University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

Thus, like one who slept happily, was she found by Egiza. He had passed the
walls in safety. The guards were not returned, or were in very small number
within the garden. He reached the appointed spot without interruption. At first,
approaching the tower, with eye turned upward to the window at which he had
before left her, he saw her not, until his feet were nearly in contact with her garments.
Then, he started back with surprise and apprehension. The next glance
somewhat reassured him. She seemed to sleep. The features were composed—even
placid, and a smile rested upon them. He stooped—his arms encircled her—he was
about to press her lips with his own, when he started back, and now trembled with
apprehension. A slight stream of blood oozed from the corner of her mouth, and
her cheek, which rested upon the grassy bank, as he slightly lifted her form and

changed its position, was impressed with the green outlines of its several blades.
A slight cry of doubt escaped him, and he called to her with a hurried tremulousness
of accent which he vainly strove to overcome.

“Speak to me, Cava—dearest—best beloved—my heart—my life—speak to me—
tell me that you are not hurt—that you live—that you will fly with me. Speak to
me—it is Egiza, your own Egiza, who implores. Speak! speak!”

He lifted her from the ground—the eyes opened upon him, and glared glassily and
cold—the long hair was undone, and the unsupported head distorted the limber neck,
as it fell heavily back upon her shoulders.

“God! she is dead!” he exclaimed, as he suffered the insensible body to fall from
his arms. He knelt like one stupified—aghast, and utterly silent beside her. He
could not realize the dreadful truth before him. He could not trust the evidence of
those senses which had been impatient to behold a far different prospect. While he
gazed astounded, upon the inanimate maiden, he caught a glimpse of the letter in
her hand. It had been clenched firmly, and was still held fast. He extricated it
from her grasp, and with swimming eyes read the superscription to himself. Convulsively
he tore asunder the folds, and read the epistle, which but too plainly announced
the wrong which she had suffered, and but too certainly accounted for the
manner of her death. Twice he perused it, then crushing it convulsively in his
hands, he sank upon the body with a single groan of the intense and otherwise
speechless agony of his soul. A cry from above startled him. He looked up, and
met the terrified gaze of a group of women. They were those who had been assigned
as a watch upon the movements of Cava. They had been led to a brief
desertion of their trust, by the clamors of the populace in the courts fronting the
palace, and they returned to find their captive free. Their shrieks filled the air,
and he heard the clamor of approaching voices. He started to his feet. A new
impulse prompted him, and he lifted the insensible victim in his arms. He rushed
through the coppice, and with gigantic effort ascended the walls of the garden. The
voice of Roderick reached his ears, and with a vindictive fury he felt for the dagger
which he had placed within his girdle. It was no longer there. He was unarmed,
but desperation filled his soul, and he shouted his defiance aloud. His shouts
aroused a soldier who guarded a corner of the walls, and who instantly made toward
him. His approach produced no pause in the progress of Egiza, as it occasioned
no apprehension in his mind. He dashed forward unhesitatingly, still bearing his
insensible burden.

“Stand!” cried the approaching soldier, presenting his spear as he did so. “Stand!
or I thrust you to the earth.”

“Stand!—yes!—I will stand upon thy carcass, reptile; upon the carcass of thy
master! Get from my path, I tell thee!”

“A madman!” exclaimed the soldier involuntarily, but presenting his spear, more
in apprehension than resolve. Egiza dashed it aside, and darted upon him, grappling
at his throat with the one free arm. The soldier shrank back, but still presenting
his spear, it took effect with the next effort which Egiza made—not upon
his person, but that of her whom he bore. The spear-head was driven through her
breast, and he let her sink to the ground with a feeling of horror, as if a new crime
had been committed. Then, having both arms freed, he sprang upon the now unarmed
guardsman, whose weapon remained fixed in Cava's drapery, and from which
he vainly strove to wrest it. Before he could succeed he was grappled in the arms
of the furious prince, whom no effort at this moment could possibly resist. In a
moment he had lifted the clinging and struggling soldier from the ground—in another
he had hurled him from the wall and into the garden, where, maimed and lacerated,

he lay writhing fruitlessly, among the thick plants and shrubbery. Egiza paused
not to behold him, but seizing once more upon the dead body of Cava, he hurried
forward with insane agility, seeking to gain that portion of the garden-wall where
it had a natural and easy descent, by means of the tall trees which grew there upon
the loose rocks by the side of the river. Ere he could effect his object the alarm
was given behind him, and the guards were in full pursuit. There was but little
time for hesitation, and, when it became clear to him, as it soon did, that he could
not reach the point proposed before his pursuers were upon him, without a thought
of the desperation of such a deed, gathering the body up more firmly in his grasp,
he leaped from the lofty point of the wall upon which he stood, boldly into the deep
and boiling river which hurried on beneath it. A cry something between a shout
and a shriek rose from the soldiers that pursued, who had reached the surface of the
wall in sufficient time to behold the desperate deed, and to note its consequences.
Roderick, too, appeared upon the wall, followed by the archbishop Oppas, a moment
after, and their eyes were intently fixed upon the yet bubbling spot upon the
waters, where the fugitive with his unconscious prize had descended. He arose but
the spectators were more conscious than himself. In the concussion which followed
his contact with the waters, the body of Cava had been torn from his grasp, and his
arms were struck out upon the stream rather in search of her than in support of
himself.

“Shoot! shoot!—is there not a bowman among you to send a shaft through yon
sturdy traitor?” was the cry of Roderick to the soldiers One of them advanced,
armed with the required instrument, and the aim was already taken, when the arm
of the soldier was arrested by the archbishop.

“Why do ye stay the shaft, my lord Oppas?” demanded the king, who beheld
the interruption. “Let the knave shoot, and be sure of the traitor.”

“See, oh king! he hath disappeared!” was the reply—a reply uttered with a
calm case of voice and manner, which had not been attained but with a wondrous
effort. The lord Oppas knew his nephew, his favorite nephew—and, selfish though
he might be in his ambitious projects, he was not utterly insensible to the ties of
kindred, and to the once noble promise of the youth whom he now saw perishing.
He turned away from the prospect, and ceased to look. The tyrant gazed again and
again upon the surface of the stream, which hurried on with indifference to its eternity,
the ocean; and the rapidity with which strong life may be abridged, was forced
upon his thought at that moment more emphatically than by the repeated murders
of his own hand, and those which but a brief hour before he had witnessed and
commanded. There, life only had departed—the strong man lay still in his eyes—
no longer struggling it is true—but with the massive limbs, and the corded muscle,
as if strong to struggle still. Now, not a vestige remained, either of the life that
prompted, or the frame that followed its direction. It was something terrible even
to the reckless despot, that single instance, not of death only, but seeming annihilation.
But he affected not to heed the sight.

“Come, my lord Oppas, let us in—Egilona shall give thee thanks for thy good
service, and for her lord's life, which thou hast saved to-day. Nay, look no more.
It is all over with the ruffian. Tagus will cast him up ere it gain the ocean, and
if it do not, the loss will be to the vulture, and the gain to our nostrils.”

“But the maid—the daughter of count Julian?” said the archbishop, in a tone of
inquiry.

“Is silent,” was the quick reply of the king, who placed his hand familiarly on
the churchman's shoulder as he spoke it. “Cava is silent; and so, my lord Oppas
must be the friend of Roderick. She stole off with her paramour—do you heed

me—and they perished together in their flight. Come, to the queen, to the queen.
We are waited for.”

In the presence of Egilona, Oppas forgot his nephew—everything, indeed, but her
beauties, and the lustful ambition which they had long inspired.

Yet Egiza lived. Without his own consciousness he lived. Borne down by the
current beyond the eyes of his enemies, he was rescued from the waters by the
timely aid of a fisherman, who dwelt upon the banks, and who, at that fortunate
moment, was plying his vocation in his little barque. With a doubtful kindness,
the rude man brought him to the shore, restored him to life, and gave him, while he
remained feeble, the shelter of his miserable hut. There let us leave him.