4. CHAPTER IV.
The unhappy Cava slept; but her spirit was awake, and her dreams were full
of the liveliest images of horror. The events of the day were renewed by her
aroused fancies in the night; and her sudden shrieks, as she started from her rest,
broke the slumbers of the maidens who were alloted to sleep with her. They
quieted her with difficulty; and, finding that she was watched and guarded as it
were, her anguish put on the aspects of a sullen stupor. She gave no seeming
heed to those about her, or to the pressing and cureless thought, but appeared now
satisfied to endure the sorrow which she could no longer avert. The hours were
passed in a slow silence on her part, though her attendants in many ways strove
to attract her attention and enlist her interest. They spoke in light tones and in
playful language in her hearing; but that which they meant as music was only so
much discord to her soul. Like one sinking into stone, she sat in a gloomy indifference
before them. They brought her music, and the gay seguadille—a dance
originally Roman, but mingled in Iberia with certain Moorish movements; they
danced before her with the grace peculiar to the Spaniard; but they failed to
awaken her regard or affect the dull, immoveable features of the mourner. She
ate, as if in compliance with a customary habit, and not with appetite; and consciousness
seemed almost to have left her, until late in the day ensuing her wrong,
when Roderick presumed once more to appear before his victim. With his presence,
life seemed once more to awaken. Her consciousness came back to her in
a renewal of her wo, though not with such an exhibition of it as before. She did
not shriek—she uttered no moan. Her heart seemed to have acquired undue and
unnatural strength; and though she turned from the presence which was no less
dreadful than hateful to her soul, and fixed her gaze in mute deliberation upon the
stony wall of her chamber, her wo was no less apparent to the intruder in its dumb
aspect, than when, with hair disheveled and voice screaming as she fled, she had
made her escape from his fierce embrace. He motioned to the attendants to leave
the apartment, and she saw them do so without seeking to arrest them. This appeared
a favorable indication to the mind of the lustful monarch. He approached
her where she sat, and kneeled down beside her. She started to her feet, and retreated
slowly to the opposite end the room; and when he rose to follow her, and
looked upon her face, all passion was checked and chilled within him. Her looks
wore that expression of indescribable despair which says, more emphatically than
language, that hope is for ever gone. Her eyes were luminous, but stationary.
They gazed fixedly upon him, and no single revolution of their orbs took place
while he watched her. Her lips were rigidly closed together; and when they separated
to admit her speech, her teeth remained fast clenched below. Her voice
was hollow, like that of one perishing with hunger in the deep abyss of some dismal
cavern; and every word which she uttered went into his soul like a keen iron
He trembled while he heard her.
“My lord, approach me not. If you do, you approach one who is wedded to
and resolved for death. The power of death is even now upon me. I feel it in
me; in my veins—in my head—in my heart. If this may not disarm your cruel
lust, may God have mercy on me—I can do no more. You have already doomed
me. Be satisfied, and leave me to die. It will not be long; and I would be at
peace—such peace as you have left me—until that moment. Be merciful; let me
not pray to you in vain. Be merciful, and spare me from any farther violence.”
“And why do you fear violence at my hands, fair Cava?” replied the monarch,
in tones in which respect and appetite were strangely mingled. He approached
as he spoke. She waved him back, while she replied:
“Why do I fear violence at the hands of him whose brutal power hath destroyed
me? Why does the mother clasp the shivering infant to her bosom, when
she hears the tramp of the wild beast which hath devoured its brother? But you
mistake me, king Roderick; I do not fear your violence. You cannot harm me
now. You cannot—you dare not again seize me, with foul thoughts, in your polluting
embrace. I am secure from that in your fears, in your apprehensions, and
these spare mine own. You would as soon clasp the decaying bones of the already
buried, as clasp me. In the death which is now feeding on me, and which
you must behold in these eyes, I am secure. It is your touch from which I would
fly; it is your presence that I would not behold; it is your voice which I would
not hear.”
“So stern, so cruel to me, fair Cava; whose only error was in loving thee too
much,” said the monarch.
“Thou love!” she exclaimed; “oh God! how are thy blessings and thy benefits
profaned! Love cherishes, but thou hast destroyed. In thy selfish and sinful
lusts, king Roderick, thou hast blasted as sweet a hope as ever blossomed in poor
maiden's heart. For the pleasure of thy foul passion—the passion of an hour—
thou hast taken from me life and love, and all that I have lived for, and all that I
could love; and now I crave but one mercy at thy hands—that, as with thy unmanly
violence thou hast degraded me from hope, and deprived me of the love
which honored and would have blessed me, thou wilt employ another violence,
in compliance with my prayer—the only one which I make to thee—and rid me
of life also. Do so, king Roderick; and if I cannot bless thee, I will at least thank
thee for the kind though destroying blow.”
“Alas! Cava, wherefore dost thou urge me thus? Why wilt thou not be happy,
as I implore thee? Thou art not the beloved of a poor hilding—of a trader to
Tangier and the Pillars, that needest to be virtuous. Thy state gives thee a certain
freedom which thou wert not wise not to use. Wouldst thou be unlike the
other dames of the court, many of whom would joy at thy fortune? Remember,
it is a king who implores thee, fair Cava; he can make thee a princess, before
whom even Egilona herself shall how. He can deck thee with jewels, and honor
thee with a service which shall vex into jealous fever the proudest damsels of the
court.”
“Thou knowest me not, king Roderick. These things have no power upon my
thoughts. I seek for no admiration which shall beget envy in others; nor would
I trench upon one smallest right of that noble lady, Egilona. But why do I speak
to thee thus? Thou canst not persuade me, king Roderick; thou mayst trample
me into submission by thy brutal strength; thou mayst misuse this frail body by
cruel and unmanly violence; but it is my joy that thon canst not move my spirit;
thou canst not persuade my mind by any temptation which thou showest me. If
it has seemed meet with God to deny me the strength to resist thine, at least He
hath not denied me the resolution of soul to reject thy prayers and scorn the arts
and temptations with which thou wouldst bring me to thy purpose. This is my
consolation now; that I have not yielded, though I have suffered—that I have not
been guilty of wrong in the wrongs which I have borne. It will be this only
which gives me strength to hope that I may see and speak but once with my father
ere I perish.”
“Ha! dost thou hope thus, Cava; dost thou hope to speak with thy father of
thy wrong? Wherefore this? Of what avail will it be to thee that thou shouldst
have speech with him? What wouldst thou say to him, to please him or to help
thyself.”
“I would have vengeance, Roderick! a vengeance as fearful as the wrong I have
borne; and for this reason would I see and speak with my father. It is my only
prayer, ere I die, that he may hear from my lips, or gather, if I have not that privilege,
the tidings from some swift messenger, of thy brutal rage and the disgrace
which thou hast cast upon his blood. He will not sleep ere he avenge it. He will
not sell thee his honor for the baubles in thy gift. I know him, and thou knowst
him well; and when he shall hear of the shame of his daughter, beware his wrath!
it will sweep and rend thee, king Roderick, as even now—better heedful of his
trust than thou of thine—he rends the armies of the invading Moor, which beset
thy coast.”
“But thou shalt not see him, fair Cava; thou shalt not reveal this madness to
his ears; nor shall he have idle knowledge of thy secret. Thou wert too bold to
declare thy purpose. These walls shall circumscribe thee till thou growest wiser.
When thou shalt meet my love with a gentler temper, thou shalt have freedom—
but not till then. Nor shalt thou have cause of anger with me the while. I will
woo thee, fair Cava, as I have wooed no woman yet. I will minister to thee in a
thousand forms of love, and thou shalt not withstand me. Wherefore wouldst
thou withstand my love? What is this demure virtue which thou affectest? A
bond and a fetter, fit only for the cold hearts whose icy temper is proof against all
pleasant warmth. Such is no heart of thine. Thine shalt melt to mine. Thou
shalt smile where thou frownest now; and, forgetting the idle rules of that freezing
chastity which unloved maidens fitly boast, thou shalt meet my spirit with one
no less fond and apprehensive of its joys. Such is my hope, sweet Cava; and in
this hope I will keep thee in bonds until the season of its spring. When, like the
bird which has grown familiar with his wires, thou singest a sweet song of content
in mine ear, then will I withdraw the bolt, and give thee the freedom which
thou wilt not use. Meanwhile, sweetest Cava, give ear to reason, and bend thy
heart, stern and stubborn though it be, to the fond pleading and the single truth of
mine.”
“King Roderick, I trust thou wilt not keep me from my father,” said the forlorn
woman.
“Will I not! Believe me, but I will. I am doubly sworn to it now, since thou
hast forewarned me of thy purpose. My love for thee is enough to make me resolute
in this; and while thou threatenest, a prudent caution prompts me no less
to the same resolve. Thou art my prisoner, sweet Cava; but like a choice bird,
of mellowest note and loveliest plumage, thou shalt be so tended that thou shalt
not feel thy bondage, nor behold the wires which restrain thee. Ere many days,
thou wilt forget thy cage, and begin thy song of gladness as before.”
“If thou hast so resolved, king Roderick, I have not the strength to break my
bonds, nor the wing to fly them; but I may at least be permitted to hope that I
bear my bondage in solitude. I will bear thy restraints, if thou come not nigh. I
will be submiss, so that thou come not near to compel it. But I warn thee, king,
that though I have not the strength to break thy chain, nor the wing to fly from
thy prison, yet I despair not of escape from thee, and I feel that vengeance is sure.
I know that I will break through these vain restraints of thy power, and I trust in
Heaven's justice to avenge my wrong.”
“I fear it not, sweet Cava; and thy threats, not less than thy hopes, are idle and
fruitless. The walls are thick, and my guards fill the garden. How canst thou
escape?”
She moved a step toward him, ere she replied; then, in solemn accents, which
he felt even while he flouted them, she spoke:
“By a stronger arm than thine—by Death! I tell thee, king Roderick, that
she, the pale maiden, who was given to thee in trust—having youth, and beauty,
and a heart which was gushing with warm hope and the innocentest love, but
whom in thy wanton cruelty thou hast dishonored and destroyed—will escape thee
by death. It comes—slowly, perchance, but surely; and I feel that it is at hand
Ere three days, I tell thee, thou wilt hear, when thou least thinkest to hear, or it
may be when thou least thinkest of her—that she is free. They will tell thee,
while the untasted wine is at thy lips, that Cava, thy victim, is dead—that she fears
thee no longer, as she fears thee now. Thou will hear; and, haughty as thou art,
thou wilt tremble.”
He did tremble, though he ceased not to speak boldly, and in accents persuading
her to guilt. But she answered him no more. She turned from his presence, and
gave no reply to his solicitations, even if she heard them. After fruitless efforts,
as well of argument as of entreaty, he resolved for the present to forbear her presence,
trusting that time and subduing circumstances might change her temper, and
soften that stern resolve of character, which it had not been his lot, in that licentious
court which he ruled, to encounter often—and which, indeed, from the gentleness
of Cava's demeanor heretofore, and the pliant softness of her manner, would
have seemed as foreign to her character as it was singular in his sight. Her character
had undergone a most unexpected change. She was no longer timid, shrieking,
and apprehensive. She was strong in her despair, resolute from the dreadful
cruelty to which she had been subjected, and totally unapprehensive, as she had
already suffered the worst of injuries. When Egilona visited her, which she did
soon after the departure of Roderick, she found her as calm as the immoveable
rock, and seemingly as insensible.
