13. XIII.
Now the Lady Cava was the loveliest lady in all
Spain; the only child of her father, whose affection
placed her above all estimate in his idolatrous regard.
She was little more than sixteen, and of a beauty that
did not the less continue to charm because it was so
sudden and so sure to captivate. Yet, to this time, had
she little homage from the young gallants of the day,
for she had dwelt with her father in seclusion. Here
he had studiously maintained her, as he too well knew
the dissolute character of the court of Toledo to intrust
her there in his absence. Loving him, as she did, with
a warmth of regard corresponding to his own, this seclusion
had not brought with it a solitary feeling of privation
or regret; and in the valley, overhung with high
mountains, in which she dwelt usually, or in the frontier
castle of her father at Algeziras, where, with his force,
he watched the insolent Saracens, she still found it a
sufficient pleasure to be alone in the company of a
gentle heart and a lively fancy, both of which were
truly her own. It was a new feeling that came to the
scarcely less youthful bosom of the susceptible Egiza
as he looked upon her. His cheeks were flushed, his
eye sunk yet kindled, and his bosom heaved with emotions
which he had never known before. While he
gazed upon her he forgot the purpose on which he
sought her father; he forgot the memory of his own;
he forgot all things in the new and absorbing passion
which, like sudden electricity from heaven, penetrated
his bosom, and deprived him of every consciousness
save of its own consuming fire.
“By your leave, sweet Lady Cava,” he exclaimed,
taking her hand after she had been severally introduced
to the guests—“by your leave, lady,” and he lifted her
hand to his lips with a sense of rapture which he had
never before experienced. Her own emotions, not less
strong than his, were yet more easily restrained; and
while her bosom glowed with warm, fresh feelings, her
eye looked nothing but the nice modesty, the shrinking
gentleness, and the winning timidity which so adorn her
sex.
“I greet you, gentle lords,” she said, in reply to their
several addresses, “I greet you with thanks and welcome.”
The pleased wonder of Egiza could scarcely forbear
uttering aloud those delighted fancies which he was constrained
to murmur—
“Oh, beautiful! Can such be mortal, having such
grace, such movement, such expression? I may not
speak to her; nay, I should not look, lest that I madden.”
The approaches of Pelayo were of another sort, and
his tall, athletic person seemed but ill calculated for the
genuflexion which he made on her appearance, while his
words were rather hesitating and confused.
“Your slave, fair Lady Cava,” he said, hurriedly, as
if he dreaded that his utterance might fail him ere his
part were over; “lady—yes—your true servant.” He
sank back apace when this was done, muttering to himself
as he did so—
“I'm a poor gallant, and have no touch of the courtier's
quality. I were ill to serve dames or princes,
since the painted flesh of the one and the toys that deck
the other would never win me to the falsehood, in look
or word, which is so much the delight of both. I have
no fingers for fine action. I grasp the flower as if 'twere
an axe for battle; I press the velvet fingers as if they
were those of the rock-heaving warrior. My brother
were the best minstrel, and, doubtless, the more graceful
king. Let him have the gifts of my mother; I lack
them, but I desire them not.”
While he muttered thus in soliloquy, Egiza addressed
himself with the warmth of a lover and a courtier's ease
to the beautiful girl who stood beside him.
“Speak again, sweet Lady Cava; let me not break
the music of your lips by praying thee for more of it.”
“Brave enough!” exclaimed Pelayo to himself as
the words reached his ear. “He were not half so eloquent
to her sire, nor half so warm in winning back his
kingdom.”
The answer of Cava, who was scarcely less pleased
than Egiza, came to his ears.
“You flatter me, gracious prince; 'tis the vice of the
court, they tell me, to pour sweet falsehoods into willing
ears. My ear drinks in the deceit with gladness, though
my thought does not the less teach me my undeserving.”
“Thought has the right on't,” murmured Pelayo to
himself; but the response of Egiza was in a very different
language.
“Nay, it wrongs thee much, fair lady, if it tells thee
other tale than my lips bear thee. What though sweet
flattery to willing hearts be the vice of the court, believe
me, it is not my vice, nor do I esteem it thy weakness
to listen to such pleasant falsehoods. It is because
my words are true that thou yieldest me hearing, sweet
lady. Ah me! I would it were otherwise, for then
might I the better hope to defy the eyes which assail me
now, and the sweet lips which delude me while they
glow.”
The rapturous glances of Egiza as he spoke this impassioned
language, so natural to the time and country,
but so little in correspondence with the proper mood of
one like Egiza, who had his own and the wrongs of a
father to redress, provoked the indignation of Pelayo.
“Oh, patience!” he exclaimed, in tones nearly audible
to the rest. “Oh, patience—the mule, the mule
now. 'Tis a fit servant here. I must con these lessons
of my uncle for very safety. What a dangling
shame is this good brother of mine, that shows more soul
in seeking a boy's puppet than in struggling for a country
and a crown. He hath but just wakened in the
woman's presence, and we shall have him prating of patience
when he leaves it. Well, they have such tales,
even of Hercules the Striker, and it needs not that I
should chafe. Yet Hercules could better afford the
loss of his beard than can Egiza, who has scarcely got
one.”
The lovers were too closely engaged and interested
with one another to heed the increasing sternness in the
looks of Pelayo. They pursued together the same fond
wild style of dialogue, which, indeed, was natural enough
to the period, without a seeming consciousness that they
were remarked by any foreign eyes; and the musings of
Pelayo kept pace with their abstraction. As he watched
the passionate movements of his brother, the rapturous
glances of his eye, and heard the flow of his enamoured
speech, his indignation grew more vehement, and at
length attracted the notice of the archbishop.
“We wait for thee, Pelayo,” he exclaimed. The
answer was not to the address.
“A frail thing, which every breath of the season may
whirl about at will. Now has he all forgot the business
that he came for, and the ghost of our father may go to
his tomb again without revenge. Beggary of fame and
honour—but—ah, uncle, patience, I bethink me—patience
is the word here, is it not?”
“How? what mean you, Pelayo?” asked the archbishop,
who, by this time, approached him. Pelayo
slightly touched his arm as he replied.
“Thou hast been a sportsman—thou lovest the sport,
dost thou not?”
“Ay, son Pelayo, thou shouldst know what thou'st
seen. We have struck the red deer together. Why
askst thou this?”
“Thou hast sought thy game, uncle, with a closer
speed than thou hast ever sought for heaven?”
“Belike, Pelayo, it is truth that thou speakst,” replied
Oppas, with humility. “The church hath but too
many servants like myself, who forget their duty in vain
pursuits and idle imaginings.”
“Pshaw, uncle, keep thy homily and self-reproach
for those who know thee and the church less. Thou
hast wasted one of thy best texts of humility. But to
thy sports, good uncle. Look on yon hart and hind.
But look on them. 'Twere an easy toil for thee, with
all thy bulk upon thee and on foot, to strike both with a
single shaft.”
The archbishop with his eye followed the direction of
Pelayo's finger, but the feelings were not like those of
the nephew with which he surveyed them. A new plan
for effecting his object arose in his mind as he beheld
their manifest regard for each other. He spoke not,
and Pelayo continued.
“Let us put aside this prayer for patience, good uncle,
or we lose the game—and the hunters, too, will be loss
no less. Let us join them, uncle—and see, Count Julian
beckons our approach.”
They did so, and, as they came nigh to the lovers—
for such they were—Egiza, with some incertitude of
manner, turned from the maiden to Pelayo, and thus addressed
him.
“Brother, the Lady Cava has much wonder to know
wherefore you have been so strange, and why you hold
yourself so distant. She would know you better, as she
misdoubts whether it were easy, so foreign have you
proved yourself, to distinguish you hereafter. Pray
you, approach, and speak her.”
“Indeed, fair Lady Cava, but you would have little
loss if you knew me not hereafter; and there would
be but little profit in your knowledge of me now. Mine
is no courtly temper, such as my brother carries. Where
he looks smiles I would look spears; where he talks
of delightful things, my speech is only of things dangerous
and dreadful. His thoughts are of gentle waters
and nodding groves, sweet moonlights and tripping damsels.
I think only of the array of battle, of slain tyrants;
and I have but little mood for other more sightly
objects. For a gentle damsel, his speech were better
than mine. I, that mourn the loss of a dear father, the
wrongs of a brave people, and revenge upon an enemy,
may not move my lips to courtly language and gay compliment.
Let him who suffers no such sorrow have thy
ear. He hath sweet ballads, and will sing thee when
in voice, until thou, like him, shalt forget there is aught
of sorrow in the world.”
“But he hath his sorrow like thine own, Prince Pelayo,”
replied the maiden. “Doth he not mourn like
thee the loss of a dear father?”
“Ah, Lady Cava, thou hast asked this question of my
lips; wouldst thou had asked it of thine own thought.
Behold him, lady. He looks too happy in thy smile to
know aught of the sorrow in my heart.”
“Nay, but thou dost him wrong,” replied Cava,
quickly, and blushing deeply as she spoke.
Egiza replied also to the reproach of Pelayo, the justice
of which he, nevertheless, felt in all its force.
“How now—what mean you, Pelayo, by such
speech?”
“What should I mean?” sternly replied Pelayo, in
tones suppressed duly for the hearing of him only to
whom they were addressed. “What should I mean,
but to tell thee that thou growest sinewless in thy purpose?”
The words of Cava bidding them to the entertainment
interrupted the vehemence of that anger which Pelayo
had only begun to express, and, meeting her glance,
he was compelled to soften those features into a smile
which, at that moment, were better fitted to denote scorn
and indignation. It was no easy task; but, with a power
which he possessed over himself, however unfrequently
disposed to exercise it, he readily did so.
“Sweet lady, we obey you. Hold me your subject
no less than my brother's. I follow—follow where I
may not lead!” was the muttered close of his speech
of compliment, which, spoken in lower tones that the
rest, only reached the ears of Egiza.
“Now be at peace with your suspicions,” said the
latter. “Wherefore chide me thus? dost think because
I speak gently with a noble lady I am less fit to do battle
with a rugged man?”
“Pshaw—wouldst thou deceive me, Egiza?” replied
the other. “Thou canst not. I see into thy soul;
thou art readier for the damsel than for thy duty; and
if thou heed not she will win thee from it. Beware!”
Julian advanced to them while the young men thus
spoke together, and, with considerate courtesy, he prayed
them to attend his daughter to the feast. This done, he
followed with the archbishop; while, rapidly advancing,
Egiza placed himself at the side of Cava, and led the
way to an adjoining apartment. Pelayo, musing to
himself, followed at a slow pace.
“We came for succour,” he said, “but shall go hence
with loss. I see it in his eyes. Well—let him but
palter with us, and brother though he be—”
“Pelayo,” exclaimed the archbishop, looking behind
him.
“Ay, ay, good uncle—I come.”
