University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

A moment only had elapsed after the departure of the archbishop, when Roderick
came to the door of the queen's chamber. His appearance was the signal for the
renewal of those piercing shrieks with which the flying Cava had startled the palace,
and which, in the presence of Egilona, had been changed into a long unbroken
sobbing.

“Save me! save me!” she screamed in terror, the moment that her eyes beheld
the face of the king. “Save me, dear lady! I pray thee save me from that bad
man!”

“Man, dost thou say, maiden?” said Egilona. “It is my lord, king Roderick,
whom thou beholdest. Dost thou not know him?”

“Too well, too well! Save me, I pray thee! Hide me from him! Hide me
in the earth! Let him not approach me!”

Roderick was about to enter and to speak, when the wild paroxysm of Cava was
renewed. Her terror became extreme, and rushing in the opposite direction from
the door where the king stood, she dashed herself against the unyielding wall as if

she would have found an escape through it, though at the hazard of her life. Her
terror seemed to increase as she found her flight prevented, and, sinking to the floor,
in a series of hysterical paroxysms, she shrieked and gibbered like an idiot, dumb
with fright, her hands extended toward the entrance and waving away the intruder.
This was no time for explanation; and, venting his anger in muttered curses, which
Egilona heard imperfectly, he left his victim to the considerate humanity of his wife.
Nor did the noble woman who, in that bitter moment, in the despair of the young
maiden before her, beheld the full realization of her fears, suffer her own sense of
injury to make her heedless of her who had been, however unwillingly, the cause
of it all. Her humanity and religion were triumphant over her woman pride. Gentleness
was her instinct; and, sighing bitterly, she proceeded to soothe the terror and
condole with, if she could not alleviate, the sorrows of the maiden. Tenderly lifting
her from the floor where she had fallen, she bore her to the cushions, and proceeded
to a cabinet from which she took some bottles of reviving cordials and perfumes.
With these she bathed the temples of Cava, who, meantime, spoke nothing,
or single words only, but who maintained, all the while, with few and those brief
intervals, a most distressful sobbing.

“Poor maiden!” murmured Egilona, as she performed these kind offices—“Poor
maiden! would that I had never seen thee, ere I had seen thee thus. Would thou
hadst still kept with thy father, in his secluded hills, where thou hadst peace—and
innocence. Alas! how will my lord look upon his face? How shall I surrender
thee to him? What shall I say, in discharge of his fond trust—in fulfilment of my
rash promise? Oh Roderick, Roderick! what a ruin hast thou made!”

Cava shuddered in the arms of the queen. She had heard the tones of condolence,
she had distinguished some of the words, and when Egilona paused, and the
warm tears fell fast and thick from her eyes upon the cheek and bosom of her she
sustained, the poor girl turned herself so as to look up into the face of the queen,
and with broken words she thanked her for the sympathy she gave.

“But!” she exclaimed, wildly and passionately, a moment after, “speak nothing
of my father. No! no! I never more shall see him. I dare not! He will spurn
me from him; he would slay me with the sudden blow!”

“Nay, speak not thus, sweet Cava; be not thus passionate. Why shouldst thou
not see him? Thou dost him wrong. He will not hurt thee.”

“Ah, madam, thou knowest not!” exclaimed the shuddering victim—“thou
knowest not, and I cannot tell thee. I have not the words—I have not the strength.
But thy lord—the king—Roderick—to whom, as to a father, did my own father
give me in trust—he”—

She threw herself from the arms of Egilona, and her face lay prone upon the
floor, which was wet with her gushing tears. The queen strove in vain to pacify
her.

“I was not guilty!” she exclaimed, in continuation; “Oh! believe me. They
blinded me, and the strength of men was upon me. Hadst thou, oh! hadst thou
kept me to thyself, in thy apartments, nor sent me to that far, fearful chamber!”

“Would that I had!” exclaimed the queen, fervently. Cava continued:

“I cried to thee, my lady, I cried to thee in my terror and my pain, till my breath
left me. I cried to thee with all my strength, but thou didst not come. Why didst
thou not come; why didst thou not save me?”

“Alas, my poor maiden! but I heard thee not. I would freely have died to save
thee.”

“I called upon God, too, and he did not hear me. Upon my father; oh! that he
had heard—that he had dreamed of this! I had been safe! But all deserted me—

none came; and I am—oh God! oh father!—I am what I dare not name, and what
will kill me. Would he had slain me! Would that Roderick had put a keen
knife into my heart, ere I had seen this day—ere he had done me this wrong! But
it is not too late. I can die—I can die! He shall not see my face! I shall not
look upon him in my shame!”

Raving thus with the fever of mind and body both, she started at these words
from the floor where she lay, and looked wildly around her.

“What wouldst thou, Cava?” demanded the queen.

The poor girl did not immediately answer. Her eyes seemed to search over the
apartment; then, as if disappointed, she sank forward again upon the floor, exclaiming,
as she did so, in reply:

“Death! death! I would have death: I must! It will hide my shame; it will
give me quiet; it will stop this fire in my brain; it will save me from my father—
my proud, poor father.”

“And wherefore, dear Cava, dost thou fear to see thy father? He will not
chide thee; thou art not guilty.”

“I am! I am!” she vehemently exclaimed; “I am guilty of life. The life of
woman is her purity. She is guilty if she survives it. Canst thou not help me?
Oh, my lady, my royal mistress! be my friend; give me help; let me have death.
Give me some weapon whose keen, quick stroke will release me from this dreadful
agony. Give it me, I pray thee, that I may die ere I see my father.”

“Speak not thus, my dear Cava; but pray to Heaven rather for strength, for
peace, for resignation,” said the queen.

“Ay, it is well!” exclaimed Cava, now sitting up, and speaking not merely in
tones of firmness but of vehemence; “it is well for thee, Egilona, to counsel me
to resignation, when thy lord hath destroyed me for ever! Thy counsel of resignation
to me is but a counsel of submission; but I warn thee that my submission
will work wo to thy lord. I will die—I know that; I cannot live—I must not;
I will perish, ere my father shall behold me; but he shall hear of my wrongs, and
he shall avenge them! I will not perish in silence, though I perish in secret
My prayers, ere I die, shall move the winds of heaven, if other messengers be denied
me, to bear the tidings of this wrong to my noble father. He will avenge
me terribly upon thy lord; he may not be counselled to submission to such foul
dishonor.”

It would be needless to linger upon this painful scene. Words would inadequately
express the anguish of the unfortunate Cava. She was a maniac for the
time; and it was only by sheer exhaustion of the animal faculties, that she was
quieted at last. In the pause of her passion, the queen summoned her attendants,
and they bore her unresistingly to her chamber; but as the fatal apartment in
which she had suffered the dreadful wrong which had debased her pride and shaken
her reason, opened upon her, the paroxysms of her frenzy were renewed.
The excitement of her mind gave new powers to her body; and of a sudden, with
one piercing shriek, which rang through the vaulted passages, she broke away
from the grasp of those who attended her. With a flight which seemed that of a
bird, and a footstep whose fleetness set all pursuit at defiance, once more she hurried
along the course which she had taken when flying from her destroyer. Once
more she would have rushed into the presence of Egilona, whom she had just left,
when, at the entrance of the queen's apartment, she met the cruel Roderick himself.
The sight was like a sudden blow from a steel-gloved hand upon the poor
maniac. Her hands were thrown up in horror and affright, and she sank to the
floor with one deep exclamation of dread and disgust, which smote to the heart of

the tyrant. The attendants seized upon her senseless person, and conveyed her
now without difficulty to the chamber whence she had fled, and in which the kind
providence of the queen had commanded that two of them should remain with her.
Nor did Egilona content herself with this degree of care. She visited the unhappy
victim in her chamber, and with a humility which was not without its effect
upon Cava, she bore with all those bitter reproaches, which, in her despair
and agony, the latter did not scruple to utter. The blow which had destroyed the
maiden, had also been a cruel blow to her; yet never did Christian meekness and
Christain hope more admirably sustain, even while they subdued her high and
holy spirit. She herself spoke no word injurious to her lord, though she spoke
to Cava in tones and language of sympathy and encouragement, befitting the ears
of one who had so grievously suffered; and when, at length, in stupor rather than
sleep, the poor maiden lay before her with closed eyes and in utter silence, never
did sinner pray more fervently or plead with more humility for grace from heaven
on the sufferer, than did the wife of him who had been the parent of all the suffering.
Nor should it subtract from the power of her prayer, that she mingled with
it a humble petition for mercy on the wrong-doer. Her love, like the heaven to
which she sent her entreaties, was boundless; and in her charity, while she wept
the crime, she could yet hope for that indulgence for the criminal which the interests
of her own heart, if not the merits of his for whom she prayed, imperatively
demanded.