University of Virginia Library

13. XIII.

The affrighted Hebrew looked upon her now as one
who had lost her senses. He, too, rose from the table,
but took a position which left it interposed between
them. She did not suffer him, however, to maintain
this position; but, labouring strongly to preserve or compel
a calmness of manner which had entirely left her
during the scene preceding, she pushed aside the table,
and firmly approached him.

“Hear me, Amri—you deem me distraught—I am
not. But my mind is wrought up to new necessities, a
strange condition, and to the contemplation of a solemn
and singular change, which is in progress not less upon
thee than upon me. When thou knowest all which I
have to tell thee—when thou knowest what my hope
has been, and know that I feel that utterly gone from me
which late I leaned upon in hope—thou wilt not think it
surprising that my eye is wild, and that my thoughts and
language are like the thoughts and language of one utterly
distraught. Hear me, and fear nothing—thou hast
now, indeed, nothing more to fear. Thou hast a better
protection within thee from fear than the talisman about
thy neck. Thou mayst now put Death himself at defiance.”

“Thy words are still strange to me, Urraca, and they
sooth me but little. Tell me thy grief quickly, and
say what I may do for thee, Urraca, for I am soon to
leave thee.”

“Thou errest, Amri, and hast more time, yet far less
time than even thou, in thy impatience, thinkest of.
Thou canst not leave me to-night—no—nor to-morrow,
Amri.”

“How—what mean you?”

“The door through which thou camest is shut upon
thee, and the key which secures it my own hand has
flung through a fissure in the wall which thou wilt

see behind yon curtain. It now lies at the foot of the
wall in the court below, and no words of thine—no spell
or power in thy command—will bring it to thy relief.”

“But wherefore this?” demanded Amri, in evident
alarm. She proceeded without heeding him.

“Look with me upon these windows, Amri. I was
resolved to secure thee, and I lodged their fastenings
each with its own rivet, and a strong bolt lies upon all,
keeping them secure from any strength of mine or thine
to undo them. Never was prison more close for criminal
in fetters than this chamber is for thee.”

The alarm of Amri increased duly with this intelligence,
but he strove to conceal it as he replied—

“I fear not thy custody, dear Urraca, for well I know
that thou will not have denied to thyself all chance for
freedom. Thou hast a mode left for escape—that is
enough for me.”

“For escape from this chamber I care not, Amri.
It is true, nevertheless, as thou sayest, that I have a
mode of escape.”

“I will share it with thee,” said Amri, laughing.

“Thou shalt, I well know,” replied Urraca, “but that
thou wilt desire to employ such mode I somewhat question.
Yet, ere thou dost, Amri, I have a something to
disclose to thee. I have a dreadful charge to make
against thee.”

“What is that, Urraca? Speak, dearest, and let me
forth soon, for the time hastens, and by midnight I must
proceed upon the business of Edacer.”

“Let the business of Edacer wait, and think rather
upon thine own. Thine is now more necessary to thee
than his. Hear me; I have it charged upon thee, Amri,
that thou desirest my death.”

“Thy death!” he exclaimed, appalled.

“Ay, my death—the death of the feeble and fond
woman who has loved thee. Nor wast thou willing to
await for it in the common course of fate, when the decree

of Heaven should demand it also. Thou wert
bent, it is said, to hurry fate, and didst suborn my own
slave to administer a fatal portion unto me. Thou didst
tamper with Zitta to this end.”

“'Tis false—she doth defame me—'tis a lie.”

“Be not too bold—'tis true—I did behold the potion.”

“I gave it not!”

“Thou didst—there's proof to show the packet came
from thee.”

“'Twas a love potion only that I gave her—it was
no poison.”

“What, didst thou doubt my love for thee, Amri?
Did it need a love potion to make me all thine own?”

“It did—I thought so—dearest Urraca. I did not
hold thee true to me alone; I would have had thee fonder.
The powder which I gave Zitta was innocent, and would
have wrought only upon thy affections.”

“I glad me that thou sayest so—I glad me much.
Would it, indeed, provoke the cold heart to love more
fervently?”

“Such was its purpose—such its quality. 'Twas
framed by an Arabian for my mother, who had misgivings
of my father's love, and sought him for a charm.
He gave her that—the potion which to Zitta I delivered.
It could not hurt—its power was only framed to move
the coy affections—to bend the unyielding heart—to
make it warm with a more pliant method.”

“I glad me that thou sayest so. Art thou sure?”

“Most certain, dear Urraca!”

“How I rejoice me! I do breathe again! I feel
like one set free from a dark prison, and glorying in the
sunlight.”

“Oh, wherefore, dearest?” She proceeded without
seeming to regard his speech.

“When Zitta brought this tale to me, I maddened.”

“Didst doubt me, then—didst think it true, Urraca?”

“I did; and then the world grew black upon me. I

cared no more for life! I made her free, yet I bade
her give me the fatal potion.”

“But she did not,” he demanded, anxiously.

“Thou shalt hear all. I then resolved to die!”

“I glad me, dearest, that I spoke so soon. Had I
not told thee of the potion's innocence, it might have
been—”

“Oh, yes—yes! But hear me out. Be patient
now, I pray thee. I bade thee hither, as thou knowest,
last night, and had this feast of fruits and cates provided.
Believing thou didst mean to murder me, and did project
my death with that same potion, ere yet thou
camest—for I was bent on vengeance—I mixed it with
that fountain—”

“The wine—the wine!” he exclaimed, his whole
figure convulsed and trembling, as he bent forward,
making the inquiry.

“Ay, with the wine we drank. Why dost thou
tremble? Was it not innocent?”

“Hell's curses seize thee, woman—fiends and snakes
—'twas poison—deadly poison!”

“Then we are wedded, Amri!” she replied, sternly,
but contemptuously—“in death, if not in life, we are now
wedded. Thou'st drank—we have both drank—and
now—go pray.”

“Let me go forth, Urraca—Jezebel, deny me not.
Give me the key, I bid thee,” he cried, furiously, while
his features spoke at once the intensity of his hate and
the extremity of his apprehension. She replied decisively,
and with a withering scornfulness of expression—

“Why, this shows ill in thee, Amri. Thou shouldst
now love me; having drank the potion made by the Arabian
sage to bless thy mother, and to bend thy father to
a due regard with hers, thou shouldst now love me.”

“God curse thee, woman!—do thou not provoke me!
Undo the door!—let me go forth, I pray thee. 'Tis not
too late—there is a medicine—”

“Thou shalt not go—to-night thou shalt not leave me.
To-morrow—”

“'Twill be too late to-morrow. Let me go now,
Urraca—'twill save us both—I'll share the medicine
with thee—”

“I seek it not—I would not now live, Amri, since
thou hast denied that I shall live for any thing.”

“I will be thine, Urraca, only thine? I'll fly with
thee to-morrow—ay, to-night. Let me go forth in season.”

“Never, never! I have resolved upon thy death—for
mine own I care not! Thou hast deceived me as never
yet has woman been deceived, forgiving her deceiver.
We die together; I hope not now for any antidote—I
do deny it thee.”

“I pray thee, dear Urraca—on my knees.”

“Liar! I know thee. Rise—thou but chaf'st me
with thy base language.”

“Pardon—spare—let me fly!”

He grovelled at her feet, which at length spurned him.

“Hope not to move me by thy prayers and sighs.
Too well I know thy villany to listen. I know all thy
schemes, Amri. To-night thou wert to seek a page, an
enemy of Roderick! Do I not know the page thou
aimest at is a woman—a lovely woman—one thou
wouldst make thy victim; but one—I joy to think so—
who doth most rightly scorn thee. Hear a tale I kept
from thee before, in a vain hope to mend thee by my fond
forbearance. I had not then the courage which had
saved me, to pluck thee, as a viper, from the heart which
thou hast stung to madness.”

She then told him all the particulars of his attempt
upon Thyrza, and of her rescue by Pelayo, of which we
have already been apprized, but of which Amri knew
nothing. She concluded by the following stern and inflexible
summary.

“Knowing all this of thee, and more of thy falsehood

and base connexion with the woman whom thou couldst
have prompted to the foul crime of murder on her mistress,
even at the time when thou wert most professing
love and service, I gave thee up for ever. I then resolved,
with this last knowledge of thy cruel purpose to strike
at my poor life; at the time, too, when first I had began
truly to live, and when I did bestow upon thee such a
perfect confidence as should have made thee, even if
before thou hadst occasion to be mine enemy, my best
and truest friend—I then resolved to tear thee from my
heart. It was no pain to doom thee to the fate which
thou didst design for me—the pain was in the terrible
conviction that thou didst hate me. After that conviction
I did not wish to live.”

Amri could no longer doubt her sincerity, though he
might her sanity. He, too, began to madden, for an agonizing
pain which passed through his vitals at this moment
more fully impressed him with the terrible consciousness
of his situation. The dreadful imprecation
of his father came to his memory with that pain, and
seemed to be thrilling again through his ears—the petition
had indeed been quickly heard, and as Amri well
knew the horrible effects of the poison, he well knew
that it was likely to be as severely felt as it was most
certain, unless he could procure the antidote of which
he spoke, to prove certainly fatal. Whether he possessed,
in truth, a remedial medicine, may not be said.
It is possible he simply desired escape from the dwelling,
with the vague hope which comes to the otherwise despairing,
and is a hope against hope, that succour might
be had by a quick resort to the men of skill and science
of the time. With this hope he prayed Urraca earnestly
for his release, with every art of persuasion which, of
old, he had seldom exercised in vain. But the conviction
of his utter heartlessness had made her inflexible.
The power of the poison had already begun to manifest
its presence upon herself—she writhed under its fearful

pangs, but she also smiled scornfully upon her companion
in suffering. Every word which she uttered in reply
to his agonizing entreaties was a word of bitter taunt
and contemptuous derision.

“You would be every thing, Amri, and you are nothing.
You would win power with Edacer because he
is Lord of Cordova, and find a way, too, even to the favour
of King Roderick. Hadst thou been bold enough
to be true, thou hadst been safe this hour, and in some
of thy schemes successful. But thou wert false where
thy faith was most due, and now, count thy gains!”

“Yet, if thou wouldst forgive me, Urraca—there is
but little time to waste,” said the wretch, imploringly.
“I pray thee—on my knees.”

“I mean not to forgive—I mean not to forego my
power upon thee. Thou art my prisoner, and when I
release thee it shall be to that greater power which already
hath its hands on me.”

He clamoured at the door, and shouted for aid from
without; but she laughed scornfully at the feebleness
of his efforts to shake the bolt or drive the massive timbers
with his feet, which he now began furiously to apply
to them.

“Zitta—Zitta!” he cried to his former accomplice,
and his cries were echoed by the increased laughter of
Urraca.

“Take the gold,” said she, as she beheld his efforts;
“this is thy gold, Amri—dost thou not know it? It is
thine when I die. I bequeath it to none but thee. Buy
her with it to come to thee, and pledge thyself to share
it with her. She will help thee, perhaps.”

“Fiend—wretch—cease thy infernal mockeries!” he
cried to Urraca, who had sunk down in pain upon a
couch, while, turning furiously from his ineffectual clamours
at the door, he shook his clinched fists in her face.
Her laughter mingled in strange contrast with her insuppressible
groans, while she continued to taunt him with

his weakness, and to deride him with his ineffectual desperation.

“Thy cries are all in vain, Amri, and thou shoutest
the name of one who is commanded and rewarded not
to hear thee. Before thou camest I had anticipated thy
clamours now. To Zitta I gave orders that she should
heed no cries, of whatever kind; no appeals, whether of
thy voice or of mine, coming from this chamber.”

“Father Abraham—dreadful Jehovah! shield me—
save me!” cried the despairing and bewildered prisoner.
“What fiend from hell has prompted thee to this—this
horrible malice? Curse thee, Urraca—Heaven curse
thee with the plagues of Egypt. It cannot be that I am
doomed to perish thus—it is not true; thou dost try me
only. Thou hast not drugged the wine—it is thy trick.
Ah—ah!”

The last exclamations were extorted from him by a
keen pang, which sufficiently answered him, and contradicted
the hope which he had just expressed. There
needed no answer from her to confirm his fears. The
poison had commenced its work, and, in the momentary
and acute agony of its burning pain, the miserable man
threw himself howling and writhing on the floor. Urraca,
too, had ceased to taunt her victim—she now murmured
only; and she strove to bring her thoughts to the
crisis which was fast approaching—she strove to pray. A
picture of the Virgin hung upon the wall, opposite to,
yet at some distance from, the cushion upon which she
had thrown herself. She arose from the cushion as she
gazed upon the picture; and, though suffering increasing
agony at every movement, she crossed the room, and
sunk down before it upon her knees in prayer. Amri
saw the movement, and at first imagined that she was
about to seize an opportunity for flight, leaving him still
a prisoner. With the thought he hastily leaped from the
floor and hurried after her; but when he beheld her
kneeling, and from the words which came to his ears

discovered that she was seeking to deprecate Heaven's
wrath for her misdoings, he rushed furiously upon her.
She heard his footsteps, but turned not once to behold
him; and, utterly unseen, and his purpose unexpected
by her, he drew a dagger suddenly from his vest, and
plunged it deep down over her shoulder into the vital
recesses of her bosom, exclaiming as he did so—

“Thou shalt not pray—thou shalt not find mercy,
but shalt go with all thy sins upon thy head to the kindred
fiends that thou fearest, and that now await thee.”

She fell upon her face with a convulsion; the blow
had been fatal, and her words were few and imperfectly
uttered.

“I thank thee—I thank thee, Amri; thou hast done
me a sweet service. I have no more pain—thy dagger
has disarmed the poison—I am free—free.”

Her face was turned upon the floor, and the blood
gushed all around it. A few more brief and muttered
words fell from her lips, but they were indistinguishable.
In a few moments she was silent. He stooped down,
and sought to lift the body, but he soon discovered from
its weight that life had departed. It was then that his
own pangs became more frequent and acute. In his
agony he turned the point of the fatal dagger upon his
own bosom, but just then he heard a noise—he thought
so, at least, and, hurling the bloody instrument from him,
rushed to the door. He imagined that he could detect
the sounds of retreating footsteps, and with this conviction
he shouted aloud.

“Ha, there—Zitta—Zitta! Come to me, Zitta.
Here—come to me quickly. Bring help—bring axes,
and break down the door—let in the air—bring water to
my help—I thirst—I am on fire—I burn—I die!”

He paused for a few moments, as if to learn the effect
of his cries and pleadings; but he listened in vain, and
his clamours and solicitations were renewed.

“Come to me, Zitta—whoever thou art, I implore—
I command thee. Oh, Zitta, dear Zitta, if thou lovest

me, come quickly to my help! Thou shalt have gold
—gold—whatever thou requirest, Zitta; thou shalt have
all that is here—all that I possess! Oh, fire—fire—
fire! I burn—I burn—my heart is on fire! Ah—oh!
it is at my heart—a dreadful tooth—it bites—it burns
—it is fire—fire—fire! They come not—they are
gone! I hear them no more. They hear not me.
They leave me to burn—to perish!”

He paused, and stooped to the floor to listen—to
catch again the sounds which he fancied he had already
heard. The poison even then was tearing and tugging
at his vitals. His own hands, in his dreadful agony,
had grasped his bowels with a fierce gripe and furious
energy, which would seem rather like that of a wolf upon
the flanks of his victim. He listened for several minutes,
until the increasing pain compelled him to forego
the effort, and drove him from the extreme of attentive
silence into the opposite extreme of wild, demoniac fury.
He writhed deliriously upon the floor, and cursed fruitlessly
the unconscious woman that lay dead at a little
distance. His shoutings were renewed more furiously
than ever. He beat upon the door with his unconscious
hands—he shrieked, in his various moods of desperation,
hope, agony, and entreaty, to the supposed listener—
proffering his life and countless wealth to the person who
would save it for him. And, when the echoes of his
own voice came back to him unmingled with any favouring
responses, he thrust his furious head against the
wall with repeated effort, which, however, brought him
no pain in addition to that which he endured already.
The conviction that he must perish without prospect of
relief or rescue was at length forced upon his mind by
the disappointment of all his hopes and the failure of
all his supplications. With this conviction he rushed to
the body of Urraca, determined to repossess himself of
the dagger by which he had terminated her sufferings,
and with which he now proposed to end his own. Having

stricken the fatal blow into her bosom, he had hurled
the dagger from him. But the doom against him was
unyielding—the fate was inflexible, and he had not the
choice of death. In vain did he grope around the chamber
for the deadly weapon. His eyes were blinded, and
he failed to see it; the sensibilities of his fingers seemed
gone, for he failed to touch it; and the dreadful imprecation
of his father seemed at once to be realized upon
him, in all the forms of Providential judgment. His
doom was written without mitigation. It was required
not less to be fatal than to be felt; and he was destined
to endure the most protracted form of human suffering.

“But I will not endure it,” he cried, furiously; “I
will fly from—I will escape it yet!”

From one side of the room he prepared to rush, with
extended head, upon the dead stone wall of the other.
To dash out his desperate brains, and thus terminate his
agony, was his last hope; and, closing his eyes, he
bounded forward; but, ere he reached the wall, his heart
sunk within him. A tremour seized upon his knees—
a general weakness overspread his limbs, and he dared
not carry out his more resolute design—indeed, he could
not—the judgment was inexorable, and could only be
endured, not defeated.

“Oh, Adoniakim—father—father! that I had heeded
thy commands—thy prayers—thy counsels!”

Groaning and shrieking, he sank down, and crawled
once more to the place of entrance—once more he listened—once
more he fancied that he heard retreating
footsteps, and he again howled with a strong but foolish
hope, praying for the relief which came not. With the
momentarily increasing agony of the poison, his cries
became more and more dreadful, and nature could not
much longer endure the strife. In a dreadful paroxysm,
the miserable wretch thrust his fingers into his now
wolfish eyes, and tore the quivering globes from their
burning sockets. But this brought not the desired benefit,

and, howling and suffering still, the now utterly
hopeless victim rolled and writhed along the floor, calling
vainly for that death which he had once so much
dreaded to encounter. The doom, though fatal, was
yet according to his father's prayer, to be felt in torments
even greater than those which he had endured already.
He was not yet suffered to die, and the tenacious life
hung on in agony until sensibility was entirely subdued.
Through the night the cries of the sufferer came to the
ears of Zitta, in the distant apartment where she lay.
What was their occasion she knew not, for her mistress
had withheld from her the secret of her intentions; and
she remembered the injunction which was given her, and
did not seek to inquire. Yet she could not sleep, and
so piercing at length did the shrieks of Amri become,
that she left her apartment, and cautiously, and with as
little noise as possible, approached that where the victims
lay. The demoniac cries alarmed her, and she
fled. It was probable, indeed, that Amri, with the
acuteness of hope, had really heard her footsteps, but
his appeal availed not. She distinguished no particular
sounds—she heard no call upon her name and for relief;
and even if she had, the fastenings of the apartment were
entirely beyond her unassisted strength to remove. She
hurried back to her chamber, and, with an imagination
active with momently accumulating terrors, she buried
her head in the bedclothes, but she did not sleep. The
dreadful shrieks penetrated the thick folds of her couch's
drapery, and when they did not, she could not forbear the
anxiety which prompted her to remove the covering, and
once more listen. Fainter and fainter at every moment
came the cries until towards morning, when they ceased
entirely. The dreadful catastrophe was over, and the
ungrateful son had too soon and too suddenly perished
beneath the dreadful curse invoked upon his head by his
deeply-wronged and justly-irritated sire.