University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.

With these words the gigantic yet graceful figure of
Pelayo was bent to the earth in prostration before the
brother whom he had chastened but to improve—whom
he had striven with but to strengthen. His noble self-sacrifice
touched the heart of the already humbled Egiza.

“Stab me rather with thy steel, my brother,” he exclaimed,
“for thy words pierce me to the heart, and I
am crushed by thy noble spirit. I feel how greatly I
have wronged thee; I feel that I am unworthy of thy
communion, and have but too little within me of the
blood which our father gave us.”

“Thou shalt grow worthy if thou art not yet,” was
the reply. “Take thy royal honours upon thee with thy
duties. Cast out from thy soul the unruly devil which
hath so far misled thee to thy undoing. Rise once
more to thy dignity, as well of soul as of station, and be
the monarch in all things which our lips proclaim and
our hearts would have thee.”

After a brief pause, given to feeling rather than reflection,
in all which time Pelayo continued kneeling,
Egiza answered him thus—

“Rise, my brother—rise, Pelayo, to thy proper and
brave posture. Thy action shames me, and thy words
but mock mine ear. I cannot be thy sovereign; I am
not born for it. I feel that I lack in the qualities which
would make me one; and all thy wish, and all the words
of our people, would fail to endow me with the necessary
ingredients of mood and mind, when God himself hath
denied them. Besides, I will not have thee, to thy own
loss, bestow upon me such noble justice.”

“It is no loss; I lose not in thy gain,” was the reply.

“Thou hast loss. The people who have made thee
their leader must declare thee soon their king. The

rule is thine by their acclaim—thine to keep—how
canst thou give it to another?”

“Let not that move thee to deny me. Our people
will confirm my gift so thou but promise to receive it,”
said Pelayo.

“Thanks, my brother—thanks! But hear my answer.
Thou hast dealt nobly with me; thou hast dealt
ever nobly, even when thy language was most harsh, and
thy mood most angry; while I have wronged thee with
dishonouring thoughts, as much unworthy me as they
were foully unjust to thee. Let me acquit thee of all
crooked practice; let me pray for thy forgiveness.
More than this; let me acknowledge my weakness in
thy ear, though I would not have thee unfold it to other
ears. I have not the soul for the toils of empire;
I lack the spirit. Other desires have possessed me,
and I pray but to be forgotten by the ambitious and striving
world, as I would forget and fly from strife myself.
Thou hast the temper which I lack—the quick spirit,
sudden and true resolve, which should make thee achieve
greatness as a leader. Thou wilt achieve it, and thou
canst not but lead. Were I to accept thy proffer, and
take the rule of this people upon me, I should not keep
it long. Thy greatness would obscure me, and when
men saw and wondered at thy deeds, they would smile
and speak scornfully of mine. Keep thy honours, my
brother, and wear them, as I know thou must, with grace
and greatness hourly growing with their use. Thou
hast won them valiantly—wherefore should I rob thee
of them?”

“Thou dost not, my brother. Indeed, I love them
not—I wish them not. 'Twill glad me to give them
into your proper hands, and quit me of their burden.”

“No, Pelayo; thy spirit calls thee to thy work not
less than thy people. Thou dost wrong to thy own
nature and high ambition. These duties better fit thee
than me.”

“How can this be? Thou dost not shrink from our
battle. Thou wilt fight with us to-morrow, even as thou
hast fought with us to-night, against our beleaguering
foe. Why, then, shouldst thou shrink to be sovereign
in the war, which, as a subject, thou must strive in despite
of the danger?”

“It is a war I would not seek, Pelayo, and therefore
I would not lead in it. To-night I fought because of
thine own, and the close emergency of our friends.”

“For the same reason,” replied Pelayo, “wilt thou
fight again. There will be yet more peril to-morrow,
if I mistake not the signs of battle below, and thou wilt
strike then with a better appetite for blows. See the
array of Edacer; hear the clamours of his brawling
warriors—how they shout in their security—how they
howl in their confident hope of the coming triumph.
They hem us in with thrice our numbers. They have
more practice in the war, more courage, and better skill
than these timid Hebrews; and theirs is the better choice
of arms. In much of these we lack, and but the advantage
of the ground is ours, which want of food will hourly
lessen. We must descend to them ere noon to-morrow,
and in desperate valour alone can we hope for success.
Judge, then, of our hope, and what is there of
escape. Thou must fight, Egiza—fight with full soul!
'Tis death, my brother—death or a great victory.”

“I feel—I know it, Pelayo. The strife will be perilous;
and, if thou conquerest, the greater will be thy
glory.”

“Ay, and thine! Thou wilt fight, even as a king
should fight. Thou canst not choose but fight thus;
nor to-morrow only—thou wilt have to strike day after
day, until we perish or escape.”

“Fear me not—I will do it. 'Till thou art free from
thy leaguer in death or in victory, my brother, so long
will Egiza strike for thee.”

“Then 'twere better, my brother,” replied Pelayo,

“that thou shouldst perish or conquer as a king than
as a common soldier. If the doom be writ that we
must perish, then be thy death becoming—let thy people
behold thee leading them as thou shouldst—first in the
foremost rank. 'Twere shame to die with others before
thee—a shame no less to thy father than to thee
and me, my brother.”

“No matter how I die, Pelayo, so that I fear not
death. Thou dost plead to me vainly, my brother,
though thou pleadest warmly. Thy prayer touches me
not—”

“But, sure, the argument, Egiza,” replied Pelayo,
impatiently interrupting him. The answer of Egiza
was instant.

“Thy argument, though it may seem to thee full of
crowning and conclusive reason, I do not heed, Pelayo.
It is all profitless to me, and unconsidered. Hear me,
and say no more. I have pledged myself—I have an
oath—to lead no battle, such as now moves our people.”

“Thou darest not give such pledge! Hast thou not
one already to that people—one more sacred to the son
of Witiza than any other? Thy oath is false, no less
than base—it cannot bind thee.”

“But it must, Pelayo. Be no longer cruel, my brother.
Pierce me no longer with thy keen language and heavy
censures. It may be that I have done evil, but urge
me not, if thou hast pity. Look to me among the first to-morrow
in the fight—believe me fearless and true to the
last—'till thou art safe from thy present extremity, or
hast nothing more to dread from human foe. Hold me
sworn to this pledge, though I forget all other to our
people.”

“But if we 'scape?” demanded Pelayo.

“Then are my toils ended with thee, my brother. I
leave thee and our people. I leave thee to the sole
sway over them, not forgetting thee in my blight, Pelayo,
but hopeful of thy fame—praying for it ever—and with

another, and no less fervent prayer, that in thy day of
glory thou mayst not think of thy brother's base obscurity,
nor summon from the grave of his defeated promises
a single thought to chill thy own triumph to stifle the
gladness at thy heart.”

As he spoke these words in a manner which, while
it sufficiently showed him firm in his present resolution,
at the same time indicated a wish that the conference on
this subject should have an end, the countenance of
Pelayo underwent sundry ominous changes; and for a
few moments, striving with his conflicting emotions, he
dared not trust himself to reply. Composing himself at
last, he regarded Egiza with a look of sorrow, such as a
fond parent might express at beholding the wilful self-sacrifice
of a beloved and only son, and spoke then as
follows:

“Alas! my brother, I know not how to regard thee.
The thoughts are strange and sad which fill my bosom.
I know not whether to slay thee in thy shame, and with
a feeling of my own, or to spurn thee with a scorn due
to thy base and womanly spirit. My anger and my anguish
strive together, and I tremble lest that I madden,
and so far forget myself as to fall into some unhappy violence.
Let us part a while, I pray thee. I would not
do thee wrong, or myself wrong; and better that I should
leave thee than linger where my mood may move me to
both. Go, take thy rest, my brother—sleep, if thou
canst. If thou feel'st with me, it will not be an easy
labour. Thy sad defection will drive slumber from my
eyes, as it has driven all hope of thee from my heart.”

“Brother—Pelayo—stay—hear me!” cried the unhappy
prince, who had so resolutely, yet weakly, chosen
his own doom; but Pelayo proceeded on his way as if
he had heard him not. Bitter, then, were the lonely
thoughts and mournful the sad tones of Egiza's soliloquy.

“I am most wretched. I am crushed to the earth.
I feel the heavy shame upon me like a mountain. Oh,

Cava! 'tis thou—'tis thy fatal beauty that has done all
this. Thou hast destroyed me; thou hast sapped my
soul of its good spirit; thou hast robbed me of life and
substance; enthralled me in a bondage that checks all
enterprise; taken from me the glory of good deeds, and
the pride of honourable name; torn from me a generous
and noble brother; reft me of a thousand friends. Yet
I cannot reproach thee—I can love thee only. Oh, Pelayo—would
thou hadst slain me with thy better weapon
when we had battled among these hills. Then none
had known my shame. Would thou hadst made my
grave in some deep, narrow gorge of the highest mountain,
where no curious eyes might remark my form lying
in the base sleep of death—sleep far less base than that
which thou hast doomed me to this night.”

He threw himself upon his face as he said these
words, and moaned audibly in his mental anguish to the
unpitying rocks which sustained him; but, after a moment's
pause, he rose again.

“Yet I must sleep!” he exclaimed; “I would not be
backward to-morrow, and must sleep to-night for strength.
It is long since I have slept. I must not be the last to
meet the foe—I must be the first. Oh! Cava, give me
no thought when I meet with the enemy in combat. If
thou thinkest of me then, I will turn woman like thyself,
and shrink from the bloody work. Spare me that shame.
Let me not think of thee, lest I sink into a cowardice
which shall make me shrink from that death which looks
doubly terrible when it threatens me with loss of thee!”

With slow step and heavy heart he walked gloomily
to a distant and dark section of the mountain, and, gliding
into the shadow of an overhanging crag, sunk feebly
down upon the flinty rock, whose hard bosom, in the anguish
of his spirit, gave no disquiet to his form.