University of Virginia Library

21. XXI.

From the dwelling of Melchior, they proceeded at
once to that of the archbishop, where, by this time,
generally assembled, the conspirators awaited the princes.
Taking a route less indirect than that by which he had
come, Pelayo followed his conductor into the street, and
it was not long before they reached the palace of Oppas.

In a secluded and low-vaulted chamber, the enemies
of the usurper, each having his own peculiar wrong to
avenge, not less than that of his country, were crowded
together. They were a small, but trustworthy band—
fierce in the assertion and faithful in the maintenance

of their rights. A mean lamp,suspended from the ceiling,
gave a sufficient degree of light to enable the eye
to take in the dim outline of their several persons, and
possibly the darker expression of their faces, but little
more; and this, perhaps, is quite as much as conspiracy
at any time calls for, however laudable its object. Here,
half impatient that the leaders of their enterprise had
not as yet made their appearance, they discussed their
plans of conduct and their resources, uttered their
several causes of complaint, and spared not their threats
of vengeance. From group to group, among them, the
archbishop moved continually, studiously infusing into
their minds, so far as he could, his own particular thoughts.
He was a dark, cold, designing man—a restless malignant.
With a thirst of power, which had always engaged
him in mischief, he was now earnest rather to promote
his own than the interest of the princes. The honourable
spirit which was their prompter was not his, and
he rather feared that of Pelayo in particular. He had
no love for them, and little cared for their father's, his
brother's, memory; but he professed much, for their
name and cause were essential to his purpose. He
dared not offend them; and with a spirit of hypocrisy,
which was his nature, while seeking to excuse or to
account for their absence, took care to urge upon the
attending nobles his own views of what would be their
best course of proceeding. He was interrupted in this
work by the entrance of Pelayo, whose appearance was
instantly hailed with a murmur of applause, which well
testified the favourable opinion of those around him.

“Thanks, noble gentlemen, thanks. Your love is
much to us in our humility. We are too poor now to
offer more than this; but there will come a time, when,
with your own good arms to aid us, we shall work out a
better estate for all. How, my Lord Oppas, where is
Egiza?”

“Has he not been with thee, my son?”

“Not since the morning. You took note of him. I
left him with you, and looked to find him here.”

“He staid not with me long; but, as if impatient for
other tasks, he broke away, and gave no word, save that
the night should find him at our meeting. Yet is
he not.”

“Laggard! but we must on. What is our purpose,
uncle?—have you spoken?”

“Yes—but most briefly. Some of them are firm—
all of them with us. But who have you here, my son?”

Oppas, as he spoke, pointed to Melchior, and Pelayo
then turned to the spot where the old man stood behind
him in waiting, and motioned his advance, while replying
to the inquiry—Melchior, as he spoke, advancing
sufficiently forward to stand, at the moment of his reply,
in the fullest glare of the lamp.

“Look on him, my Lord Oppas—gentlemen. Do ye
know this man?”

“We do not,” was the reply.

“Know him from me. This man, once the deadly
enemy of my father and of our country, I have made
bold to bring among you as our friend. I look to have
you hail him so. This is Melchior of the Desert!”

“Ha!” was the exclamation of the nobles, and the
greater number shrunk away as from'a polluted and polluting
presence. The high, dark brow of the Hebrew
gathered into a momentary scowl, while his lips curled
into something like scorn; but the expression passed
off in an instant, and in another he had resumed the
habitual, calm, almost melancholy look of benevolence,
which he commonly wore.

“How!—son Pelayo, is it the Hebrew—the slayer
of his God—the foul and beastly infidel, thou wouldst
bring into the presence of Christian nobles—even in
close neighbourhood with the humble servant of Christ?
Is this thy pride of lineage, my son? What scorn is
this that thou wouldst put upon thy friends and people?”

The archbishop, as he spoke, crossed himself with an
air of the profoundest devotion.

“No scorn—my lord bishop, and most Christian
uncle—no scorn, but rather good service. I bring
Melchior of the Desert to your knowledge, and to the
knowledge of the friends I see around me, as one willing
and able to do much for our cause. He, too, is a sufferer
by the tyrant who now sways the land—he is here
to strike with us that Roderick shall fall from his
usurped throne; and it is something new to me, good
uncle, that thy Christian spirit, which has not shamed
ere this to employ many unchristian and unworthy
agents in the doing of works we may not always consider
good, should scruple now to achieve a good and
glorious work with the unworthy instrument, if he be
such, whom I now bring you.”

“It is an unholy agent thou wouldst give us, Pelayo,
and as an humble follower of Christ, I am not free to
counsel that we accept it,” replied Oppas, who, unscrupulous
enough in almost every thing else, yet felt that
his profession, at that period, derived its chief importance
by earnestly encouraging a most bigoted hatred
to all forms of infidelity. To do murder for his cause
was legitimate enough, but it was grossly unbecoming
in a Christian to employ a Jew for that purpose.

“I ask not for thy counsel, my Lord Oppas. It is
to these nobles I submit—”

“And they will refuse,” cried the archbishop, interrupting
him—“they will refuse all hand in a strife, if
the Jew be there.”

“Let me speak, I pray you,” was the deliberate and
calm reply of the prince, as he turned to the nobles,
many of whom showed quite as much reluctance to accept
the aid of the Hebrew as did the archbishop, and
were indeed, most probably, influenced by his expressed
determination.

“Speak on, Pelayo,” said one; “let us hear thy
thought, and why thou bring'st us a Hebrew for a fellow,

and he too one of our land's enemies. Did he not betray
Auria to the Moor? owe we not to him the rise in
battle of five thousand of his base tribe? and how should
we trust in one who has been so false before?”

“Count Eudon, you speak fairly. Hear to me.
This morning did I meet with Melchior first, and my
first thought was to slay him, as the enemy of my father
and my country—”

“A good thought—Heaven had given thee bliss,
Pelayo, hadst thou but done it.” And as he spoke, the
archbishop again devoutly crossed himself, and muttered
a prayer half audible to the crowd. This was one of
the thousand arts of the venerable superstition.

“Thou wilt not break upon me thus again, my Lord
Oppas, unless thou seek'st for rude answer in acknowledgment.
My mood is something stern to-night already,
and thy chafings make it not smoother. I proceed,
Count Eudon. My thought was harsh like thine,
and in my first feeling I would have slain him, but that
he made his proffer of good faith.”

“Did you believe him, prince?” was the inquiry of
one of the nobles.

“I am not moved to this warfare against Roderick
by my own loss of right or that of Egiza; but by a
sense of wrong that, in my own feeling, tells of my
country's suffering. The men of Spain are men—I
hold them so—the rich and poor alike—and, more than
this, I care not for their creed. Let them pray or not
—believe or not, if that they wrong no law that's based
on reason—if that they keep their faith unto their country—the
country that protects and watches for them—
they are alike to me. In this I speak for Melchior—
for the Jew—so does my brother speak. I speak for
him; and, strange as it may sound unto your sense, I
freely say, Lord Oppas, that you, not less than this old
Hebrew, are no Christian. The faith of Christ is that
of liberty. It teaches that the religion of mankind must
spring from each man's reason—it so requires that he

shall have free thought, and no restraint to make his
reason yours, save as he comes to it of his free will and
unimpeded conscience. Thinking thus, the Jew shall
be a fellow with the Goth, held equally in estimation of
Pelayo. So, too, my brother speaks.”

“Strange thought, indeed, Pelayo; but if you make
the Hebrew thus secure, how will you make him true—
how bind him to you?”

“Your's is a narrow spirit, good mine uncle. We
elevate the soul when we do trust it, degrading when we
doubt. But now apart. In your ear, good gentlemen,
I pray leave to whisper more.”

Then taking aside a few of the leading nobles, together
with the bishop, he whispered to them as follows,
urging more selfish considerations upon them.

“Hear to my reason, gentlemen, for this confidence
we give the Hebrew. He may not choose but be
Roderick's foe, for Roderick has proscribed him. A
price is set upon his head—makes him a common mark
—and by the decree of the usurper, whoso shall keep
him safe shall suffer death and forfeiture of goods.
This makes him ours. To be true to us is to be true
to himself, for we are the enemies of his enemy. It
were his policy to strike for us. Thus we may trust
him. Then he brings us the gold which otherwise our
coffers would lack knowledge of. Smacks not such
promise sweetly to your sense? To me, more than all
this, he proffers in our battle a strong force—three thousand
fighting men—good subjects we shall make them
—ready to follow as his will may guide. He is a
leader too. His battles were well fought; and if he
strikes for us, as once before he struck against my
father at Alpuxarra, I shall approve him, Hebrew though
he be. These are my arguments, and strong enough to
me, though my uncle's conscience receive them not.”

“I wash my hands of it—I'll none of the Jew, Pelayo,”
exclaimed the bishop aloud.

“Could you but wash them clean, uncle, it were

better. Tut—but you lead not here as 'twere your
own. The cause is for my brother and his people.
The Jew is of his people; and, I swear it, he shall be
free to lift his arm in this great service. So take a
wiser thought to your mind, and reject not the instrument
Heaven sends us in our need.”

“Could he embrace the church—put on the sign of
the cross, as a badge of honour and of glory? Say,
Jew, couldst thou do this it were all well.”

“Never! the heart of the Jew clings more firmly to
the faith of his fathers as thou seek'st to degrade it.
Even chains and the scourge are sweet, when they tell
him of the ancient altars of his nation: the sacred ark
of the temple; the temple itself, hallowed by a thousand
glories—by the awful front of Jehovah, and the song of
the monarch minstrel. Shall I put off the joys of my
spirit—the pleasant thoughts of my boyhood—the old
fancies that came with the mighty Jerusalem, and of the
parent God of the patriarchs? Thou know'st not the
Jew that asks it. Thou canst not feel his thought—
thou canst not grasp the glory in his imagining. It is
not the spoil and the suffering of to-day that shall make
him renounce the bright promise in the future for his
nation. He knows that the scattered people shall be
united—that there shall come one who is to lead them,
so that they meet again, the world's master, and there
shall be no oppression.”

“He is come!—the prophecy is fulfilled!” cried the
archbishop triumphantly.

“So thou say'st—so doubtless thou think'st—but, if
he is come, the prophecy is still incomplete. Where is
the gathering of the nations shown? where is the security
of the flock? where is the shepherd that is to protect
and give them peace? Dost thou behold its image
in the tyranny which makes wretched this thy own land
and people? which denies all peace to mine, while robbing
them of their substance? Is this thy fulfilment of
the glorious prophecy which promised to man the kingdom

full of good-will and endless joy, of a time unbroken
of security, when the good angels, as of old, may again
walk beside us in the quiet valleys, and from the hill-top
at evening the fine sense may catch the faint notes of
that spirit-born minstrelsy which trickles from the thousand-stringed
harp at the golden gate of heaven? Has
thy Saviour brought thee all this? for such is the blessed
promise of that sacred prophecy.”

“Strike down the impious wretch!—he blasphemes!”
was the sanguinary cry of the archbishop, as the warmly
roused Melchior, whose spirit was deeply impregnated
with the wildest fancies of the desert, poured himself
forth in the most fearless strains of enthusiasm. The
old man stood firm, and his dark eye was fired like that
of the eagle fresh descending from the sun. One or two
of the crowd moved towards him as if in compliance
with the call of Oppas, but Pelayo passed calmly between.

“Go to, lords, this is my guest—under my protection,
and, to silence all further coil, one for whom my
honour stands pledged to yours. I answer for his faith
to us—let the God we all worship see to his own rights.
He is a better judge than either you or I, uncle, and
quite as able to avenge his wrongs. Have done, and
now to counsel.”