University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

From a deep slumber, that seemed, indeed, death,
for it was dreamless, the cavalier, at last, awoke,
somewhat confused, but no longer delirious; and,
though greatly enfeebled, entirely free from fever.
A yellow sunbeam,—the first or the last glimmering
of day, he knew not which,—played through a narrow
casement, faintly illuminating the apartment, and
falling especially upon a low table at his side, whereon,
among painted and gilded vessels of strange form,
he perceived his helmet, and other pieces of armour,
as well as a lute, of not less remembered workmanship.
He raised his eyes to the attendant, who sat
musing, hard by, and, with a thrill and exclamation
of joy, beheld the Moorish page, Jacinto.

“Is it thou, indeed, my dear knave Jacinto! whom
I thought in the maws of infidels?” he cried, starting
up. “And how art thou; and how is thy lord, Don
Gabriel, to-day? Tell me, where hast thou been,
these two troubled days? and how didst thou return?
By my faith, this last bout was somewhat hard, and
I have slept long!”

“Leave not thy couch, and speak not too loud,
noble master,” said the page, kneeling, and kissing
his hand,—“for thou art sick and wounded, and here
only art thou safe.”

“Ay, now indeed!” said Don Amador, with a sudden
and painful consciousness of his situation, “I
remember me. I was struck down, and made a
prisoner. What good angel brought me into thy
company? Thanks be to heaven! for my hurts are
not much; and I will rescue thee from captivity.”

“I am not a captive, señor,” said the boy, gently.

“Are we, then, in the palace?—Where are our
friends?—Am I not a prisoner?”

“Señor, we are far from the palace of Axajacatl.
But grieve not; for here thou art with thy servants.”

“Thou speakest to me in riddles,” said the novice,
with a disturbed and bewildered countenance. “Have
I been dreaming? Am I enchanted? Am I living, and
in my senses?”

“The saints be praised, thou art indeed,” said the
page, fervently; “though, both nights, and all day,
till the blessed potion set thee asleep, I had no hopes
thou wouldst ever recover.”

“Both nights!” echoed Don Amador, fixing his
eyes inquiringly on the boy; “Has a night—have
two nights passed over me, and wert thou, then, with
me, during it all?—Ha! Was it thine acts of sorcery,
which brought me those strange and melancholy
visions? Didst thou conjure up to me the image of
Leila?—That priestess, that very supernatural prophetess—By
heaven! as I see thee, so saw I her
standing at my bed-side, in some magical light, which
straightway turned to darkness. Didst thou not see

her? Tell me boy, art thou indeed an enchanter?
Prepare me thy spells again, reveal me her fate, and
let me look on the face of Leila!”

As the cavalier spoke, he strove in his eagerness
to rise from the couch.

“Señor,” said the page, a little pleasantly, “if thou
wilt have me satisfy thy questions, thou must learn to
acknowledge me as thy physician and jailor; and
give me such obedience as thou wouldst, formerly,
have claimed of me. Rise not up, speak not aloud,
and give not way to the fancies of fever; for here
are no priestesses, and no Leilas. I will sing to thee,
if that will content thee with bondage. But now
thou must remain in quiet, and be healed of thy
wounds.”

“I tell thee, my boy Jacinto,” went on the cavalier,
“wounds or no wounds, jailed or not jailed, I am
in a perplexity of mind, which, if thou art able, I
must command, or, what is the same thing, beseech
thee to remove. First, therefore, what house is this?
and where is it? (whether on the isle Mexico, the lake
side, the new world, or the old, or, indeed, in any
part of the earth at all?) Secondly, how got'st thou
into it? Thirdly, how came I hither myself?—and
especially, what good Christian did snatch my body
out of the paws of those roaring lions, the Mexicans,
when I was hit that foul and assassin-like blow by—
by—”

“Señor,” said the page, not doubting but that his
patron had paused for want of breath, “to answer
all these questions, is more than I am allowed. All
that I can say, is, that if prudent and obedient, (I say
obedient, noble and dear master,” continued the boy
archly, “for now you are my prisoner,) you are
safer in this dungeon than are your Spanish friends
in their fortress,—reduced to captivity, indeed, but
preserved from destruction—”

“By the false, traitorous, and most ungrateful
knave, Abdalla, thy father!” exclaimed the neophyte,
with a loud and stern voice; for just as he had

hesitated to wound the ears of the boy, he beheld,
slowly stalking into the apartment, and eyeing him
over Jacinto's shoulder, the Almogavar himself; and
the epithets of indignation burst at once from his lips.
Jacinto started back, alarmed; but Abdalla approached,
and regarding the wounded cavalier with an unmoved
countenance, motioned the boy to retire.—In
an instant the Moor of Barbary and the Spaniard of
Castile were left alone together.

“Shall I repeat my words, thou base and cut-throat
infidel?” cried Don Amador, rising so far as to place
his feet on the floor, though still sitting on the platform
which supported his mattress, and speaking
with the most cutting anger. “Was it not enough,
that thou wert a renegade to the rest, but thou must
raise thy Judas-hand against thy benefactor?”

“My benefactor indeed!” said Abdoul calmly, and
with the most musical utterance of his voice. “Though
I wear the livery of the pagans;” (He had on an
armed tunic, somewhat similar to that of Quauhtimotzin,
though without a plume to his head, and
looked not unlike to a Mexican warrior of high degree;)
“and though I am, by birth, the natural enemy
of thee and thine, yet have I not forgot that thou
art my benefactor! I remember, that, when a brutal
soldier struck at me with his lance, thy hand was
raised to protect me from the shame; I remember,
when a thousand weapons were darting at my prostrate
body on the pyramid of Zempoala, that thou
didst not disdain to preserve me; I remember, that,
when I fled from the anger of Don Hernan, thou offeredst
me thine intercession. Señor, I have forgotten
none of this; nor have I forgotten,” he went on,
with earnest gratitude, “that, to these favours, thou
didst add the greater ones, of shielding my feeble
child from stripes, from ruin, and perhaps from death.
This have I not forgotten, this can I never forget!
The name of Spaniard is a curse on my ears; I hate
thy people, and, when God gives me help, I will slay,

even to the last man! but I remember, that thou art
my benefactor, and the benefactor of my child.”

“And dost thou think,” said the neophyte, “that
these oily words will blind me to thy baseness? or
that they can deceive me into belief, when thy actions
have so foully belied them? Cursed art thou, misbelieving
Moor! an ingrate and apostate; and, had
I no cause, in mine own person, to know thy perfidy,
it should be enough to blazon thy villany, that thou
hast, on thine own confession, deserted the standard
of Christ, and the arms of Spain, to enlist in the
ranks of their pagan foes!”

“The standard of Christ,” said the Moor, with emphasis,
“waves not over the heads of the Spaniards,
but the banner of a fiend, bloody, unjust, and accursed,
whom they call by His holy name, and who
bids them to defile and destroy; while the Redeemer
proclaimeth only good-will and peace to all men.
Have thy good heart and thy strong mind been so
deluded? Canst thou, in truth, believe, that these oppressors
of a harmless people, these slayers, who
raise the cross of heaven on the place of blood, and
call to God for approval, when their hands are smoking
with the blood of his creatures, are the followers
of Christ the peaceful, Christ the just, Christ the
holy? These friends whom thou hast followed, are
not Christians; and God, whom they traduce and
belie in all their actions, has given them over to the
punishment of hypocrites and blasphemers, to sufferings
miserable and unparalleled, to deaths dreadful
and memorable! May it be accomplished,—Amen!”

“Dost thou speak this to me, vile Almogavar! of
my friends and countrymen? Dost thou curse them
thus in my presence, most unworthy apostate?”

“Sorrowful be their doom, and quickly may it
come upon them!” cried Abdalla, with ferocious
fervour, “for what are they, that it should not be
just? and what am I, that I should not pray that it
be accomplished? I remember the days of Granada!
I remember the sack of the Alhambra! I remember

the slaughter of the Alpujarras! and I have not forgotten
the mourning exiles, driven from those green
hills, to die among the sands of Africa, the clime of
their fathers, but to them a land of strangers! I
remember me how the lowly were given to the
scourge, and the princely to the fires of Inquisitors,—
our children to spears, our wives to ravishers and
murderers!—Cursed be they that did these things,
even to the last generation!”

The cavalier was amazed and confounded at the
vehement and lofty indignation of the Morisco; and
as the form of Abdoul-al-Sidi swelled with wrath, and
his countenance darkened under the gloomy recollection,
he seemed to Don Amador rather like one of
those mountain princes, who had defied the conquerors,
to the last, among the Alpujarras, than a poor
herdsman of Fez, deriving his knowledge, and his
fury, only from the incitations of exiles. His embarrassment
was also increased by a secret consciousness,
that the Moor had cause for his hate and his
denunciations. He answered him, however, with a
severe voice:—

“In these ills and sufferings, thou hadst no part,
unless thou hast lied to me; having been a child of
the desert, afar from the sufferers of Granada.”

“I lied to thee, then,” said Abdalla, elevating his
figure, and regarding the cavalier with proud tranquillity.
“From the beginning to the end, was I a
chief among the mourners and rebels,—the first to
strike, as I am now the last to curse, the oppressor,—
a child of the desert, only when I had no more to
suffer among the Alpujarras; and thou mayst know,
now, that my fury is as deep as it is just,—for
the poor Abdalla is no Almogavar of Barbary, but a
Zegri of Granada!”

“A Zegri of Granada!” cried Don Amador, with
surprise.

“A Zegri of Granada, and a prince among Zegris!”
said the Moor, with a more stately look, though with
a voice of the deepest sorrow; “one whose fathers

have given kings to the Alhambra, but who hath
lived to see his child a menial in the house of his foe,
and both child and father leagued with, and lost
among, the infidels of a strange land, in a world
unknown!”

“I thought, by heaven!” said the cavalier, eyeing
the apostate with a look almost of respect, “that that
courage of thine in the pirate rover, did argue thee
to be somewhat above the stamp of a common boor;
and therefore, but more especially in regard of thy
boy, did I give thee consideration myself, and enforce
it, as well as I could, to be yielded by others. But,
by the faith which thou professest, sir Zegri! be thou
ignoble or regal in thy condition, I have not forgotten
that, by the blow which has made me (as it seems to
me, I am,) thy prisoner, thou hast shown thyself
unworthy of nobility; and I tell thee again, with disgust
and indignation, that thou hast done the act of a
base and most villanous caitiff!”

“Dost thou still say so?” replied the Zegri, mildly.
“I have acknowledged, that no gratitude can repay
thy benefactions; this do I still confess; and yet have
I done all to requite thee. Thou lookest on me with
amazement. What is my crime, noble benefactor?”

“What is thy crime? Art thou bewitched, too?—
Slave of an ingrate, didst thou not, when I was
already overpowered, smite me down with thine own
weapon?”

“I did,—heaven be thanked!” said the Moor, devoutly.

“Dost thou acknowledge it, and thank heaven
too?” said the incensed cavalier.

“I acknowledge it, and I thank heaven!” said
Abdalla, firmly. “Thou saidst, thou wert already
overpowered. Wert thou not in the hands of the
Mexicans, beyond all hope of rescue?”

“Doubtless, I was,” replied the neophyte; “for
Cortes was afar, and Alvarado full three spears'
length behind. Nevertheless, I did not despair of

maintaining the fight, until my friends came up to my
relief.”

“Thou wert a captive!” cried the Zegri, impetuously,—“a
living captive in the hands of Mexicans!
Dost thou know the fate of a prisoner in such hands?”

“By my faith,” said Don Amador, “I have heard,
they put their prisoners to the torture.”

“They sacrifice them to the gods!” cried the
Moor. “And the death,” he continued, his swarthy
visage whitening with horror, “the death is of such
torment and terror as thou canst not conceive; but
I can, for I have seen it! Now hear me: I saw my
benefactor a captive, and I knew his life would end
on the stone of sacrifice, offered up, like that of a
beast, to false and fiendish gods! I say, I saw thee
thus; I knew this should be thy doom; and I did all
that my gratitude taught me, to save thee. I struck
thee down, knowing, that if I slew thee, the blow
would be that of a true friend, and that thou shouldst
die like a soldier, not like a fatted sheep. Heaven,
however, gave me all that I had dared to hope: I
harmed thee not; and yet the Mexicans believed that
death had robbed them of a victim. I harmed thee
not; and the heathens suffered me to drag away what
seemed a corse; but which lived, and was my benefactor,—the
saviour of myself, and the protector of
my child!”

As Abdalla concluded these words, spoken with
much emphasis and feeling, a tear glistened in his
eye; and the neophyte, starting up and eagerly
grasping his hand, exclaimed,—

“Now, by heaven! I see all the wisdom and truth
of thy friendship; and I beg thy pardon for whatever
insulting words my folly has caused me to speak.
And, now that I know the blow was struck for such
a purpose, I confess to thee, as thou saidst thyself, it
would have been true gratitude and love, though it
had killed me outright.”

“I have done thee even more service than this,”
said the Zegri, calmly; “but, before I speak it, I

must demand of thee, as a Christian and honourable
soldier, to confess thyself my just and true captive.”

“Thy captive!” cried Don Amador. “Dost thou
hold me then as a prisoner, and not as a guest and
friend? Dost thou check my thankfulness in the
bud, and cancel thy services, by making me thy
thrall?”

“I will not answer thy demands,” said Abdalla.
“I call upon thee, as a noble and knightly soldier,
fairly captured, in open war, by my hands, to acknowledge
thyself my captive; and, as such, in all things,
justly at my disposition.”

“If thou dost exact it of me,” said the cavalier,
regarding him with much surprise and sorrow, “I
must, as a man of honour, so acknowledge myself.
But I began to think better of thee, Abdalla!”

“And, as a prisoner, to whose honour is confided
the charge of his own keeping, thou engagest to
remain in captivity, without abusing the confidence
which allows such license, by any efforts to escape?”

“Dost thou demand this much of me?” said Don
Amador, with mortified and dejected looks. “If thou
art thyself resolved to remain in the indulgence of
thy treason, thou surely wilt not think to keep me
from my friends, in their difficulties? and especially
from my poor kinsman; who is now greatly disordered,
and chiefly, I think, because thou hast robbed
him of Jacinto.”

“This am I not called upon to answer,” said Abdalla,
gravely. “I only demand of thee, what thou
knowest thou canst not honourably refuse,—thy
knightly gage, to observe the rules of captivity, until
such time as I may think proper to absolve and
free thee.”

“Sir Almogavar, or sir Zegri, or whatsoever thou
art,” said the cavalier, folding his arms, and surveying
his jailor sternly, “use the powers which thou
hast, thy chains, and thy magical arts; for I believe
thou dealest with the devil;—get me ready thy fetters,
and thy dungeon. Thou hast the right so to

use me, and I consent to the same; but I will gage
thee no word to keep in bonds, inglorious and at
ease, while my friends are in peril. However great
the service thou hast done to me, I perceive thou art
a traitor. I command thee, therefore, that thou have
me chained and immured forthwith; for, with God's
will and help, I will escape from thee as soon as
possible, and especially, whensoever my friends come
to assist me.”

“I grant thee this privilege, when thy friends
come near to us,” said Abdalla, coolly, “whether
thou art chained or not. It is not possible thou canst
escape, otherwise, at all. Thou art far from the
palace, ignorant of the way, and, besides, divided
from it by a wall of Mexicans, who cannot be numbered.
What I ask thee, is for thy good, and for the
good of myself, and Jacinto. If thou leave this house,
thou wilt be immediately seized, and carried to the
stone of sacrifice.”

Don Amador shuddered, but said,—

“I trust in God! and the thought of this fate shall
not deter me.”

“Go then, if thou wilt,” said the Zegri, haughtily.
“The service I have done thee, has not yet released
me from thy debt; and thou canst yet command me.
Begone, if thou art resolute: the door is open; I oppose
thee not. Preserve thy life, if thou canst; and
when thou art safe at the garrison, remember, that
Abdoul-al-Sidi, and the boy Jacinto, have taken thy
place on the altar of victims.”

“What dost thou mean? I understand thee not.—
What meanest thou?”

“Even that thou canst not escape, without the same
being made known to the Mexicans; and that it cannot
be made known to this vindictive people, that I have
robbed them of their prey, without the penalty of my
own life, and that of Jacinto, being immediately executed.
When thou fliest, the father and the son
perish.”

“Dost thou speak me this in good faith?” said the

cavalier, greatly troubled. “God forbid I should
bring harm to thee, and especially to the boy. If I
give thee my gage,—thou wilt not hold me bound to
refrain from joining my friends, should I be so fortunate
as to see them pass by, and am persuaded,
the Mexicans will not discover thou hast harboured
me?”

“If they pass by, I will myself open the doors,”
said Abdalla; “for I protest to thee, I keep thee here
only to ensure thy security.”

“Hark'ee, sir Moor—Don Hernan is about to retreat.
Dost thou intend I shall remain in captivity—
a single victim among the barbarians—while my
countrymen are flying afar, perhaps returning to
Christendom?”

“I swear to thee, señor,” said the Zegri, earnestly,
“that, when the Spaniards fly from this city, thou
shalt be free to fly with them. I repeat, I make thee
a prisoner, to prevent thy becoming a victim.”

“And what hinders that we do not fly together
to the palace? Thy knowledge may conduct us
through the streets by night; and, with my head, I
will engage thee a free pardon, and friendly reception.”

“God hath commissioned me to the work, and it
shall go on!” said the Moor, with solemn emphasis.
“I know that thou couldst not save me from the fury
of Don Hernan: he would grant thee my life at midnight,
and, on the morrow, thou wouldst find me dead
in the court-yard. Fly, if thou wilt, and leave me to
perish by the hands of Mexicans: Spaniards shall
drink my blood no more!”

“I give thee my gage,” said the cavalier, “with
this understanding, then, that I am free to fly, whenever
I may do so without perilling thy life, and the
life of Jacinto.”

“And thou wilt hold to this pledge, like a true cavalier?”
demanded Abdalla, quickly.

“Surely, I cannot break my plighted word!”

“God be thanked!” cried the Zegri, grasping the

hand of the cavalier, “for, by this promise, thou
hast saved thy life! Remain here; Jacinto shall be
thy jailor, thy companion, thy servant. Be content
with thy lot, and thank God; for thou art the only
brand plucked out of the burning, while all the rest
shall perish.—God be praised!—I save my benefactor!”

With these exclamations of satisfaction, Abdalla
departed from the chamber.