diverted to other subjects of a different
and less general character. Much merriment succeeded—the
guests drank freely, and Urraca strove, and
strove successfully, to show a pleasant countenance and

a cheerful spirit throughout the feast, even to its conclusion.
But her heart toiled dreadfully in this endeavour,
and her thoughts were ill at ease. Her mind at length
began to weary of the unusual restraints which she had
set upon it, and she felt the necessity of retiring soon,
in order to put her plan in execution. Pleading exhaustion,
therefore, and a sudden indisposition, she retired
from the apartment, having first signified to Amri, in a
whisper, that she expected him on the ensuing evening.
This was said in a manner too peremptory to be evaded,
and he readily gave her the required promise to attend.