University of Virginia Library

5. BOOK FIFTH.

1. CHAPTER I.

Meanwhile, what of the unhappy Cava? We left her abandoned to despair, and
eagerly desirous of that fate which, she predicted to her seducer, was approaching
fast. The encouragement which she gave to her grief was calculated to contribute
to the fulfilment of the prediction. Yet she had uttered no sorrow. She now poured
forth no clamorous shriek, such as had startled the echoes of the palace when first
king Roderick had committed his brutal violence. She was now silent in her wo,
but it was the deadlier and deeper from its suppression. She sat apart from those
who watched her, while her face wore all the rigidity of marble. Her ear seemed
obtuse; she grew indifferent to what they spoke, and almost unconscious of their
voices. When her eyes were uplifted they did not seem noteful of the objects upon
which they were fixed. There was a glazed and death-like lustre in their expression,
as if the tears had become frozen in the orb, and preserved its glow while
utterly defeating its capacity to see.

Vainly did the maidens seek to interest, or, at least, to attract her attention. They
tried the arts of music upon her, but in vain—they moved her not. They engaged
in curious games beneath her eyes, but she took no heed of their progress; and they
won and lost—exclaimed with disappointment and victory, without being able to secure
a smile or a word from her for whose attention they toiled. At length the
queen came to their assistance, and, dismissing them, she sought, and with more
success, to attain their object. The victim turned her eyes with consciousness, and
teeming with expression, upon her who was only less injured than herself. There
was sympathy between them—the sympathy of a mutual suffering. The wrong
which had destroyed the one, had gone like a burning arrow into the bosom of the
other; and though Egilona had no reproaches for her husband, she was yet just
enough to know how much he deserved them.

“I have a prayer to thee, Egilona,” said Cava to the queen, as the latter concluded
a kind wish to be allowed to serve her; “and thou mayest greatly serve me. Wilt
thou do it—wilt thou grant to the poor Cava the only prayer that she will ever make
to mortal again? Say, dear lady, that thou wilt—say, and I will bless thee, if, indeed,
blessing from my lips be not hurtful to the pure like thee.”

“Oh! speak not thus, my Cava—thou art pure, and blessed in thy purity. Give
me to know thy wish, and I will endeavor to deserve and to secure thy blessing.”

“But thou hast not said—thou dost not say,” exclaimed Cava, with much anxiety,
“that thou will grant me what I pray for. Tell me that thou wilt, ere I name it to
thee, since it were vain to say to thee my desire and have it denied.”

“If it be not wrong—if it be not of hurt to king Roderick, Cava, I will surely do
what thou askest of me,” replied the queen.

“Alas! if it be not of hurt to him who hath been of such grievous hurt to me!
Well even thus, Egilona, even thus will I pray thee. It is not of hurt to him—it
is nothing—nothing in thy eyes or in his, but much in mine, which I now implore
at thy hands. Say, then, that thou wilt yield thee to my prayer.”

“Speak, Cava—tell me thy wish,” said the queen, kindly, “and if it be as thou
sayest—of no hurt to my lord, and in itself not wrong—I promise thee to do as thou
wishest.”

“Bless thee, bless thee! Thou wilt hear and judge for thyself. Thou wilt see
that I ask nothing which should be hurtful to any; but, as one whose hours are
numbered—who looks not to live many days—bring me pen and paper—I would
record my last thoughts and wishes for the eye of one who should know them all.”

“Ah! then thou wouldst write, Cava. Thou shalt have what thou prayest for.
But thou speakest idly. Thy hours shall be long and happy; thou shalt live, and
be blest with a devoted love”—

“Oh! vain, vain and cruel, Egilona, is the speech which thou utterest in my ears.
Thou knowst that I cannot live—that I dare not live—that, as I have lost that which
secures respect to life, and a proper love to woman, I have nothing left me now but
to die. Do not, then, utter such words in my ears; thou knowest that they are idle,
and thy own heart, to which I leave it, will tell thee that I cannot live—that I must
die, or live as one utterly shameless in the world, as I am now utterly without hope
of happiness in it. Jeer me not, then, with such idle fancies; and as for the devoted
love”—

She paused; a shuddering went through her whole frame as she thought upon
Egiza, and a worse bitterness than death was at that moment in her heart. Egilona
felt that the poor victim had soothly spoken, and she resorted to other modes
of consolation. These were not found so easily; and the hapless woman smiled
with all the sadness of despair, as she listened to the fruitless efforts of the amiable
queen. These she heard with patience to the end; and when the arguments of the
speaker were exhausted, she quietly reminded her of her promise. Egilona rose,
and was about to go forth in search of the things required, when Cava, seeming to
recollect a forgotten thought, stayed her departure.

“Yet, my lady!” she exclaimed, “I would not that it should be known what thou
bringest me. Fold it in thy shawl; let them not see it; let him—thy lord—let him
not see it, above all, nor know what thou doest. He may else deny thee.”

“Nay, wherefore doest think so, Cava? He will not deny thee. Thou doest
him wrong.”

“Do I?” exclaimed Cava, mournfully. “It may be; but I think it not. I would
only be secure of having what I seek, and I would, therefore, have thee cautious;
indeed, I would not that it should be known to other than thyself. Promise me,
dear lady, that thou wilt be secret.”

The queen promised her and departed, wondering at the suspicious nature which
this last desire implied. But Cava was more sagacious than her mistress. She could
better conceive the policy of Roderick; and she applied to the only person whom
he had not thought it necessary to counsel in reference to his victim.

2. CHAPTER II.

Egilona brought her the parchment and the pen, which she carefully concealed
from sight. The first moment in which Cava found herself alone she proceeded to
make use of them. The fruits of her industry were the two following letters, addressed,
one to Egiza, and the other to her father:

This letter was not written without many efforts. The tears, shed freely now,
which had been so long congealed in their fountains, stained the sheet. Her hand
trembled, and when she had finished, her nerves seemed about to withdraw from her
all sustaining strength. When a little composed, she wrote to her father, and though
with as many tears, yet with far less effort and emotion. A sterner spirit seemed to
pervade her soul, and as she had prayed to her lover for pity only, she now prayed
to her father for revenge.

“Would it had pleased the Almighty!”—It was thus that she began an epistle
which brought desolation upon the land, and watered every foot of its soil with the
noblest and best blood of the people—“Would it had pleased the Almighty, my
dearest father, that the ground had opened and swallowed me up, rather than that I
had ever live to see myself reduced to this wretched necessity of writing to give you
the knowledge of a disgrace which will cause an eternal disquiet in your bosom. The
innumerable tears which have blotted, and almost effaced this whole letter, will let
you understand the violence I do myself in writing you such unwelcome news. But
I apprehend, that, if I should defer it one single moment, I might leave room to doubt
whether, at the time when my body was defiled, my soul was not likewise stained
with an indelible blemish. Who can ever put an end to our misfortunes except you
repair the insult which has been done us? Shall we stay till time makes public
what is, at present, a secret—when we shall be cursed with an opprobious name,
more insulting than death itself? Oh! wretched and most deplorable destiny! In
a word, my dear father, your daughter—your blood—this branch of the royal Gothic
stock, who, like an innocent lamb, was recommended to the care of a ravenous wolf,
has been violated by king Roderick. If you forget not what you owe to your illustrious
blood, you will revenge the affront offered it, by destroying the tyrant who has
so basely stained it. Remember that you are count Julian, and that I am Cava,
your only daughter.”

These letters she concealed, having first made duplicates—the better to secure the
certainty of having one or other reach their destination. At this time she knew of
no means of transmitting them. She had not thought much upon this difficulty.
Her first object had been to procure the means of writing that which she well knew
she would not be suffered verbally to communicate to either of those for whom her
letters were prepared, and which, indeed, she very much doubted her ability to speak.
This accomplished, her next thought was upon the mode of sending them. She had
some trinkets—some rich gems, which had been employed in decorating that person
whose charms they could not enhance, and which ceased, indeed, to maintain their
value in such connection. It was by means of these trinkets that she hoped to effect
her object. She had learned enough of the mercenary character of all around her to
believe that she could readily bribe one of the maids about her to execute her desires.
But while she reflected upon this part of her purpose, a dreadful thought came to
her mind. The address upon the letter to Egiza lay before her eyes, and she shivered
as she demanded of herself where he should be found. The dreadful doom to which
she had been subjected, terrible and trying as it was, had too completely occupied
her thoughts to suffer her to think of him. Where was he? she now demanded.
Did he live? Had he not also fallen a victim to the ferocity of that tyrant whose
unscrupulous lusts had destroyed her. With this apprehension she fell upon her
knees—then upon her face, and long and fervent was the fond prayer for his succour
and release which she poured forth to the ever-present God. Her prayer was
heard, and the boon accorded to her. That very night Egiza was released from his
prison, and was, though she knew it not, a close watcher, from the thick groves
which concealed him, of those towers which still held her as a prisoner.

3. CHAPTER III.

The appearance of Romano's body at the gate of the palace, produced an astonishing
sensation when it met the eyes of the populace on the ensuing morning. It
was beheld by the water-carriers first, and they proclaimed it throughout the city.
The soldiers on duty about the palace, dared not remove it, until commanded by
their officers, and the citizens in the meantime collected from far and near to behold
it. The fanatic was well known, and greatly esteemed throughout Toledo. By
many among the lower orders, he was regarded as a saint; and the rigid and ascetic
life which he invariably led, at a time and in a region where none were abstinent,
and few moderate or just—these qualities in the deceased, had commended him to
the favorable consideration of many who were not low; as it is not unfrequently
the case that we admire the virtues in another, which we dare not ourselves practice,
and which we admire probably for that very reason. The venerable features
of Romano commanded respect, apart from his known character; and as the head
keeper of the famous House of Hercules, he was regarded as one endowed with a
sanctity beyond any of his fellows. When, too, it was recollected how grossly he
had been spurned by Roderick, there seemed a solemn meaning in the fact of his
having come to the door of the despot in order to breathe his last; and this thought
took various shapes at the expense of Roderick, as the crowd momently increased to
survey the body, until they looked up and around them in anticipation, while they
spoke freely of the judgments which were to follow.

By the time the sun had fairly risen, the crowd had increased to such an extent
as to alarm the apprehension of the soldiers. Their murmurs were audibly uttered,

and now and then a sentence from some hasty speaker, betrayed a spirit of insolence,
which was very apt in those days to draw down summary punishment upon
the heads of the populace. They all remembered the virtue of Romano, and the
transition was easy from the virtues of the deceased to the vices of him who was
supposed to have destroyed him. One of the speakers, a sturdy Gallician, endowed
with all the pugnacity which distinguished his fierce tribe, was the first to approach
the body of the deceased priest, and kneeling down reverently before it, to breathe
forth his maledictions freely upon those, whoever they might be, whose cruelty had
reduced it to its present condition. The language which he employed offended the
jealous soldier who stood by, and with all the contemptuous insolence which marked
the deportment of the military in that period toward the inferior and laboring population,
he threatened to apply the staff of his spear to the speaker if he did not instantly
depart. This threat aroused the other, who, in an instant stood upon his
feet, and looked, if he did not threaten, defiance. His eye flashed fire, and his lips
were compressed, while it could be seen that the short stick which he carried in his
hand, and which was simply the handle for his panniers, was grasped firmly, as if
about to be employed as a weapon of strife. His look and attitude irritated, if it did
not alarm the soldier.

“Wouldst thou bite, dog?” he exclaimed. “Hence—get back to thy brethren!
Begone, ere it be worse for thee!”

As he said these words, he advanced, and, with the point of his spear, pricked
the Gallician in his side. To the surprise of the solders, no less than of the populace,
the stick of the latter was raised instantly, and with one blow he shattered
the spear of the soldier, breaking it completely in twain, just where the iron head
was fastened upon the wood, and leaving nothing but the pole in the hands of his
assailant. This daring act of insubordination was beheld with astonishment by the
crowd, who, for a few seconds after, preserved a profound silence, awaiting the
issue, for they looked every moment to see the bold Gallician hewn down by the
approaching comrades of the soldier; but when they beheld the stupid wonder with
which the latter stood, looking alternately at his broken spear and at his sturdy
opponent, a unanimous and spontaneous shout, which made the area reëcho again,
attested the delight which the circumstance afforded them. They had too frequently
suffered under the insolence of the soldiery, which they dared not resent, not to
rejoice in any rebuke which should give them that revenge which they had never
dared of themselves to take; and shout succeeded to shout, and clamor to clamor,
increasing rapidly, and stimulating momently that sentiment of new-born courage
in the mob which came to them like a draught of intoxicating enjoyment. The
clamor aroused the rage of the soldier, who instantly rushed upon the Gallician.
Their weapons were more nearly equal now than before; and the short stick of the
latter, while it effectually parried the thrusts of the soldier's staff—for he still used it
as a spear—rang about his head with a quickness which he found it impossible to
parry. A sharp stroke sent him reeling backward, and the Gallician pressed upon
him. Luckily, at this time, several of the guards rushing from other sections of the
court, came to his assistance, and the sturdy Gallicean, still waving his stick in triumph,
gave back slowly before them, until he was sheltered in the crowd, which
received him with joyful acclamations.

Their clamors chafed the soldiery, already irritated by the defeat of their comrade.
They collected together, and resolved not merely to disperse but to chastise the
populace. This, however, was no easy matter. The guards were few; but accustomed
to strike without being resisted, they did not count the difference of numbers,
and resolutely determined upon having satisfaction for the insult, which they had

received. Besides, it was necessary that they should preserve the silence, not less
than the security of the palace; and such now was the excited feeling of the mob, that
their clamors increased with every moment of delay. The whole front of the court
was covered with them; and their heads and hands swayed about with the increasing
swell, like the waves of a broken sea. They were unarmed however, with the
exception of a few staves and sticks, and the short knife—the handle and blade
being both of steel—which the natives generally carried. These, unless the owners
of them were determined upon extremes, could not have opposed effectually the
small but drilled band of armed men that now advanced in a close body, compact as
a wedge, upon the mass; and this determination was, as yet, lacking in the hearts of
the greater number of that mighty but undecided mass. As those in front beheld
the approaching soldiers, they turned, with one or two exceptions, to fly; but the
crowd behind them, still increasing, and as yet ignorant of the danger of those within,
opposed an effectual obstacle to their flight. The soldiers pressed upon them with a
haste of step and a ferocity of demeanor which proved them to be quite in earnest, and
rendered it necessary that those in danger should do what they could in the emergency
to avoid or avert it. A few fell to supplications; but the greater number were
silent and sullen—and one or two, the more resolute among them, already grasped
the handles of their knives. At this moment the Gallician, who had been completely
hidden in the crowd, was seen bustling forward to the front; and this
temerity in seeking the danger which all others were disposed to fly, was hailed
with murmurs of applause from many around him. But there was one in that
numerous assembly—but one—who sought to restrain the fierce mountaineer. That
was a female, a young girl, not more than fifteen, whose dark sparkling eye was
now bright with tears of gathering apprehension. She grasped the arm of the
Gallician, which was lifted high above the heads of the crowd, and bore aloft in its
yellow hand a thick Gothic curtal-axe, which waved threateningly conspicuous in
the eyes of all. Her words at the same time, pleadingly soft, were still audible to
all around.

“Do not, do not, dear Toro!—remember our poor mother!—come with me,
brother—she is waiting for us by the fountain, and if thou shouldst come to harm,
what will become of her?—what will become of me? Do not go forward—thy life
is precious—and see, where the guards come. Stay, stay!—go back with me,
brother—help me out of the crowd.”

“Unloose me, Toly!—let my arm go,” cried the impatient brother, as he still
pressed forward to the front, bearing the girl along with him, who clung resolutely
to his arm, while she pleaded for his retreat.

“Be not rash, dear brother. Toro, Toro!—our mother, dear Toro!—she waits.”

At this moment the charge of the guards was made, and the bristling line of pikes,
bearing down upon the indecisive crowd, produced a terrible uproar and confusion
in front. The assailed and unarmed line, thus exposed unwillingly, and unavoidably
now, to the assailants, reeled back in consternation upon the dense and mighty
mass, which was still gathering behind them, and while some fell, struggling and
kicking confusedly upon the ground where they lay, others, with a supernatural
exercise of physical energy, the result of their sudden and great terror, pressed their
way farther back among the crowd, ever turning those immediately in the path, and
bearing those along in their flight who yet seemed resolute to go forward. Of this
number, was our bold Gallician. Vainly did he strive to resist the rush; for though
possessed of immense strength for one of his size, it proved unequal to the task of
opposing the impetuous progress of those whom the pressing terror was impelling
in blind confusion. Hoarsely he cried aloud to them with bitter reproaches, while

with arms and knees, and full and forward chest, he threw himself in the way of
one after another of the fugitives. Meanwhile, the soldiers, provoked by a brutal
indifference to the cruelty of such an assault, continued to thrust among the crowd
with their spears, wounding severely and indiscriminately the miserable wretches
who offered no resistance. But they urged the fugitives too fast, and the peasants,
goaded, beyond patience, and unable to escape, like the trampled worm, turned at
length upon their enemies. The Gallician beheld the awakening spirit of his
brethren with delight, and with a joy which was absolutely furious; he shouted to
them in brief, stern, quick cries, bidding them do as they beheld him do, and promising
them success, if they would but show a proper courage. With an unscrupulous
effort, which was almost violence, he broke away from the grasp of his sister,
who still implored him with lifted hands to desist, and hurried forward. The young
maiden strove to follow him, and though swayed about with every movement of the
striving bodies around her, she contrived to keep him in sight. A spear was levelled
at his throat the moment he appeared in front, which he parried first and then
grasped with a prompt and efficient hand. In the next instant his axe clove the
head of the soldier, whom, with a jerk upon the spear, he had drawn within reach
of the blow, and he fell dead without a groan.

There was a dreadful pause after this had been done, but it lasted for an instant
only. The soldiers, furious at what they saw, now turned their entire rage upon
the Gallician, who was conspicuous in front, and he must have perished but that
the blood dripping from his axe, which he bore within sight of the multitude, had
a powerful effect upon them. They saw it on every side, and from the remotest
members of the mass, a shout—the shout of a common appetite, of the ferce instinct
of destruction—arose terribly on the air. The language of that shout was a stimulant
to the mob, and it had an appalling meaning to the soldiers. They were now
conscious, for the first time, that the mere pressure of the human mass in front of
them, must be fatal, and they sought to amend their error. They now aimed to
retire, until they could recruit themselves from the guards who filled the various
stations in the palace and the neighboring gardens; but their movement had still
farther the effect of inspiring the multitude. The members in the back ground, now
farily conscious of what was going on within, and at the same time secure themselves,
gave full exercise to their curiosity, and pressed forward, urging those within
more densely between the walls of the court, and more immediately upon the soldiers.
The latter sounded their trumpets of alarm; and a moment's consideration
then came to the fierce Gallician. He now saw the beginning of the end, for
which, in the first movements of his impulse, he had not prepared. He had struck
at first, because of the personal indignity to which he had been subjected—he had
armed himself and reappeared, because he perceived that his fellows were about to
suffer for his offence; but it was only when he had advanced nearly to the front,
that he knew of the presence of his sister. Taking advantage of the pause in the
strife, occasioned by the falling back of the guards toward the inner court of the
palace, he endeavored to bear the girl to a place of safety; he had already got his
arm about her waist, and had lifted her from the ground, intending to bear her if
practicable, through the crowd, when a hollow and deep voice from the midst of the
mass attracted the general regard.

“Saint Romano! Saint Romano! my brethren!” was the sudden cry. Every eye
was turned now upon the body of the fanatic, which lay upon the steps of the
portal, leading to the inner courts, and to which the backward steps of the guard
were turned.

“Shall we leave the blessed remains for his murderers to trample, my brethren?”
continued the mighty voice.

“No, no, no!” was the cry from a thousand tongues.

“Saint Romano—the body of the saint is ours—let us bear it to the sanctuary of
the Holy Church. Come, all ye who would be blessed, come! Give your hands
to the labor, and let us bear the holy corpse of the saint to the bosom of the Holy
Church!”

Such was the cry from hundreds. The deep voice from the bosom of the multitude
was heard again, and its summons was potential.

“Saint Romano, the blessed martyr—whoso shall touch of his body, shall have
eternal life.”

This was enough. The enthusiasm became a fury, and from the farthest groups
of the mob, to which this adjuration had extended, all strove in the effort to obtain
possession or at least a touch of those holy remains which were to work out their
deliverance and salvation. A common rage was in every countenance—eyes were
kindled with hope, hearts beating with excitement and anticipation, while the
compressed lips of all forbid the utterance of that breath, every particle of which
seemed essential to the desired object. One short, one mixed cry, in which the
unanimous motive was clearly uttered, was all; and the silence which followed it,
was like a spell. There was something terrible in the sight of thousands, thus
striving and toiling forward, in one direction, with one aim, with all their strength,
and their souls evidently going with their efforts, yet in such profound silence.

The rush of the mighty mass was irresistible. Vainly did the fearless and strong
Gallician, sustaining his lovely and terrified sister in his arms, endeavor to stem the
torrent, and maintain his ground. His teeth were shut together—his axe lifted to
threaten—his whole frame thrown forward—his head thrust down, like that of a
wild-bull when he meets the sudden hunter, resolute to rend the approaching enemy;
but in vain. Vainly would the advancing individual, whom thus he threatened, have
sought to turn aside and avoid him. He was but one of the thousand wedges of the impelling
mass behind. The study Toro was drawn forward and compelled to join in
the rush; but he still bore his trembling and panting sister aloft, unhurt, though
terrified in the last degree, by the pressure of the crowd and the madness of its
every movement. The guards turned at the entrance of the court, and presented
their spears immediately over the corpse of the newly created saint. But of what
avail were such weapons, or weapons of any sort, in opposing men on the eve
of salvation? The spears were dashed aside, and even where they took effect upon
the body of one or other of the mob, the individual only thrust himself still more
impetuously upon the shaft, which was buried in his body, willing to perish, if he
could only fall upon the miserable but worshipped remains which lay before him.

The efforts of the guards were unavailing. Indeed, they were utterly surprised
by this unwonted outbreak of the people, and they were divested, in consequence,
of half their accustomed confidence. They were borne back from the body of the
fanatic, over which their spears had been crossed, and, separated in the rush from one
another, broken and disordered, they fled tumultously through the passage leading
to the inner court, and sought safety by the most dastardly flight from a pursuit
which they thought would have been continued. It was here that they should
have made their stand. The passage was narrow, and might have been maintained
by their small number against thousands. But they had been completely terrified
by the sudden, unusual, and unlooked for exhibition of the popular rage, and they
fled, without being conscious, for several minutes, that they were not pursued.

4. CHAPTER IV.

The only object of the mob had been obtained. In all their rage they had
never contemplated an assault upon the palace of their tyrant. This may have
been the desire of some, but the great mass, as yet, were in possession of too few
thoughts, to dream that they had other rights than those of service, and other
hopes than those of animal indulgence in this life, and vague ideas (scarcely less
animal in their promise,) of salvation in the next. Religious frenzy had drawn
them forward, and having the sacred remains in their possession, for which they
had ventured life, and the touch of which was to give them life eternal, they
were satisfied with their achievement. The corpse was lifted from the ground; and
when it appeared in the arms of those who had the felicity first to lay hands upon
it, conspicuous to the eyes of all, and over the heads of the mob, their shrieks of
fury were changed to shouts of congratulation. From hand to hand the sacred
remains were borne aloft by the populace, its course altered momently in compliance
with the will of the boldest or the pressure of the strongest handed. Now it
was hurried in one quarter, now in another; and in their enthusiasm, grasping it
from every direction, it was in great danger of being torn in pieces. Some leaped
above the heads of the mass, pitching forward recklessly in their efforts to touch at
least the garment which it wore. Mothers lifted up their infants as the carcass
was hurried by, that the unconscious babes might obtain the valuable pressure for
which they could make no effort; and in the madness of the moment, fierce men
strove with one another, even to blows, for that contact with the object of their common
veneration from which so much was hoped.

But the Gallician, Toro, beheld their fanaticism with scorn. He had been
busy, from the moment of the flight of the soldiers, in the effort to extricate his
sister from the press of the crowd. To this object he had devoted all his strength;
but he had striven idly. The impetuous torrent bore him from side to side, with
his precious burden, until his strength was almost exhausted. In vain did he seek
to command attention by his voice. There were none to listen. None gave heed
to any object except the poor remains of a man, a victim to madness like their own,
whom, in their folly, they had sanctified.

“Accursed fools!” exclaimed the Gallicean; “they will waste time with their
plaything, until the guards collect and crush them.”

His speech was uttered sufficiently loud for all to hear, who stood around him.
Indeed, he addressed words to the same effect to many. But groans of devotion
and shrieks of delight, drowned his voice and defined his arguments; and panting
and striving, at least to preserve his position, and protect Toly against their pressure,
he was compelled to abide the progress of events, and wait patiently until
their madness should have found its termination in their general physical exhaustion.
Meanwhile, the crowd pressed to and fro upon him, and he was compelled
to resort with every moment to stern words and sharp strokes, to secure his place.
The terrors of his sister were duly increased as she beheld the increasing violence
of her brother. He could scarce forbear the use of his curtal-axe, when some
zealot, more furious or less heedful than the rest, encroached upon the little space
which he maintained as a sort of boundary in front of him; and to the howling
of this or that devotee, he had bitter words and fierce execrations. Toly dreaded
lest the harsh language of her brother should provoke retort, and probably violence;
but he had no such fear.

“Nay, they do not hear me,” he would reply to her exhortations; “they are too
mad to hear—they are deaf and stupid; and even if they did hear, I care not. A
set of cowards—the base scum; if they had but the proper spirit, we should have
torn down these walls and left not one stone of the palace upon another. The
place was ours—had they but gone forward, it would have been done, and we
should have had our revenge. Now, it is hopeless. They will waste all their
strength upon the body, or upon one another, and by noon they will fly like hares
from the dog, if they see but a single one of the soldiers, whom they have just
now driven. Ay, roar fool!” he exclaimed, as one ragged wretch rushed by him,
with a wild shout, hurrying toward the group over whose heads at that moment
the corpse of Romano was in progress—“roar and howl—'t is all that you are fit
for. The prick of a spear-head, and the stripes of a green thong, are your proper
counsellors. They only keep you right, and send you forward, and keep your
brute madness in check!”

“Oh, Toro! do not speak thus, or speak not so loud,” said Toly. “If they hear
they will strike—they will hurt you.”

“Let them try—the curs—let them try!” and the Gallician waved his axe, while,
as if to prove his scorn, he thrust forth his foot as one of the group rushed by
him, and the fellow tumbled over the obstruction and went forward at full length
to the ground. The fierce laugh of the Gallician followed his fall, and afforded
the injured man but an equivocal atonement for the wanton indignity which he
had suffered; but, when he rose and looked upon the offender, he saw enough in
his countenance to satisfy him that he was not the sort of man whom he could
trifle with. Hurrying on, therefore, the fellow joined the crowd—while Toro, the
offender, turning to his sister, with a laugh, exclaimed:

“You see, Toly, what spiritless wretches these are—how worthless. I only
wonder that they pressed the soldiers as they did. Indeed, they never would have
done so of themselves. The pressure came from those without. They were in no
danger, and they knew it; and they were not unwilling to have their sport at the
expense of those within. The fiends light on them; but I fear that they will make
us suffer yet. I would, that you were out, Toly. Why did you follow me?”

The girl pressed his arm, but said nothing. At that moment a dreadful shout
rang through the crowd.

“Raise me, Toro, and I can see, and tell you,” said Toly to her brother, while
he was vainly striving, on tip-toe, to look over the waving, rolling and reeling
heads of the dense mass before him. He did so, and the cry of the girl was immediate.

“It is a woman, Toro!” she exclaimed. “They have raised her up—fie—fie—
her neck is bare, and yet she does not heed it. She scrambles among the people—
they tear her clothes—they will kill her, Toro—they pull her about so. No—they
seem to carry her forward. How she screams and laughs. Ah! I see—I see”—

“What, Toly?”

“The body of the holy man, brother. It is that which she strives at. She
clambers over their heads, I know not how; and yet they pull her back—some pull
her back—some push her forward. Hark! hear how she screams. She has nearly
reached the body. Now, now—she grasps—she siezes it by one arm. She falls
—they have let her down—no! they lift her again, and oh! Toro, how they have
torn her clothes. Take me down, brother, I must not look—I would not see It
is too ugly.”

Toro gently let the maiden down, while, mounting upon a small rock, he strove
to behold the scene which she had witnessed and in part described. The woman

of whom his sister had spoken, was still in sight—a virago, evidently, of immense
strength and size. By dint of violent exertions, she had forced her way among the
men; now on equal terms struggling with them upon the ground, and now rising
above their heads, sometimes with their help, but most frequently in defiance of their
opposition. She had at length succeeded in grasping one arm of the sainted Romano.
To this she clung, while those in possession of the body tugged a different
way. At length she fell to the ground, but this did not have the effect of making
her relax her hold. On the contrary, it not only gave to her increased powers for
retaining it, but enabled others around her to seize upon the same unconscious limb,
and to unite their strength with hers in opposition to the equally determined fanatics
who had possession of the body. The tide of numbers swayed to and fro, under
this conflict. Shouts and screams filled the air from both parties, as they severally
gained or lost an advantage in the strife. Almost naked to the waist, the fierce woman
still struggled and fought, with all the vigor and more than the madness of the men
around her. The fury of a tigress seemed to fill her bosom, and now she raved and
now she swore, while, in her efforts, she did not scruple to seize, even with her
teeth, the arm of one of those who drew in the same direction upon the lifeless and
yielding limb. Piece by piece the sleeve that covered it was torn away, and the
withered and yellow flesh was left in her tenacious grasp. She held on to her
prize as if life and immortality were hers in consequence. Nor was the hold of those
in possession of the body less unyielding. They strove with redoubled efforts to
bear away their relic entire. Wherever a hand could secure a hold, it was taken;
and those who could not, grasped firmly upon the more fortunate arms which did.
At length the joints yielded—they twisted the fibres which secured the shoulders—
then tugging with diligent ferocity on both sides, they wrenched the arm from the
socket, and the flesh and fibres were separated and torn in fragments, like decayed and
worthless rags. A wild shout of delirious triumph rent the air, and in the same
moment the ragged and bleeding limb was seen waving in the eyes of thousands,
above their heads, in the hands of the fierce and triumphant virago. She was alone
in the possession of the prize. The men who had joined with her in the struggle
had relaxed and withdrawn their grasp, when the limb separated. A feeling of natural
horror ran through every bosom, even among those who had been most active
in the strife. But she suffered from no such sentiments. Her shrieks were preëminent
above the clamors of the crowd, and the Gallician shuddered as he beheld her,
armed with the yellow, meagre, yet blood-dripping limb, forcing a passage through
the crowd by the sheer force of that terror which its approach seemed to inspire.
His feelings of disgust would not permit him to look longer, and with a shiver he
descended from his perch, and clasped the frail form of the young girl beside him to
his bosom, with an increased apprehension, which the spectacle he had witnessed
was well calculated to occasion.

“Oh, Toly! what would I not give if you were free from this press!” he exclaimed,
as he put his arm fondly about her waist.

“Do try, Toro, and get me out. Our poor mother will fear that harm has come
to both of us, unless we go to her directly.”

Toro looked about him with many anxious doubts.

“Harm will come to us,” he muttered to himself, “unless we can get out now.
We have little time left us.”

“What say you, Toro?”

“Nothing, Toly—only follow me. That mad woman has left an opening, and
if we could only reach it, we should be safe. Follow me closely. Grasp my doublet
thus, and keep close. I will get you out, if the strength of a man may do it.”

He placed the skirt of his doublet in her hand, and resolutely pushing among the
crowd, he led the way, and Toly, trembling at every movement, clung close, and
strove to follow him through the opening which, by sheer resolve of temper and
strength of arm, her brother sought to make.

5. CHAPTER V.

But their progress was necessary slow and scarcely perceptible. They had not
proceeded ten paces when a sudden clamor was heard—the clamor and the clash of
arms, the unfolding of heavy gates, and the rapid tread of approaching soldiers. The
inner court gates had been thrown wide open, and the Gallician augured from this
that the guards were about to return, mounted on horseback for the strife. With
the thoughts of the plunging of horses among the unarmed and crowded population,
he turned quickly and caught up his sister in his arms.

“What is that, brother?—is there danger?” she demanded, trembling with new
terrors as she looked upon his countenance, where ferocity began to be qualified by
apprehension and anxiety.

“Ay, Toly—a little, but not for you, Toly. You shall be safe.”

She clung to him as she cried:

“Yes, Toro, you can save me, I know. You are strong enough—as strong as
any of these men. But, make haste, Toro, for I fear the crowd, and they squeeze
me dreadfully now.”

He set his teeth firmly and made no answer as he struggled forward with his burthen,
but he muttered to himself while he did it, and, to the quick ear of Toly, his
mutterings were half audible.

“I will try to save you, Toly—with my own life will I try. I am strong, true,
as any one of these, but not as all.”

“Oh, Toro! what is it you say? Can you not save me? Haste, brother! remember
our poor mother—let them not crush me thus. Save me! save me!”

The breathing of Toro was suppressed awhile. He strove with the right arm extended,
and bearing the girl in the other, to force the passage. While he strove, one
of the flying crowd who was behind him, grappled his shoulder with the same
object. The fierce Gallician turned and smote him in the mouth with the handle of
his axe which he still held firmly, as a weapon might soon become imperatively necessary.
The fellow gave back in terror, and Toro resumed his flight. A woman lay
struggling under his feet—the terrors of the girl within his arms made him reckless,
and the bosom of the fallen and writhing victim became his stepping stone, as it
had already been that of hundreds. He pressed onward, certainly but slowly, and
began to hope; but, looking over the track before him, the entire area was still covered
with dense and struggling masses. He was almost spent. The sweat trickled
from his brow, and the weight grew almost insupportable upon his arm.

“Oh, Toly!” he exclaimed, in mournful accents, which reproached her more
painfully than stern language could have done—“oh, Toly! why did you follow
me!”

“Forgive me, brother,” she whispered, rather than spoke—“forgive me—I was
a foolish child—forgive me and save me! Save me, Toro, this time, and I will
never vex you again. I will try and do everything for you, Toro. I will never
marry—no! not even if Diego should ask me—if you will only save me.”

He kissed her—amid the crowd, none of whom beheld it—he kissed her, while
he murmured, resolutely but sadly:

“Ay, Toly! if I die for it, I will save you. Be of heart, and let us try once
more. The Blessed Mother be with us—we will try once more.”

6. CHAPTER VI.

Meanwhile the crowd became conscious of the approaching danger. They regarded
no longer the body of the fanatic, which fared more fortunately than the living
thousands over whose heads it was hustled. It was borne in triumph out of the
mass, and was received by those who remained on the outside, and who bore it
away in triumph, to be hoarded up with other relics equally valuable and equally
maddening to the minds of thousands as well in that as in times more remote. The
escape of the living in that dense mass was not so readily effected; and, pressed on
every hand, in a court which was narrow in proportion to its great length, having
no guidance but the individual impulses which drove each other in a different direction,
and to the obstruction of one another, they struggled vainly for escape. Confused
by their fears and mutually baffled by their various impulses, when the alarm
was given from within of the approaching soldiers, they grew blind with very terror.
Shouts and shrieks of fear filled the area where they struggled, and falling upon
each other in heaps in their vain efforts at flight, they presented no obstruction to
those who sought their destruction.

The sound of a single trumpet silenced the clamors of the mob with increasing
terrors. Toro, the Gallician, still maintaining his burden, with failing limbs but
with unrelaxing resolution, with writhing neck, and eyes cast for a moment behind
him, sought to discern the condition of things among the enemies at whose mercy he
well knew the wild, thoughless, yet cowardly wretches were, who strove with
contrary minds at a single and common object. That one look was all that was allowed
him. In that glance he beheld Roderick himself rushing forth, mounted, at
the head of the guards, part of which were also on horseback, and attended by Edeco
and a few other noblemen. The king was in armor, but without his helmet. His
armor seemed to have been put on hurriedly, and his weapons seized in haste. The
Gallician saw that his features were full of fury. Indeed, it would be an idle attempt
to depict the anger of one like Roderick, the spoiled child of fortune, and for
so long a time accustomed to the most complete exercise of his own will, and the
most brutal disregard to the rights, not less than to the will, of all others. It was
absolutely fearful even to the eyes of one, like the Gallician, so entirely indifferent
to all the minor influences of fear. His eyes glared like those of the wild-boar,
whom the spear of the hunter hath pierced at the very entrance of the den where his
young are hidden. His cheeks were the color of a bright and sudden flame—his
hair floated wildly above his head, and its raven hue still more contributed to give
an air of fierce resolution to the almost scarlet terrors of his face. While Toro
gazed, he instinctively pressed forward; he saw that though there were numbers
still between the tyrant and himself, on whom his vengeance must first be wreaked,
he was yet conscious that these would offer but a brief obstruction to the passage of
men on horseback. To throw a greater number between was an object therefore,
but this was the object of hundreds, who were not, like himself, incumbered with a
burden, the weight of which, if it did not enfeeble the mind, increased its anxiety,
and oppressed it with apprehension that weighed it down, even more effectually than

its physical pressure did his body. The prayers and pleadings of the poor girl—her
entire dependence upon the strength and resolution of her brother, greatly increased
both, and never did man yet labor more desperately, and strive with less fear and
more zeal to achieve his object, and secure the saftey of the beloved one and the depending.

Help, Holy Mother!” he prayed inwardly—“help, Holy Mother!—give me
strength—thy blessed favor upon the young girl, not yet fifteen—a pure virgin, who
keeps thy thoughts in her mind, as, when she is at home in her chamber, she hath
thy image for ever before her eye. Be thy white arms of blessedness about her neck,
so that she be saved to our mother, and if it please thee, serenest Virgin, I will return
to the strife, and fight for thy grace and honor. Be with her, Mother of God,
and help us forth from these numbers!”

He did not pray only. He struggled bravely; but the Virgin did not heed his
prayer. The density was greater than ever, and in the next moment, Roderick
charged headlong, followed by his nobles and guards, upon the terrified and shrieking
populace. However provoked it may have been at first, nothing could have been
more wanton or unprovoked than this movement now. The people were only turbulent
in flight. They were seeking, on all hands, to effect their escape, and would
have been glad to disappear, and would soon have dispersed, had sufficient time been
allowed them. But this would have been no gratification to the reckless and remorseless
tyrant, to whom the unnecessary display of his power, in its most cruel
forms, was the highest pleasure. He had no thought, no mercy, for the thoughtless
and unreckoning wretches who were then scrambling forward in the very attitudes
—those of flight and fear—which would rather have called for the smile and forbearance
of the wise and merciful ruler, than his blows and fury. He charged upon
them as they flew—he smote recklessly on all hands, and looked not to see whether
his weapon descended upon the head of the resisting or trembling man—whether he
struck the wildest of his own sex, or the weakest and gentlest woman. His example
was closely followed by his soldiers, and for a few seconds their horses trampled
and their weapons mangled none but unresisting and screaming fugitives.

But this could not last for ever. The sheer physical impracticability of flight where
such numbers struggled, was, of itself, sufficient reason why those should turn to
defend themselves who could no longer hope to fly. They did so with their staves
and sticks, and such rude instruments as they had seized in their haste. At first
they did not aim at anything more than to parry the thrusts of the soldiery; but this
show of defence was soon changed into positive conflict, by the ill-judged haste and
ill-reasoning anger of the king. He could not brook to see the base plebeians striving
even to protect themselves from harm, and with increased impetuosity charging
them himself, he bade those who followed him do likewise. They needed no second
exhortation—they rushed on with a fury kindred to that which now filled the bosom
of their savage master, and only paused in their brutal melee, when it became
necessary, for the slaughter of more victims, that they should tear away their
pikes from the writhing bodies, to which they had already given the fatal and the
final strokes.

The madness of despair seized upon the crowd, and they grappled the spearmen
about their necks while engaged in this bloody work. Roderick, shouting the warcry
of the Goth, plunged amid the thickest of the fray, cleaving down with his
heavy-handled sword, all who stood before him. The rising hoofs of his steed hung
over the heads of the brave Gallician and his trembling sister. The madness which
filled the crowd wrought with redoubled violence upon him. With a mighty strength
he raised her above the crowd, and throwing her forward, by this means increasing

the space between the poor girl and the ferocious monarch, he stood alone, and more
ready and resolute to confront his fury. As the hoofs of the steed descended, he
leaped aside and boldly grasped the bridle with his hand. His swarthy cheek grew
purple with his rage—his coal-black eye looked the anger which the words from his
lips expressed and as Roderick beheld the look, the action, and the general manner
of the Gallician, he could not but see in him one who would not scruple, if it needed,
to strike even at the bosom of royalty itself. The thought enraged him, and rising
on his stirrups, he waved his sword above the head of poor Toro, resolved that the
descending blow should cleave him in twain.

“Ha! slave!” he exclaimed twice, as he struck. He struck heavily, but the blow
descended upon a head which it could not harm—the steel was buried in the skull
of one whom he had slain before. The agile Gallician, as he saw the meditated
stroke, swinging upon the bridle of the steed which he had grasped, threw himself
completely under the animal's neck, and out of the way of the impending blow. In
the next instant, and ere the tyrant could recover his weapon, the sharp knife of
Toro was driven up to the handle in the bosom of the plunging animal. He bounded
forward among the crowd, uttered one wild snort of fear, and struggling and plunging
with his fearless rider, he sank dead, while the populace, unable to escape,
closed around him.

“Toly! Toly!” cried the Gallician, in a piercing voice of terror.

A faint cry came to his ears in return—a suffocating cry, and he shivered, though
he rushed forward as he heard:

“Toro! oh, dear Toro!” said the grasping accents.

“Here Toly! I come—I come!”

“Come!” was the faint and scarcely intelligible word with which she replied.
He leaped with an agonizing apprehension over the heads of those who stood between
him and the spot from whence the sounds arose—he dashed aside the peering
heads of the curious and the trembling, and paused in doubt, for he knew not where
to turn. The hoarse voice of Roderick was heard at the place where his steed had
plunged and fallen; and then, once more, the faint accents came to his ears, seemingly
from the same quarter:

“Come, Toro! come!”

He rushed forward, though the enemy was there. He could see the form of Roderick
rising—he could hear his furious language—and his uplifted sword was visible
to his eyes; yet he hurried toward him. The faint voice of his sister was again heard
in a feeble scream, which at length died away in a murmur. He leaped on the dead
horse—her face was barely visible beneath it. Her eyes were closing, but a faint
light was perceptible to his beneath the shutting lids. She seemed to recognize him,
and the lids partly receded, while she looked upon him. In another instant they
were shut for ever.

7. CHAPTER VII.

He stooped to the body. He strove to drag the crushed and mangled remains of
the girl from beneath the carcass, but he could not, and he trembled—for the heart
of man never believes in the utter insensibility of that which it loves—lest he should
hurt the innocent, of whom, in life, he had regarded the lightest curl of hair with a
fondness which would have prompted him to risk life freely in its protection from
the slightest harm or the most casual indignity. He shrunk back from the task—

the terrible truth came upon him in frenzy—the sister of his boyhood—the child
whom he had loved almost alone of all the world—the favorite of his aged mother,
and his own, she was dead—and such a death! Crushed, trampled down, and
mangled beneath furious and flying men, and the hoofs of the agonized war-horse,
himself stricken with death, and by his arm. He sank down beside the body—
lifted the long and raven locks which were dabbled and clotted with her own blood,
and gazed upon the terrible spectacle for an instant in speechless horror. Shrieking
and shouting he started to his feet. Fury was in his soul, and he panted for revenge.
What then was the uplifted sword of the tyrant—what the pikes of the
soldiers! He felt them in his flesh; but there was a deeper wound within his soul
which made him indifferent to their tortures. He rushed fearlessly upon the king,
and defied his weapon. Fired with his spirit, and unable to fly, the populace gathered
around him, and answered his shouts with their own. The uplifted arm of
Roderick was grappled by one from behind, and his balanced weapon shone idly in
the air. It was not suffered to descend. Toro rushed upon him while in that situation.
Already his knife glared in the eyes of the monarch—another moment and
it would have been buried in his heart; but with the desperateness of his situation
came increased powers of body and resolve of mind to the beleaguered king. He
dropped his sword which had thus been made useless, and shaking off the assailant
who held his arm, he grasped that of the fierce Gallician. Vindictive and maddened
as he was, his strength was not equal to that of Roderick, and though the latter
could neither overthrow him, nor wrest from him his knife, yet was it equally impracticable
for him to inflict any injury with it upon his regal opponent. Thus they
stood—thu they strove, like two angry demons, contending fearfully, yet in vain,
while all were striving around them. But though Toro could do no harm to his
foe, his grasp kept him in a situation which momently exposed him to the assaults
of others, and but for the desperate devotion of his guards, Roderick must then have
perished. But they clung to him in his peril with a fidelity worthy a far nobler service.
They fought and fell—the plebeian knife was drenched in their blood, without
discouraging those who yet survived. They girded their master to the last—
presenting their weapons like men, and unsparing of their own bosoms while seeking
to cover his. One of them grappled Toro and sought to tear him from his hold;
but he, in turn, was seized by one of the populace, and fell a victim to his boldness.
The crisis was momently becoming more fearful to the environed monarch. His
guards were diminishing—the mob growing proportionably strong, and from their obvious
advantage, more and more resolute and wild. A shudder, but not of fear, convulsed
the frame of Roderick, as he became conscious of this fact. To die thus
ignobly—in such a strife—bound like a slave—without arms—without even a breathing
field and room to struggle; this was not merely to die, but to die shamefully.
Toro felt his convulsion, though it lasted but for an instant, while he grappled him.

“Ha! tyrant! dost thou tremble! Thou hast slain the weak and the innocent—
the trembling innocent; who could not help themselves, nor hurt thee! Yet thou
tremblest!”

“Not with the fear of thee or them, slave!” was the fearless reply of the monarch,
as he strove with renewed but unsuccessful efforts, to extricate himself from
the iron grasp which the Gallician had taken. Toro with clenched teeth replied:

“Slave though I be, it will not be long ere I am thy master—master of thy life.
Look, tyrant! they come. Ho! men! slaves and knaves, hasten! Here is work
for you. Ha! ha! ha! Dost see them—dost see them? Look! they hasten.
What though I strike thee not myself; yet I bind thee for the knife! Ho! there!
Will you not strike?”

A gigantic serf from the mountains of Asturia sprang forward, and vainly did the
presented spear of one of the soldiers seek to arrest his progress. An unarmed
peasant of Andalusia threw himself forward upon the extended shaft, and it snapped
like a brittle reed beneath his weight. The arm of the Asturian was lifted; his
knife pointed to the king's bosom, and no seeming hope of his escaped remained. But
nothing daunted, though weaponless, motionless, and at the mercy of the peasant,
the king abated none of his fearless spirit. Gazing steadfastly at the enemy, he
exclaimed with a stern voice:

“Slave! wouldst thou strike thy sovereign? I am Roderick the Goth.”

The very name of his victim appalled the executioner. The mark was too high
for the soul of the peasant, and he sank back among the crowd, with more terror
than had troubled the bosom of him whom he had threatened.

The peril was passed. That moment saved Roderick. A new ally came to his
aid. Shouts rang from the scattered soldiers, who still fought, though feebly, with
different bodies of the populace, unable to help their master, or to extricate themselves.
The shouts went warm and cheering to the almost hopeless monarch. He
turned a quick, momentary glance around him, and beheld charging horsemen. The
sight had its effect, though of a different nature upon the Gallician. Vainly now
did Toro strive to use his knife. The king was invigorated by hope, and his enemy
strove without success. The horseman came on rapidly to the charge, and taken in
the rear, the populace were seized with consternation. They were beaten down on
every side. Two hundred armed and well mounted warriors were upon them,
hewing fiercely among the undaunted and half-exhausted peasants. A voice from
his new allies came to the ears of Roderick, and it no less astounded than cheered
him. It was the voice of one upon whom of late he had not counted. It was the
archbishop Oppas, who came to his rescue, heading his own retainers.

“Rid me of this knave, my lord Oppas, and name thy own reward!” cried the
king, as the archbishop approached him. Toro released his hold upon the king, in
order to encounter the new comer; but Roderick relaxed not his. He held the arm
of the Gallician, while the huge mace of the archbishop descended thrice upon his
head. The second blow had slain him, and the brother lay in death by the mangled
remains of the hapless maiden whom he did not desire to survive. The fight was
ended with the blow; but Toro was not the only sacrifice to the fury which he had
helped to provoke. Nearly three hundred serfs perished, along with a goodly number
of the soldiers by whose arms they fell. Yet, among the carcases that strewed
that unhappy field of blood, they found not that of Romano. Devotion had
achieved its object, and the sacred bones had been carried to a place of safety and
concealment, long ere the strife had ended.

8. CHAPTER VIII.

This scene of tumult and terror which we have endeavored, though feebly, to
describe, though seemingly irrelevant to the progress of our narrative, was yet not
without its influence in favor of one of its chief personages. It gave an opportunity
to Egiza to emerge from his place of concealment, and advance boldly through the
garden to the rear of the palace, before the courts of which the strife was still going
on. He heard the clamor, he beheld the rapid progress of the guards, as, in obedience
to the prevailing necessity, they were drawn from their several stations, in
order to make head against the insurgents; and, though he had not the least idea of

the cause of such commotion, he readily divined that it arose from some outbreak
of the popular spirit. As the guards left the garden, he approached the palace, and
giving no heed, and scarcely an ear, to the loud shouting and fierce cries in front, he
was only solicitous to seek and see the one ruling object of his thoughts and his affections.
Not with such a spirit as this would his brother, the single-minded Pelayo,
have welcomed such a commotion. He would have hailed it as the beginning of a
strife in which he was secure of triumph. To rouse the spirit of the populace against
their tyrant had been the labor and the wish of both. It had been a tedious labor,
and it seemed almost to be a hopeless desire. They had toiled long, and with results
which imperfectly corresponded with their efforts. But here the work was executed
to their hands. The people were awake, aroused, angry, and in arms. They
needed nothing but a leader, and in him they would have found one who would not
so soon have suffered the fire of so noble a spirit to have been so shamefully extinguished.
Quick to see the opportunity, prompt to secure it, the energies of
Pelayo would have annihilated Roderick by a concentrated movement of his entire
masses upon the conspicuous tyrant long before any succour could have reached
him. A far different spirit controlled the movement of Egiza. Though brave enough,
with his foe immediately before him, he lacked that sleepless energy of character
which would have prompted him to go in search of his foe, and enable him to
seize upon all events calculated to bring about the issue which he desired. He did
not think, as he beheld the rush and consternation of the guards, that their panic
declared the situation of their master, or if he did, he did not further deliberate upon
the application of this panic to the noble purposes of his people's liberty, for which
he had set forth with Pelayo, and for the security of which the latter was still nobly
striving. Feeble and vascillating, with a heart filled with a softer fire than that of
freedom, and a spirit which was too selfishly devoted ever to serve a nation in its
hour of danger, the hapless prince, ignorant as yet that all was lost, or worse than
lost, for which he had striven, hurried on without interruption to the foot of the
tower in which Cava was a prisoner. Had he known her fate for whom he toiled,
his feet had taken a different direction. He would then have done for personal vengeance
what Pelayo had done for his people.

Let us return to the inmates of the palace. The clamor which had aroused Roderick,
and challenged his presence in the fearful melee which we have witnessed
had drawn the queen and her handmaids to the massy towers which looked upon
the area, where, watching and trembling, they saw a part of that commotion on the
termination of which depended their own fates. The defeat of Roderick would have
been a signal for their own destruction, since the infuriated populace, it was but
reasonable to believe, would have ravaged the palace, where they well knew there
was so much treasure to reward plunder, and so much that was tempting to the lustful
and licentious. Their apprehensions came not to Cava. She knew, indeed, that
strife was going on. Perhaps, too, there were moments when she thought that there
might be danger—that death might follow to thousands from that strife; and that
she, too, might fall the victim of the unsparing sword. But the fear of death was
no longer a fear in the bosom of the once timid Cava. She had resolved upon death.
It was life only that had fears—it was life only that teemed with terrors. She
dreaded that her living eye should again encounter those of the beloved and the venerated.
She dreaded to see her father—she shuddered when she thought that she
might again behold her lover. And yet, when she thought of his danger, and of the
fierce tyrant in whose presence she believed him to be; when she thought upon the
cruel death which awaited him—which, perhaps, had already befallen him—her love
grew predominant, and, for a while, she trembled for him with an anxiety that

almost wrought a forgetfulness of her own despair. How glad would she be to die
for him—to arrest the cruel blow—to brave the deadly rage of the tyrant. She sank
upon her knees as she thought upon his dangers. She strove to pray, but she could
not. The moment that she demanded the Almighty presence, she flelt that His eye
looked upon her shame; she felt that it was a God of vengeance and not one of
mercy to whom her spirit, in its fervent mood, could properly address itself. Her
prayer took a different direction. She no longer prayed for the safety of her lover;
she prayed rather for his death.

“If he love me—if he hold in his heart, oh! blessed Mother of God!” she cried,
with hands and eyes uplifted to the “Mother of Grief,” who looked down from the
gloomy walls upon her—“if he hold in his heart but half the love for me which
I have in mine, then grant that the axe has fallen upon his neck; that he may no
longer see—that he may never hear my shame, till, like himself, I shall cease to
look upon earth, and hear its cruel sounds—till, like himself, with thy mediation,
Blessed Mother, and the mercy of thy Son, I am a dweller in a better world, where
lust is shut out, and where the tyrant may not come.”

Even while she prayed thus, a voice—a gentle, but quick and anxious voice—
reached her ears from below. She trembled in every limb as she heard it. Too
well she knew that voice. Its tones, gentle and soliciting, rebuked her for her
prayer. She had prayed for his death; dared she now look upon his face?—dared
she encounter that eye which she had just now desired should be sealed for ever in
the eternal night of death? She dared not—yet she must. She had not wished to
see him; she had feared this interview—yet he had come opportunely. Her revenge
was in her thoughts, and she felt that she could not die until her father knew
her wrong. This passion strengthened her, and, with an apprehensive thought that
was like an instinct, she had planned her purpose ere she rose from her knees
to approach the window looking out upon the garden whence the sound arose,
meanwhile, the appealing tones once more reached her ears, and she heard the rustling
of the boughs beneath. He had climbed one of the trees of the garden, almost
immediately below the window, and its thick umbrage half screened him from her
sight, while effectually hiding him from all scrutiny of others, had there been any,
from below. She brushed the tears from her eyes ere she sought the window. It
was now her object to conceal all traces of her suffering—all such traces, at least,
as should speak for her peculiar injuries. She did so. Her voice was bland, musical,
and if not lively, at least not sad, when she replied to his first inquiries.

“Cava, sweet Cava!” he exclaimed; “you are safe, well, unharmed?” was his
first anxious question; and it spoke and demanded volumes in answer She did not
answer it—not then, at least.

“Nay, heed me not, Egiza; speak for yourself; tell me, are you safe? Are you
secure from danger? Has the tyrant freed you. Are you not pursued?”

“I am safe, dearest—safe, as you behold me; but I am not freed, and may be
pursued I am a fugitive, and must fly soon and far. But of me—nothing. Tell
me, my own love—say to me, Cava—give me a sign—a look; wave but your handkerchief
to tell me that you are mine—solely mine; that you are not”—

The waving of the handkerchief interrupted his speech. Well did she understand
the import of his interrogation. Grateful, indeed, was she that he had suggested a
form of reply which would obviate the necessity for speech. A nice delicacy had
prompted him to this, and she had seized upon it with avidity. The falsehood may
be forgiven; she prayed fervently that it might; she did not intend to deceive him
long, and the pang was great at her heart that she was compelled to do so even for
a moment. A brief time was consumed by him in congratulations; and he then

urged upon her to join him in flight. But the bolts were closed without; the walls
of her chamber were high, and the means of her descent wanting. Nor would she
have assented, even were flight possible. She had other purposes, and she proceeded
to their execution.

“I cannot join you now, Egiza; but I will shortly prepare to do so. Meanwhile,
my lord, I pray you to receive this letter. Convey it with instant dispatch to my
father—nay, you need not go yourself, but send it by some trusty hand. This done,
come instantly to me, and I will then join you, at the foot of this tower.”

She threw him the epistle prepared for her father, which we have already read.
He descended from the tree, and picked it from the ground where it had fallen.

“I go, dearest Cava; yet greatly do I dread to leave you. I fear”—

“Fear nothing!” she replied, in tones of solemnity, very unlike those which she
had employed in the brief interview preceding, and which brought an instant feeling
of disquiet to his heart.

“How, dearest?” he exclaimed. “What is my security—what is thine, against this
tyrant? Do I not leave you in his power—in the walls of his accursed palace? And
is there not everything to fear from his still more accursed lust?”

“No, nothing!” she replied, in tones of reassuring confidence—“be sure, my lord,
I have nothing to fear; you know not how strong I have become since we were torn
asunder. I have a talisman which will shield me from all further wrong. I am
safe from him—from all—from everything, save thy hate, thy scorn, Egiza, thy
loathing! Tell me, am I safe from that, Egiza? Wilt thou love me—wilt thou
promise to love me ever, my lord? Say that thou wilt ere thou leavest me.”

“How, my Cava—wherefore this—what mean thy words? I scorn—I loathe
thee, dearest? Wherefore should I? Wherefore shouldst thou fear such injustice at
my hands? Believe me, sweetest Cava, I love thee; I shall ever love thee; I cannot
help but love thee!”

“Bless thee, my lord—Heaven bless thee, that thou sayest so; yet would I have
thee swear it; swear it by the Holy Mother ere thou leavest me; swear it, and come
then, when thou hast dispatched the mission to my father—come quickly and receive
me. I will then be all thine—in life, in death, for ever more—thine, and thine
only!”

“By the Holy Mother—by the Blessed Jesus, I do swear it, my Cava; and if I
speak thee falsely in this, may I perish!”

“Thanks, thanks! Fly now,” she exclaimed—“fly now, my lord; thou wilt
find me at thy coming.”

He kissed his united hands to her, and turned away to leave the garden. Her
eye watched him in his progress till the folding umbrage concealed him from her sight,
She then turned within the apartment, and once more addressed herself to prayer
before the image of the Virgin, whom she implored for strength with all the solicitude
of one about to set forth upon a journey of great toil and greater peril.

9. CHAPTER IX.

Buoyant, with a lightness of spirit which for many days before he had not felt,
Egiza rapidly made his way across the garden. There was no obstruction to his
progress. The guards as we have already seen were all withdrawn, to engage in
the strife in the palace court in front, and were not yet permitted to return. Indeed,
the strife, or rather the slaughter, was not yet over. The fierce Roderick had not

yet glutted his vengeance, nor appeased his anger. The mere dispersion of the fugitives
was not enough for a mood so sanguinary as that which marked his character;
and long after opposition had ceased that day, did his keen sword drink of
the blood of those who were neither bold enough to fight nor swift enough to fly.
Murder succeeded to strife, and drunk with gore, and wanton in due degree with
the absence of opposition, his features and his deeds, not more deadly than before,
were yet more fearfully foul. The sanguinary career of the tyrant was scarcely
over, when Egiza emerged from the garden. He had made the same cautious circuit
of the ground in effecting his departure, as he had chosen at his first entrance; and
the way was long, before he could compass the extensive courts and wings of the
palace, spreading up as they did, even from the golden bedded river to the opening
valley within which, and immediately contiguous, the city stood. What a sight
then met his eye! Trails of blood marked the ground around him, and denoted the
flight of the wounded fugitives. Faint cries of flight echoed along the distant hills,
and indicated the apprehensions of those who still fled, or the agonies of those
whom the murderers had overtaken. Hurrying groups, in which women were quite
as numerous as men, having reached a supposed perch of safety, on the hill tops,
paused to survey the bloody scene from which they had just escaped; and the immediate
field of battle was now absolutely bare of all those who yet lived, either
for pursuit or flight. None but the dead were there—the piled bodies, crushed,
mangled and trampled down—with faces lifted to the sun, as if challenging compassion
and Heaven's vengeance—alone testified to the cruel horrors of the strife in
which they had perished.

The whole scene struck Egiza with no less surprise than horror. When had
these deeds been done? What was the occasion? Who had been the parties? He
now remembered the shouts and clamors which he had heard, as he was about to
enter the garden. He had also seen the departure of the guards from the enclosure
toward the courts in front; and to their absence he well knew he was to attribute
the impunity with which he had penetrated to the tower, in which Cava was confined;
but so completely had his soul and thought been given up to her—so entirely
had her situation and supposed danger, absorbed all other objects in his mind,
that the battle in the courts in front, if waged immediately beneath his eye, would,
it is more than probable, have called for as little of his regard as did the various
circumstances which had challenged, without heed, his consideration. He looked
now with horror and sufficient consciousness upon the bloody prospect before him.
While he gazed he heard the cries of the returning soldiers, and, following the lead
of one who seemed a spectator like himself, he turned aside for security into a
little recess formed by two jutting walls of one wing of the very prison from which
he had escaped the night before. The propinquity of this prison annoyed him,
and he would have left it, but that the soldiery was at hand. He heard their shouts,
and looking forth cautiously, caught a glimpse of his uncle, the lord Oppas, at their
head. The mystery of the connection was doubly increased as he surveyed the
archbishop—armed in mail from top to toe, and carrying a mace, which had evidently
done fearful execution in the conflict. How could he have fought? was the
question with Egiza—not for Roderick? and if he fought against him, was he not
a conquerer? He rode as such, in full armor, unrestrained, and a goodly troop,
wearing his household badge, were following at his heels. The joyous thought
came to his mind that Roderick was no more—that Oppas had headed the successful
insurrection, and that the path of safety and happiness, henceforward, lay open
to himself and Cava. The dream was dissipated in a moment after, when Roderick,
unhurt, and with weapon bare, came bounding furiously forward to the side of the

archbishop. The vindictive fire still blazed in his dark eye, and overspread his
fierce features and crimson face. His arm not less than his weapon, had been literally
drenched in blood, and the dark stains extended beyond his elbows. His
helmet was off—lost in the melee—and the black hair was, in many places, dyed
with the same bloody tokens of the recent strife, while his hoarse voice shouting
his approbation to lord Oppas, proclaimed him sufficiently the victor. With a
countenance in which exultation and ferocity were mingled pretty equally, he looked
round upon the field which was every where marked with the trophies of the strife;
and his ferocity was increased, and his exultation somewhat diminished, as he beheld
how many of his own guards were mingled with the carcasses of the unhappy
peasantry, whom he had slaughtered. His jealous eye looked round greedily,
as if to see that there were no other victims yet to strike, and bitter was the fury
which he expressed to Oppas, when he remarked that one-third of the number of
his guards had perished in the conflict, being nearly half the number of the half-armed
peasantry whom they had slain.

“The base curs, but they shall pay for this!” he exclaimed. “By saint Jupiter,
but they shall! I will have a bonfire of these carcasses, by the light of which I
will hang up an hundred of their brethren. But for you, my lord Oppas, I had
perished by the hand of that villian mule-driver—his knife was at my throat, and
the hand which held him back from the stroke, was well nigh palsied ere you came.
I have done you wrong, my lord bishop—I will do you right. You shall not say
that the king of the Romans is ungrateful, though truly you may complain that he
hath been unjust. I have been deceived, my lord bishop. Busy and jealous spirits
were about me, counselling me against thee, and proclaiming thee a traitor, along
with that outlawed brood of Witiza. I have erred, my lord bishop—the Goth has
erred. He can say no more.”

He extended his bloody hand as he spoke, and the wily archbishop grasped it
with an air of mingled gladness and humility, as he replied:

“Nor need you to have said thus much, oh Roderick! I feared not that I
should have justice in season, at thy hands. Well I knew, that busy tongues had
done me wrong to thy ears—and deeply did I feel the severity which followed it.
But I am more than gratified now, since thou hast permitted me to think that I have
rendered thee a service in a moment of necessity.”

“A service!” exclaimed the king. “By Hercules, I tell thee thou hast saved
my life. My blood, ere this, hadst thou not put in when thou didst, had reddened
the knife of that infernal mule-driver. Nay, never mince the matter—I tell thee, it
is so. My hand that grappled his lifted arm, and stayed the stroke, was failing me
—numbed, almost paralysed with the long strain upon it. I feel it now, to my
elbow. I had not counted the holy twelve, ere it had utterly given way, when thou
camest to my help. I owe thee a life, my lord bishop—a life, which I might have
lost, while my lieutenant Edeco, here, was adjusting his gorget.”

A smile of bitter scorn played upon the lips of the king, as, looking round upon
Edeco, he uttered these words. In nowise discomposed, the latter casually responded:

“Not so, oh Roderick! and I marvel that thou shouldst mistake the yellow
fingers of the Bascon, who made free with my poor throat, for those of your espatorio.
I owe the bishop a life also, oh king; since the good onslaught, which
saved you from the muleteer, gave me pleasant release from the most cruelly oppressive
fingers that ever yet troubled my gorget. A fellow bearing your badge, my
lord Oppas, clove the Bascon's skull, and not till then, would he be pursuaded to release
my throat. I would I knew the fellow, that I might pay him the value of a life”

“Let the sum be small—a leovogild, or so,” was the half-scornful, half-playful
reply of Roderick. “For,” he continued, “hadst thou counted it at more thyself,
thou surely hadst striven for it better, I saw not thy strokes—I heard not even thy
shouts, which should have cheered our men. My own voice grew hoarse in its
labors to remedy the lack of thine.”

“And wouldst thou have had me, oh Roderick! mingle sounds so unseemly?
What ear would have noted the war-cry of the espatorio, when it was ringing with
that of the king. But I did cry aloud, oh Roderick—I had need to do so, for the
knaves pressed me sorely, and never did I behold men hang back more lazily than
ours. I had need to cry aloud and spare not, and, but for thy own shouts, oh king!
thou must have heard me.”

“Ay, methinks I did hear certain clamorous entreaties for mercy, which seemed
to come from the quarter where thou sayest thou fought. The voice was small and
soothing—it had an air of the chamber, Edeco, which was marvellously like to
thine.”

“By the ghost of Cæsar, king Roderick!” cried the courtier, with a greater degree
of earnestness than was his wont, “but thou dost me wrong. I struck many and
weighty blows—I fought like a true man—and my cry was not for mercy, but for
vengeance and battle. Would I cry for mercy to such dripping knaves? Would
I take life at their hands? By my beard, no!”

“A brief oath!” cried the king, laughing—“and a carefully trimmed one. Thou
hast brought thy credit to a narrow point, Edeco, and a little of the oil of beasts,
such as they sell to thee at such cost from Tangier, will make all smooth to thy
conscience.”

The popinjay stroked complacently the inverted pyramid of bristles that depended
from his chin; and smiling good humoredly, but contemptuously, the king turned
from his favorite to the archbishop. The contrast between the two, forced itself at
this moment more than ever before his consideration. The sleek effeminacy, and
loose, voluptuous air of one, compared unfavorably with the lofty, inflexible demeanor,
the fearless manhood, the erect carriage, and the almost barbarian simplicity
and sternness of look, which distinguished the archbishop. He was clothed in a
suit of full armor, plaited but plain, of bright steel; and the heavy mace, which he
bore, of the same metal, covered with blood-stains, which were not yet dry, carried
with it indubitable testimony that he who bore it was not merely a carpet-knight.
Admirably did the war habit which he wore, become lord Oppas; and we may add,
studiously and with the most elaborate care had it been chosen by the wearer. He
was not insensible to the fine symmetry, the superior manhood, and the noble carriage
of his person—and the very opportunity of appearing in the splendid military
costume of that age, was to him a matter of infinite gratification. Yet did he conceal
this little vanity of heart, by a careful sobriety of countenance, and a reverential
form of speech. While he fought manfully, he deplored war; and only
recognised its propriety in regard of the leading necessity, which left no other alternative
between that and greater immoralities.

“By my faith, lord Oppas, but you are a warrior!” cried the king, as he surveyed
him. “The coat of mail better fits your limbs than the surplice; and the
mace in thy hands is a far more imposing object than the crosier. I will look me
out a husband for the church, who bears himself less vigorously in fight than thou!
What sayest thou, Edeco, if I wed thee to the Gothic church? She is a rich damsel
—indulgent, too, to the select; thou will have infinite time for thy caparison, and
thy privileges—but let my lord Oppas tell thee of them. He shall be eloquent, if
I err not, in his speech of them; and let him tell thee but half, I look to have thee

don the cassock with impatient haste, and hurry with even greater speed to the
confessional. Ha! my lord bishop, have I touched thee, ha! But for thy privileges—nay,
I know it—but for thy privileges, thou hadst been a warrior—thou
hadst striken heads, rather than hearts; and I will wager an Andalusian damsel
against one of thy golden candlesticks that thou hadst done more good in quelling
rebellious men, than thou hast ever done, in censuring dreaming women. Ha! wilt
thou wager, my lord bishop. If thou wilt”—

Egiza heard nothing more, and the sentence was concluded by a burst of broken
laughter from the king, which seemed to follow some reply of Edeco. The cavalcade
were now passing the open court, in one of the recesses of which the prince
found shelter. He concealed himself, as they now passed, behind one of the massive
projecting buttresses of the wall; while the stranger, who had likewise sought
concealment in the same area, sank behind a corresponding projection of the wall
opposite. It was then, while the tyrant and his train were passing; while the
tramp of the heavy horsemen, and the clattering of armor, and the confused hum of
voices were in his ears—even then, audible beyond all other sounds, and mingling
with them strongly and painfully, came to the senses of the prince a stifled moan,
followed by bitter and broken accents, from the bottom of the recess behind him.
The voice was that of a woman, and he turned involuntarily at the sound. He was
surprised and startled. Such had been his hurry and excitement upon first seeking
the shelter of the court, which was deep and spacious, that he had failed to see that
it was already occupied in front. He now started, and shuddered with horror at the
cruel picture which he had not marked before. An old woman sat upon the ground,
with a young girl and a youth before her, both of whom were dead. The head of
the former rested upon her lap—a hand of the latter was clasped in one of her own.
This she let fall, as the train of the tyrant came in sight, and her withered arms
were lifted to Heaven in imprecation as it passed. The bitter words which she
uttered were partly audible to Egiza, but not to those in whose denunciation they
were uttered. Few were the words, yet dreadful was the curse which she uttered
in that moment. With laughter on his lips Roderick passed by, unconscious of,
and indifferent to, the miseries which he had brought upon the land; but the wretched
and desolate woman cursed him not the less, as she saw that he heard her not.
Her appeal was to Heaven, and through Heaven's judgment only could she hope to
have her imprecation descend upon the head of him who had despoiled her of her
children. She was the mother of the fearless Toro, and the gentle girl, his sister,
for whose safety he had striven so unsuccessfully, and for whom, indeed, he had
perished. Had it not been necessary for her extrication, he had not remained in the
crowd. She had unwisely followed him, and the anguish which he suffered, even
ere she had fallen a victim in the strife, and the apprehensions which he felt on her
account, were more painful to his heart, than any blow which he suffered in his
person. But they neither suffered now; and the soldiers who slew, and the tyrant
who permitted and provoked the slaughter, passed on without emotion to the proud
palace and the pampering feast. Little thought had they of the thousands whose
humble cottages they had that day filled with misery and death. Few were the
reflections, and slight the commiseration, which, in that period, the prince gave to
his people. Man had not then risen to command the rights of humanity. His
rights then were those of service, not sympathy. He had limbs and sinews, could
procure arms, and possessed a valor which feared not to grapple with the forest
lion; but he lacked the few crowning thoughts, which could concentrate his own
powers and those of his kindred in a common cause. Barbarians are individuals—
not men. They feel a common necessity, but they lack a common purpose. Could

the brave Toro have been heard, when he spoke of the common danger; could he
have been followed, when his hand pointed out the common direction, which their
own safety counselled them to take, his own cottage, and those of hundreds besides,
had not been desolate that night. But the Avenger was at hand, and the imprecation
of the aged woman had not been spoken idly. The blood of the murdered had gone
up to Heaven, and rang in thunder-tones through the eternal vaults. Even then
the bolt was aimed at the offender, and the Angel of Divine Wrath stood with unfolded
wing at the eternal portals, waiting but the fiat which should send him forth
on his work of annihilation.

10. CHAPTER X.

Egiza had not beheld the efforts of the Gallician in the strife in which he perished;
he had not seen his fiery energies striving to the last, for the rescue first, and
finally for the avenging of his innocent sister. He felt, consequently, but little or
none of that interest in the fortunes of the group which a previous knowledge of
events must have inspired. But there was still enough that was painfully picturesque
in the situation to rivet his regard. It had been a scene for the patriot painter,
seeking to leave a record of the fruits of despotism, which should be an argument to
all succeeding ages. When the cavalcade of Roderick had gone by, and it was safe
for him to emerge from the buttress, in the rear of which he stood, he hurried with
a painful sort of curiosity to the back part of the recess, where the group found
shelter, anxious to learn the particulars of their history, the catastrophe of which,
so far, was amply delivered in the two silent forms now lying beside their lonely
mother. The man who had found a similar cover with himself, on the approach of
Roderick's party, behind another buttress of the walls, as if moved by a like curiosity,
followed his steps—and they both stood, but without speech, in the presence
of the woman. She looked up after a pause of a few brief moments, in which her
lips had moved, though in the utterance of no distinguishable words.

“What come ye for?” she demanded; “ye can do them no more hurt. Feel
them, they move not—they have no more life. But this morning the boy brought
me water. Look now!” She raised his head as she spoke, and let it fall suddenly
upon her lap. The blood and matter oozed out from the cloven skull as she did so,
and lay in clotted masses upon her garments; but she seemed not to heed; while,
lifting the head of the girl with more of tenderness, she subjected it to a like test,
and allowed it to fall with its own unresisted weight upon the lap beside that of her
brother.

“Is't not enough?” she demanded. “Would you give them more blows? You
may, but they cannot feel them. Go, take away your bloody axes from my sight.
You would not strike the dead. No, take them away.”

“We have no axes, good mother. You mistake us,” said the prince. “We are
not soldiers—our hands have not done this.”

“I see them—think you to hide them from me? But I care not—I fear them not.
Perhaps, it is me that you would strike now. Toro said you would. He always
said that the soldiers would as soon strike a woman as a man, and perhaps sooner,
since then they had not so much to fear in return. But you may strike—strike,
only give me time to say a prayer, and perhaps a curse. I would curse—it is easier
to curse than to pray, when one's children are murdered. Toro, I will curse for
you first, and the curse shall be upon the Gothic men! For you Toly, I will curse

all the Gothie women!—let the devils hear!—let them come out of the tombs and
hear, for I would give them work. Are you not a Goth?” she suddenly exclaimed
to Egiza; but without waiting for his reply she continued, and her features assumed
a horrible and ghastly expression of rage as she spoke, as if they had been those of
one long familiar with curses, and thrice blasted of Heaven. “Go! I curse you
with many deaths!—with the death of all that love you!—with the death of all
that you love!—may you eat of your own hearts, bloody Goths that ye are! Go
to Roderick your master, and may ye perish like him! I curse ye all, for ye have
cursed me!”

“But we are not Goths. I, at least, am not a Goth!” was the exclamation of
Egiza.

“Nor I, mother!” hurriedly repeated the stranger, as if to divert the curse of the
desolate woman.

“It matters not!” she exclaimed. “If ye are not Goths, what are ye? Ye are
not men, or ye had not suffered these things. Ye are the base slaves of the Goth—
that serve his sway, and do his bidding; and I curse ye—with a worse curse than I
have for him! Had ye been men, ye would have fought like Toro; and then he had
lived, and Toly had lived, and I had been happy with my children; but now I have
none. Do ye not hear? Go! I give ye curses for company to travel with! Leave
me now, or handle your axes! I care not how soon you strike!”

She drew the dead bodies at the same moment in a fervent embrace to her bosom,
and looked not up once at the spectators, nor uttered another word to them, while
they remained. The scene was too painful for contemplation, and they simultaneously
turned away from it. When they had reached the outer wall of the court,
Egiza remarked more narrowly the person of his companion, and beheld with some
satisfaction that he wore upon his bosom the leathern pocket, or pannier, which
was the certain sign of the courier. This discovery delighted him.

“You are a courier?” he said.

“I am, father,” was the reply; and it reminded Egiza, that he wore the habit of
the Caulian friars.

“I would employ you then,” said Egiza. “I would have you ride with all
speed to the fortress of count Julian at Algeziras, and it may be that you will have
to pass to Ceuta. Bear this letter to the lieutenant in safety, and your reward shall
be suitable to your labor. He is a generous prince; you will not speed in vain;
and, in earnest that you shall not, here are ten leovogilds! Will you speed on this
journey?”

The man closed with him instantly, and received the money.

“What time will it be before you start?—I would have you proceed quickly,”
was the farther address of the prince.

“I will but pause to bait my horse,” was the reply. “An hour will find me on
my way to Algeziras.”

“Enough! Thou wilt deliver the missive into no hand but that of count Julian;
he will reward thee for greater trouble in so doing.”

“I believe it, father. His hand shall take it from my own. The blessed Virgin
hear me as I promise, and help me as I perform. Father, your blessing.”

The courier knelt to Egiza before he could interrupt him; and the latter, deeming
it better to maintain his assumed, than risk the exposure of his real character,
without scruple conferred the blessing which was solicited; an offence, for which
he prayed forgiveness from Heaven, the moment that he was alone. Speeding the
courier upon his way, he hurried back in the direction of the royal garden, where
the woman of his heart awaited him.

11. CHAPTER XI.

She awaited him, but how! Little did he imagine the sort of reception which he
was to have, as he hastened, with a buoyant heart, to the spot where she had
pledged herself to meet him. Little did he dream that all the toils which he had
undergone, and all the sacrifices which he had made, for the single object of his
devotion, were undergone and performed without avail. He was now to experience
the just reward of his narrow selfishness. Heedless of what was due to his
people, to justice, to freedom, and to his father's memory, he had been meanly
solicitous of his own enjoyment, without any of the cares of life; and to secure this
object, he had basely shuffled off all the solemn responsibilities of his birth, as a
prince and citizen, alike. He was now about to be taught the noble truth that the
cause of liberty is the common cause of man; and that no station can be secure,
whether high or humble—no happiness certain, whether lofty or unpretending, in
any land where injustice remains unpunished, and where tyranny is suffered to
obtain a foothold.

With the last lingering look upon her lover, as he left her to seek the courier
who was to convey the letter to her father, the unhappy Cava had addressed herself
to prayer. That parting with Egiza was the last—such was her resolve; and,
strive as she might, she felt that she could not pray. A dark shadow waved its
arms constantly between her eyes and the image of the Virgin. The features
seemed to contract, and the brow to frown upon her. The benevolence which had
looked forth upon her from the maternal eyes had departed, and she felt that she
had sinned in her resolve, and was about to do a farther and a greater sin in its
execution. The tears ran down her cheeks as she prayed for mercy—for indulgence;
but the frown passed not away from the features to which she looked, and
the dark shadow waved its arms more frequently before her eyes, and finally shut
out the blessed image entirely from her sight.

“Oh, mother! desert me not,” she cried; “desert me not! Thou knowest that I
have not sinned in this dreadful suffering; that I strove against the sin; that I
called upon thee all the while. I called upon thee, mother, but thou didst not come.”

Once more her eyes caught a glimpse of the blessed features, and they seemed to
smile upon her; but the prayer of her lips, the next moment, again brought with it
a blindness of the sight, as it denoted a greater blindness of the spirit.

“Take pity on me, Mother of God!—pity on the poor handmaiden, who kneels
to thee. Be thou before me, oh blessed Mary!—be thou before me at the Burning
Throne; soften the eyes that look upon me—plead for me, and win the grace for
me in mercy, which, through the intercession of thy son Jesus, thou canst well
command. Thou knowest that I cannot live; I cannot live for the scorn of those I
love—for those that should have loved me. I cannot meet their eyes. I dare not
look upon them. I must die!”

The once gentle features scowled upon her, and a voice at her very heart appeared
to say:

“And art thou more bold to meet God, whom thou now seekest willingly to
offend? Art thou less ready to look upon man than upon God? Is the Eternal
Love nothing to thee; and is the mortal love everything? Foolish and sinful that
thou art, seest thou not that what is pure and worthy in the love of earth, is a part of
God's love which He resumes at death, and which lives for thee evermore hereafter?

Be not blind to offend God. Live for prayer—live for His love and mercy, if not for
the mercy and the love of man.”

“Would I could!” exclaimed the desperate woman, as if in reply to this exhortation.
“Would I could dare to live, to meet his face, to serve his bidding, to be in
his presence ever. But I am not strong enough.”

A voice at her ear seemed to her to say:

“Thou art not!” and the shadow swelled and distended as she listened, until her
eyes swam in the increasing darkness, and her extended hands grasped the wall below
the image of the Virgin, to whom she vainly stretched them for support. The
evil prompter had triumphed. The soft features of the Mother of Grief no longer
looked forth upon her, or looked forth only in rebuke. She rose from her knees.
She hurried to the recess in which she had hidden the letter to Egiza. This she
grasped in her hands, as she hurried to the lofty window. She climbed—she stood
upon the ledge, another step and she was upon the balustrade, and nothing now
remained, but God, between her and the awful precipice. She turned her eyes once
more within the room in search of the Virgin, but she saw not even the picture.
A hand seemed to grasp her throat. She strove for breath—she was choking with
her terrors, but she suppressed them:

“Let me not feel it, mother—my flesh shivers—I would not feel the pain. I am
dizzy—I—ah! I reel—I fall—Mother of God—Blessed Mary, help me—stay me—
keep me back—I would not perish now—I would live!”

These were her last words as she disappeared from the window. She had
repented of her resolve; but too late. Her head was dizzy with her elevation—her
knees gave way beneath her—and her last appeal, her last resolution to live, came
from the first physical consciousness of her inability any longer to maintain her
perilous position. Yet, as if the reluctant repentance was still in season, the cruel
pain of the death which she had chosen, was spared her. Ere yet she reached the
end of that fearful flight—ere yet her delicate limbs came in contact with the unyielding
and cold earth, all consciousness had departed, and she felt nothing after.
One part of her prayer seemed to have been heard by the Blessed Spirit to whom
she addressed it, and permitted by the indulgent God. She had been spared the
pang from which her flesh had shrunk in apprehension, and the earth seemed to
have received her as gently as it does the traveller who sinks into a passing slumber
by the wayside.

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.