9. CHAPTER IX.
Meanwhile, the hapless Egiza, was pursuing his own lonely pilgrimage to the
gardens of the royal palace. He had once before scaled the walls, high and huge,
which the tyrant had raised as a barrier, to keep away the intrusive footstep and
the curious eye from the scene of his lustful and luxurious pleasures. There was
no reason why he should not scale them again. He went forward, approached the
walls, and prepared to do so; but while his hand grasped the rugged projection
of the wall, and ere he sprang upward, he heard a murmur, and the tread of a footstep
within. He paused and listened; the sounds at length died away, and with a
reckless spirit, seizing the protruding rock, and swinging upward with elastic muscle,
he planted his foot firmly upon a strong knob, that bulged out midway upon
the wall, and, in another instant, looked down upon the lonely maze of grove and
garden, that spread themselves out before his eye, in the spacious courts within.
All was silent at that moment in the scene before him. The moon was just rising,
and brought with her from the east a gentle breeze, that, as it came subdued among
the flowers, was rather a melodious breathing than a zephyr. The deep leaves of
the olive lay here and there like glittering specks of water before his eye, as they
gave a plane surface to her rising glance; and the vine spreading with dark purple
clusters, in a wanton maze that clasped even the tops of the gigantic oak-tree, and
bound them in many places to the wall itself, upon which he leaned, and over
it wandered with unrestrained luxuriance, made a roof to the verdant neighborhood,
which rendered it a spot as secret and secure as it seemed sacred to the generous nature
to which it owed so much. How beautiful was the night, even to his gaze! He had
a soul open to such influences, and it was a source of frequent sarcasm, if not censure,
on the part of his brother Pelayo, that he could dream away the hours in
slumbrous groves, as idle as the birds that fill them. “At our birth,” Pelayo was
wont to say; “at our birth, Egiza had all the ballad minstrelsy,” and the phrase
denoted truly the pliant spirit of the now hapless youth to all gentle and natural
influences. Though miserable, he could not even now reject the sentiment of loveliness
which filled his soul, at the various pictures which lay before him The
moonlight, rising over the gloomy towers of the palace, stole through the thinly
scattered leaves and the open boughs, and lay, here and there, like so many silvery
gems, mottling the dusky ground; while, on the thicker foliage, her glances rested
as upon a plate of green and polished metal, which reflected back a loveliness that
was even richer than that they received. A light more subdued, and therefore
sweeter than that of day, played fantastically upon the gloomy towers of the palace,
and the solemn crags of rock which furnished a natural wall to one portion of the
garden, through the ledges of which the interrupted Tagus went slightly murmuring.
Dark hollows in the rocks, and among the courts of the palace, where the light did
not come, stood like so many lurking shadows, crouching for concealment. Upon
those towers the eyes of Egiza were riveted in mournful anxiety. What were
their secrets? How anxiously did he desire, yet how greatly did he dread to know
what they could unfold. To think only, was to suffer a misery too acute for his
endurance; and he was about to rise upon the top of the wall, and descend to its
inner base, when a slight rustling in the leaves below warned him to use greater caution.
He drew back and listened quietly, though with unspeakable impatience, for
other sounds, while his eye peered watchfully over the wall. In a few moments a
soldier emerged from the chesnut-grove, which lay at a little distance off, the thick
foliage and massive limbs of which had entirely concealed him, and the glittering
shaft of his silver-headed pike waved as he paced along within a few feet only of
the eye of the fugitive. He could have grasped it with a sudden effort, and had
there been but one soldier, and no other mode of entrance into the garden, he would
not have scrupled an instant to have done so. But in another moment a second
soldier made his appearance from an opposite point, and the two moved off together
in the direction of one of the towers of the palace, to the guard of which they
seemed to have been assigned. Egiza readily saw the risk and danger of descending
from the spot at which he stood. While he gazed and listened, his eye turned on
the wall which lay by the Tagus, and partly within its waters, the murmuring
sounds of which had guided his ears, and insensibly attracted his sight; and he saw
that the region of the garden upon which he looked lay in greater depth of shade
than any other. He readily conceived that in this quarter the grounds would not
be so well guarded as that lying toward the city, and the thought which prompted
him to seek an entrance in that direction was instantly acted upon. He leaped once
more to the ground outside the wall, hurried around the heavy blocks of palace and
prison, which lay between him and the river, and soon reached its margin. A little
farther observation only was necessary, to enable him to see that it was easy to
enter from this quarter. The majestic river floated on calmly beside him, but as it
shallowed to its shores in little rivulets, and broke upon the rock of wall that
divided it from the garden, where its murmurs made a fitting music for the triumphant
and stately march of the stream which went on so unheedingly, he felt that
he could wade easily to the ledges that lay at the foot of the wall, and he then
thought that with the assistance of the shrubbery that grew thickly, even amid the
shallows, he might readily effect his ascent. He pressed forward unheeding the
depth of water, though, in some of the hollows of the stream, he found himself up
to his waist. Passing over the rocks, which were scattered thickly about, he soon
reached the base of the wall, and paused for momentary rest and observation.
He sat upon a stone the while, which was covered with moss; around him the
bushes were thickly waving, and from a cleft in a larger rock, which rose beside
him, a ragged tree had shot upward, crooked and imperfect in its growth, but nevertheless
admirably calculated to serve his purposes. Of this tree he availed himself
to rise to the wall, and then his task was easy. The groves within were of a donsity
which guaranteed security from all passing scrutiny, and no stir or sound below
him indicated the presence of the jealous sentinel. Seizing upon the broad and
massive limbs of a huge chesnut-tree which grew near an angle of the wall, he
descended by its trunk, and once more found himself within the same inclosure
with the beloved object of his affections and his fears.
END OF BOOK FOURTH.
