University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

The disappearance of Roderick from the field was the signal for a general rout.
The thousand brave young cavaliers who had formed his body guard, thinned terribly
in the previous conflict, now perished to a man in covering his flight. The
victory was soon complete, and the Arab and Bedouin horsemen hurried in the
dread pursuit, gleaning the fugitives with the edge of the scymitar as they vainly
sought refuge among the contiguous hills, or strove with uncertain and fainting
footsteps to shelter themselves within the neighboring town of Xeres. The pursuit
was unsparing and vindictive, and the slaughter terrible. The panic of the Asturian
army was such that they lacked the nerve to rally, and the few bodies of men that

endeavored to hold together, under cool and resolute leaders, were annihilated in
the onward sweep of the Moorish squadrons.

It was while the Arabians were thus hotly engaged in the pursuit of the fugitives,
or more gratefully occupied still in despoiling the gorgeous camp of Roderick, that
the Archbishop Oppas, at the head of a chosen body of men, followed the footsteps
of Egilona and the court. This wily priest had so admirably made his arrangements,
that his creatures directed the course of the flying cavalcade while his spies
followed close and reported to him its direction. It was with feelings of indescribable
exultation that he beheld his calculations all verified, and felt himself on the eve
of realizing all his audacious hopes. Already the objects of pursuit rose on his vision;
and the gorgeous and flowing robes of the women might be seen momently
gleaming to his eye, as they wound above the hills lying in the distance on the
right of the town of Xeres. The archbishop rose proudly in his stirrups. The
prey was already in his grasp, and, urging the pursuit with renewed energy, he overtook
the party in a dense thicket of chestnuts. His eye was fastened upon one victim
only, and singling her out from the rest, while his troops followed in pursuit
and dispersion of the queen's escort, he grasped the bridle rein of her steed, and led
his victim aside from the highway. The wife of Roderick and her traitorous confessor,
were alone together. He assisted her to dismount from her steed. He
smiled upon her—he spoke to her in the ancient fashion of saintly and patriarchal affection.
But he now spoke to her in vain. She was aware of his deception; she now
felt how fraudulent had been his mission. The lamb's skin had been torn from his
shoulders, and she now knew the wolf in his natural aspect. Farther deception
was in vain. Her kindling eyes, her haughty and reserved aspect, soon taught him
this; and, after a vain attempt to persuade himself that his old arts might yet be
renewed with profit, his impatient spirit, vexed at repulse, abandoned all farther
attempts at hypocrisy.

“At length,” said he “lovely Egilona, I may speak freely. I may declare
the passion with which thou hast inspired me so long, and which it has been so
maddening to conceal. If I erred, as thine eyes seem to reproach me, it is thy
beauties—those very eyes, which are to blame. Thou hast been the cause of my
error. For thee I have renounced the church, and put on the armor, with the spirit,
of the warrior. Be mine! As the wife of Lord Oppas, thy rule shall be in Spain
quite as sufficient and large as when thou wert the wife of Roderick. Roderick
lies upon the field of battle, never more to rise. Let the rites of the church bind
thee to one, whose love for thee, more true than that of Roderick, is yet more fervent
and considerate of the nature which dwells within thy heart.”

The answer of Egilona was that of scorn. She was no longer the devotee. She
was the woman and the queen.

“False traitor!” she exclaimed. “I loathe thee as the pestilence. Egilona thy
wife! Sooner let her perish!”

The face of the priest glowed as with fire beneath his visor. He removed his
helmet, and cast it upon the ground.

“Egilona!” said he, “art thou blind? Seest thou not we are alone together?”

“Approach me not, traitor. Forget not that I am the wife of thy sovereign.”

“He lives no longer.”

“I believe thee not.”

“I saw him fall before the sword of Julian.”

“Jesu spare and help me! Holy mother be my succor. Strengthen me that I
may not give ear to the falsehood of this traitor priest.”

Oppas had indeed spoken falsely. He knew nothing of the fate of the monarch.
Why should we prolong the parley? Why pursue the conference in which the

entreaties and arguments of the disloyal archbishop were answered only by the unvarying
scorn and loathing of the royal lady. His passion at length grew stronger
than his respect. He laid his hands upon her—not the patriarchal hands, gently
and tenderly laid, with which, quite as polluting then as now, he had before done
wrong to her sacred person. His touch now was that of open violence. His
muscular arms were folded about her delicate and exhausted form, while his lips,
priestly no longer, but wholly reckless and passionate, were fastened upon her
own with a desperate eagerness which seemed to drink a rapture akin to madness in
each draught. Her voice was stifled—her cries were silenced—she sank fainting to
the sward, and prayed for death from heaven.

Her prayer was answered in that very moment—not with death, but with safety.
The tread of a horse echoed through the grove. A wild strange voice was heard to
summon, and the archbishop, furious at the intrusion, turned savagely on the
stranger, and hurriedly lifted his sword from the ground where but a moment before
he had thrown it. The intruder was a Moor, and by his costume and bearing, a
person of distinction. He was armed after the Arab manner, with scymitar and
javelin and lance. His person was tall and slight, but eminently graceful and well
made. His air was very noble and his features particularly handsome. He was
young, scarcely more than twenty; but it could already be seen that he was one
destined for great achievement. He had been already heard in counsel, and his
deeds were already glorious among the Arabians. He was the son of Musa Ben
Nosier, and destined to arrive at distinctions to which even his ambitious sire had
never looked even in his fondest dreams of eminence. The noble and chivalrous
spirit of Abdalazis—for that was the name of the youthful Ishmaelite—revolted at
the spectacle before him; and, heedless of the dignity of Oppas, whom he at once
recognised, he called upon him, for shame, to quit his prey.

“By Allah!” said he, “Christian, these be not deeds which shall do thee honor.”

“Hence, Moor—away with thee from this presence ere I slay thee. Know me
for the Lord Oppas, confederate of Count Juhan of Consuegra. Away with thee
in pursuit. I will answer for my own deeds.”

“I know thee,” said the young man, “and will not leave this lady, whom I regard
as noble, in thy hands.”

Egilona had recovered from her swoon. Her exquisite beauties, her noble air,
had fixed the attentions of the Moor.

“Leave me not, I implore thee, to this man! He is mine enemy. Save me, I
entreat thee! I am the wife of Don Roderick, the lord and sovereign of the Goth
in Spain.”

At these words the young man lifted his hand to his turban, and knelt respectfully
before the royal lady.

“I will bear thee to a place of safety,” he exclaimed.

“Thou!” cried Oppas, who, in his rage, neither recognised the youth, nor knew,
perhaps, the rank which he held in the army of Taric. Possibly, even did he know,
at that moment he had not heeded the rank of the stranger. “Thou!” he cried, rushing
upon him with his weapon. Abdalazis recoiled before the terrible sweep of
the sword, drew quickly a javelin from the quiver at his side, and launched the
steel with unerring aim and force at the face of the assailant. The action was as
quick as light. The shaft sped recklessly to its mark. The bolt penetrated the
eye of the archbishop, and the sharp steel was buried in his brain. The gigantic
frame of Lord Oppas fell forward heavily upon the earth, which seemed to shake
beneath the fall. He writhed but in one convulsion at the feet of Egilona, and his
dark passions and fraudful life were at once at an end together.

It may be quite as well to suspend the progress of our story—though for a single

instant only—in order to indicate the fortunes of the two persons thus singularly
and happily brought together. The events of that meeting between Egilona and
Abdalazis constituted but the beginning of an interesting drama, terminating in his
final ascent to the throne of Spain, and his marriage with the widow of Roderick
the Goth. Let this suffice of their history. The chronicles go a step farther, and
it is more than suspected that the pure and lovely Egilona finally won the heart of
her Arab lover to the foot of the cross; a triumph of the wife and the devotee
which brought them both to the scaffold, victims to the brutal rage of a populace as
warmly devoted to Islam as Egilona was to Christ.