University of Virginia Library

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.