Kitabı oxu: «Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1», səhifə 10

CHAPTER XIV
Tragic Death of Onesinda

THE Plaza of Gijon swarms with a motley crowd. The news of some great event to take place has spread abroad and brought down peasants from the distant mountain-tops, clad in primitive coverings of skins, and the thick-set natives of Galicia from their groves of wide-branching oaks and thick copse wood, too often stained with blood in the fierce encounters between Moslem and Christian.

Townsmen there are, in coarse hempen garments, and artificers from the lowly dwellings of Gijon, mixed with mounted groups of naked Nubians, as black as night; Bedouins carrying long lances and wattled shields; Berbers and Kurds on foot among the crowd, casting looks of defiance on the sons of the soil, easily recognised by the fairness of their faces and long auburn hair, grouped about native musicians singing wild melodies to the click of the castanets; Moorish knights in the light armour which contrasts so favourably with the heavy accoutrements of the West – an indistinguishable rabble of the conquered and the conquerors, remarkable for nothing but the contentious and sullen spirit in which the Moslem ousts the Christian at all points.

In the centre of the plaza rises a gaudy pavilion formed of sheets of the brightest silk, scarlet, yellow, blue, and orange, the tent-poles and pillars glittering with tiny flags, before which the astounding clamour of bands of Eastern musicians raise martial echoes. Within, visible through the partially withdrawn curtains, is placed a throne with such magnificence as the limited means permit.

Planted in front the standard of Kerim floats heavily in the breeze, this Arab of the desert pretending to no distinction but the Star and the Crescent, the emblems of his faith. Horsemen and foot-soldiers are ranged on either side, and banners and pennons are displayed by each Moorish knight or captain before his own tent, dazzling with the flash of splendid accoutrements and gorgeous display of brocade and tossing plumes, fluttering to the sound of drums, trumpets, and shrill-voiced pipes, recalling to the Arabs the deserts of their home.

A mass of dismounted cavalry is stationed before the pavilion on which all eyes are turned, each Moslem erect by the side of his gaily draped charger, until, at a shrill cry, surmounting even the din of the music, each man vaults into the saddle and spurs forward towards a cloud of dust announcing the arrival of Kerim surrounded by his Ethiopian bodyguard.

At full gallop they approach, bristling with spears and brandishing their scimitars, disposing themselves in a semicircle which leaves Kerim alone, so resplendent with steel, feathers, and gems that, as the sun shines down upon him, he looks like a statue of light.

The grim forms and wild faces of the Africans, tossing their arms in every direction with savage shouts, reining up their horses but a hair’s-breadth from the edge of the crowd of spectators – who, uttering piercing screams, rush backwards upon those behind, who in their turn lift up their voices in screams of utmost terror – create such a scene of noise and confusion that a white silk litter borne by slaves, round whose arms and legs are bound rich bangles and bracelets, followed by a crowd of veiled women in snowy garments, is scarcely noticed.

Yet a group of dark-robed Goths have marked it, and the sadness of their faces and their looks of shame and sorrow show how abhorrent to them is this Eastern pageant and its cause. For who has not guessed the occasion of these rejoicings? Onesinda, for the sake of her people, has consented to become the bride of Kerim.

Nor is she and her countrymen around her, to whom, through the light lattice of the litter, she is plainly visible, without hope that Pelayo, if yet alive, may have planned a rescue. But in the face of such an array of forces, called out purposely by Kerim, it would be a mad and senseless sacrifice of life.

The agony of mind of Onesinda is not to be described. Did he indeed appear, what would Pelayo think of her? Would he understand the amount of the sacrifice? To become a vile and nameless thing? To submit to this crowning outrage of the Moor, with no power to whisper into his ear the sacredness of her motive?

Alas! poor Onesinda, she is of too gentle a nature to battle with such a fate! So colourless has she become, her face is scarcely visible among the silken cushions of the litter as she breathlessly scans the assembled crowd.

A wild hope seizes her. May not Alonso or Friula, if Pelayo is away, be present? Some valiant ally or devoted follower still faithful to her? Some pitying Goth with a soul for her distress? At least one by his look to remind her that he is there?

Nothing! She sees the threatening faces of the Moors, she hears their muttered curses, she beholds their contemptuous gestures as they point at her. Do they believe she is a willing victim?

And now Kerim has dismounted from his charger; a tall white turban is set upon his head, crowned with a spiral diadem, in which a ruby crescent blazes, surrounded by drops of pearls; a white robe, sown with jewels, clothes his limbs, held up by a golden sash worked with gems, in which the blade of a small dagger rests, incrusted with precious stones, of so fine a temper one touch is sufficient to cut the thread of life.

Followed by his guards, he follows the litter towards the pavilion, surrounded by a phalanx of sheikhs and alcaides. And as he approaches the litter the drapery is drawn aside, the clash of discordant music strikes up, and the voice of the Imaum chants Allah Akbar.

The moment is come; Onesinda must descend. A look of mingled triumph and love lights up Kerim’s swarthy face and brings out the whiteness of his eyes into a revolting prominence. Already his naked arms, glittering with bracelets, are stretched out to clasp his bride, already the soft aroma of her presence comes wafting to his senses like spicy perfumes of paradise, when, by a deft and sudden movement, breaking from the strong arms which bear her up, Onesinda seizes the dagger which lies beneath his sash and with desperate courage plunges it in her breast.

With frantic haste Kerim tears it from the wound, but her life-blood follows it. Clasping her in his arms, he gazes on her face. Has death come to her instantly? Her eyes are closed, yet a faint flush is still upon her cheek. Then the lids slowly rise, but the orbs are fixed, and glazed. Gradually the flush vanishes and gives place to the pallid hue of death!

Ere the poor remains of the Gothic maiden can be borne away, a great clattering of horses’ feet is heard advancing; a Moslem herald gallops forward, followed by trumpeters and men-at-arms, and several knights, who ride into the plaza. After a flourish of trumpets and due recital and summoning of Kerim, Governor of Gijon, to listen, he is commanded, in the name of the redoubtable Sultan Abdurraman, to appear without delay at Cordoba, together with his Christian captive, Onesinda, sister of the royal Goth, known as Pelayo, Dux of Cantabria.

CHAPTER XV
Pelayo Proclaimed King by the Goths

TO those who have not visited the north of Spain, the grandeur of the dark chain of the Asturian mountains rising sheer out of the plains of Leon and Lugo can hardly be imagined. The change is so abrupt, the aspect so dark and threatening of frowning defiles, deeply scored precipices, and pointed summits heavy with mist. Here winter lingers into latest spring and the tardy summer soon retreats before the grey and deathlike hue which clothes the rocks and narrows inch by inch with the green mantle which sunshine brings.

This is the true Iberia, the cradle of the race, the title borne by the eldest born of Spain, the stronghold which has held out last against all conquerors. The Romans left their mark at Gijon; in the south the Moors stamped the soil with their lineaments; in the east, Catalonia formed a separate kingdom, with laws and customs; Navarre, with its ancient line of kings, raised Alpine barriers. But the mountain crests are free, and those deep cavernous recesses which cut the rocks resound only to the shrill cry of the eagle or the bleat of the wild deer.

Full in the front of a stupendous face of rock, facing east, the mouth of a deep cave opens; the narrow track which leads to it ends here, Nature herself forbids further progress. Piles, avalanches rather, of black boulders, the spittle and waste of mountains shaken by earthquakes in bygone ages, have fallen from above, and, smoothed by time to dull surfaces of greys and greens, guard its opening, shrouded by a feathery veil of thorn, ivy, and wild trailing plants which love the shade.

From within the cave a transparent rivulet murmurs forth in a bed of coloured pebbles to meet the sun and join its feeble ripple to the louder sound of other waters flowing from the gorge above.

In front the grass spreads soft and verdant; cups of the early crocuses peep out, lilac and white, and dark purple violets nestle under dry leaves, filling the air with fragrance. A few scraggy beech-trees turn their white trunks outwards, the roots deeply imbedded in the rocks, and clumps of low firs and juniper follow the almost imperceptible track which leads onwards to remoter glens.

Slowly mounting from below, a little band of Goths, clad in the homespun jerkins which distinguish them at once from their gaudily attired conquerors, ascend the path, stepping from rock to rock. The dry leaves of winter rustle beneath their feet as they pass up under the gnarled boughs of scraggy oaks.

Carefully the foremost ones plant their steps upon the stones, as they bear upon a crossed frame the body of Onesinda, which the Christians of Gijon secured in the confusion following her death and the arrival of the herald summoning Kerim to Cordoba.

A dark pall covers her, and so slight and fragile is her form that the outline of her figure scarcely raises the folds.

Behind appears the stalwart figure of Pelayo, wearing the Gothic cap of steel and armed with the simple accoutrements of a Dacian warrior.

Not a tear moistens his eye. His face is set and white, marked by the vicissitudes and hardships of his life; a countenance on which Nature has set her seal as a leader of men – the sole remaining link of the early Gothic kings.

Behind him follow three other chiefs, who have joined in an eternal hatred to the Moor, Friula, Teudis, and Recesvinto.

A sorrowful procession, fitly set in the impenetrable wilds which surround them, solemn as themselves, who want no spur to their resolve to sell their blood dear in the cause of their country. But if they did, surely the slight form they are bearing, so cruelly sacrificed to the Moor, is enough to stir up their souls to never-ending vengeance.

Silently the bearers rest the bier upon the green platform of grass before the cave.

Then Pelayo advances to the front, and putting back with his hands the thickly trailing thorns that impede the opening, the bier is placed within under the shadows of an overlapping stone.

Not a word has been spoken, but many streams murmur as they go bubbling in the sun, and the splash of the distant waterfalls answers, and the sighing of the wind passes with hollow sound. Only the shrill cry of an eagle catches the ear as it swoops upon its prey, unconscious of the presence of man.

By a common instinct the Gothic chiefs gather before the cave, the lofty figure of Pelayo towering above them all. These men represent a nation conquered, fugitive, helpless, but still a nation which will never die, but live to bring forth long lines of kings in succeeding centuries to rule over two hemispheres.

They know it, these Gothic chiefs, the prophecy is in them – a solemn faith in the justice of their cause, which tells them the hordes of unbelievers shall not prevail.

And as they wait, by other paths, invisible to the eye but known to the fugitives, emerge the dark forms of other brothers-in-arms, who now join the group.

Every eye seeks Pelayo, by whose invincible courage, wisdom, and endurance this small remnant has been saved. Every eye seeks his as he stands aside leaning against a rock, insensible, as it seems, to all but his own affliction.

Then Friula, nearest in kinship to the royal line, speaks:

“The time is come, brothers, that we must choose a chief. Long has the noble Pelayo led us. He has now another vengeance to fulfil. The moment is opportune. Onesinda is dead. The butcher Kerim has been summoned to Cordoba. The garrison of Gijon lacks a defender. Let him lead us there as king.”

“As king,” comes ringing from every side of the shrouded summits, which catch the words and bear them from hollow, spanless depths to wild, yawning gorges among the black cliffs, down which green waters pour from the gloomy precincts of the cave where rest the remains of Onesinda.

“Let him be king!” sounds in many tones like a chant of freedom, intoned by these Asturian wilds, which never had felt the foot of mortal foe.

As the voices die away amid a thousand echoes, Pelayo turns and raises his steel helmet, showing the careworn lines of his deeply wrinkled face lit up by no gleam of triumph. Ere he speaks he raises his hand, and points to the deep shadow of the cave.

“We are in the presence of the dead. The shade of Onesinda yet lingers in that body she died to save. Before her corpse, speak softly. Let the dead rest in peace.”

“Then in her presence let us crown him!” cries Friula, taking up the word. “For her sake let the vengeance of the Goths not tarry.”

“We are but as a handful against a nation,” says Recesvinto, “numberless as the sands of the desert; but we will fight for Pelayo and for Spain.”

“For Pelayo and for Spain!” again thunders round. Even the tiny streamlet which cleaves the grass they stand on seems to snatch the words, and goes dancing downwards, bearing them to the world.

“My friends and brothers,” cries Pelayo, rousing himself from the cloud of sorrow into which the death of his sister has plunged him, “I accept your trust. We have been together in many a hard-fought day since the rout of the Guadalete sent us to these wilds. It is no crown I crave, even were it the glorious iron circlet which bound the brows of Alaric, but to lead you in danger and in toil. For this I will be your king. God willing, I will cut off the Moors to the depth of my hatred, root and branch. They shall learn to curse the day when Pelayo was proclaimed. At the cave of Cavadonga a new nation commences, which, with God’s help, shall exceed the old. In the name of Onesinda we will triumph.”

A burst of joyful enthusiasm follows this address. He speaks with a dignity and confidence which inspires his followers with the reckless courage he feels within his breast.

The Gothic chiefs gather round him as the sheep round the faithful shepherd when the howl of the wolf is borne upon the wind. No lack of valour is visible upon their dark brows, and looks of deadly defiance shoot from eye to eye as they hasten to bind the shields they carry together, place Pelayo on them, and bear him three times round the face of the cave of Cavadonga, the rest following with bare heads and naked swords.

The Moslems of Gijon, when they heard that the fugitive Goths had elected a king in the Asturian mountains, laughed with scorn. But he soon made his presence felt by frequent incursions, causing great havoc among the Moors.

At length he collected a sufficient force to meet them in a pitched battle. The great victory of Caincas followed, and ere the eighteen years were passed during which Pelayo ruled over the Goths, the garrison of Gijon surrendered, and El Conde de Gijon was one of the titles he bore upon his shield.

In the solitude of the Asturias the cave of Cavadonga is still to be found; the very spot or campo before it on which Pelayo was carried on the shields of his followers, is somewhat vulgarised by a commemorative obelisk erected by the Duc de Montpensier. The valley, a perfect cul-de-sac, ascends abruptly to the site. Pelayo lies within the small church of Saint Eulalia, near at hand at Abaima. A simple stone is engraved with his name and a carved sword of Roman pattern.

It was he who dealt the first serious blow to the invaders. From that time they grew cautious in their approaches to the north.

Again the Goths became a name in the old kingdom. At Oviedo, south of Gijon, the new dynasty took root, concealed at first in the obscure reigns of Friula, Orelio, Ramiro, and Ordoño, calling themselves Kings of Galicia and Oviedo, up to Alonso the Second, surnamed “the Chaste,” 791, when Leon came to be both the court and capital of the kingdom of the Goths.

CHAPTER XVI
Bernardo del Carpio

THE city of Leon is a very ancient place, old even in the days of the Romans. Around it circles the line of walls spared by Witica when he levelled the defences throughout Spain.

It is entered by four gates opening into four wide streets, crossing each other at right angles. Many have been the changes, but there still stand the city walls, substantially the same, the huge stones worked into coarse rubble, capped by frequent towers with tapia turrets from which the eye ranges over the leafy plains of mountain-bound Galicia.

The houses are low-roofed and homely, as befits the rough climate of the north; the streets narrow and grey. Red-brown and sepia is the colouring against the sky, with whiffs of chill air from the mountains and the scent of fields and flowers, the shelter of green thickets and verdant banks, sown with tall poplars, beside purling streams.

A homelike and pleasant place, despised by the Moors after the African fantasies of the south, but absolute luxury to the Spaniards, as so much larger and nobler than their late capital, Oviedo.

Alonso, surnamed “the Chaste,” second of that name, passing to the conclusion of a long and prosperous reign, finds much that is congenial to his monkish prejudices and austere life in the simplicity of the nature around.

That Alonso’s habits are more of a friar than of a king may be explained by the aspect of the times. As successor to the pious “Il Diacono,” and as a protest against Mauregato, his kinsman, who, for the assistance given him by the Moors, agreed to pay them what is often mentioned in history as the “Maiden Tribute,” a hundred Christian maidens to be sent to the Caliph at Cordoba for his harem, fifty rich and fifty poor, a shameful agreement faithfully fulfilled until the reign of Ramiro in 866.

This specially develops in Alonso a sentiment of religious protest in the form of a rigid chastity, not only enforced in his own person, but in all those about him. As he grows older these ideas take more and more hold upon him, and increase to such a degree as actually to pervert his judgment. Obviously it is the interest of the Church to encourage them, and for this reason he seeks his companions among priests and monks.

What care his subjects that Alonso is called “the Chaste,” or that his wife, Queen Berta, lives like a nun? The royal claims to sanctity are utterly thrown away upon a sarcastic, laughter-loving court, especially as Doña Ximena, his sister, a buxom dame, with the fair amplitude of her Gothic ancestors, has so far strayed from the fold as to become the mother of a boy!

Imagine the scandal! She is promptly ordered off to a cloister for life, and her lover, the heroic Conde de Saldaña, imprisoned in the castle of Luna, where, more gothicum, he is deprived of sight; Alonso fasting, and scourging himself until nature well-nigh gives way, and Berta, the Queen, bathed in tears, doing nothing but confess, although she has nothing to say except that she has lived in company with such a sinner as Ximena!

But the boy thrives apace, a very lusty and proper child, with no notion of dying or care as to who are his parents, provided he has enough to eat and playmates to amuse him, horses to ride and dogs to follow him about the court, where, with singular inconsistency, Alonso allows him to remain and bear the name of Bernardo del Carpio.

Not that he is acknowledged by the king – heaven forfend! Though one of those secrets known to every one, Bernardo himself was never told how he came into the world, but accepted himself in ignorance as one standing alone, not in arrogance and pride, but out of the simplicity of his heart, which prompted him to be second to none, seeing that he had already given good proofs of his valour in tilts and tourneys and in continual encounters with the Moors, pressing hard on the little Christian kingdom, so narrow against the sea.

It is a gusty morning in the month of June; a mass of black clouds rides up from the west, portending a coming storm. Distant thunder rumbles between snatches of fitful sunshine, lighting up the inner court of the royal palace where the Roman prefects once ruled – a plain edifice, built of stone, with open arcades running round supported by pilasters of coarsely grained marble.

In and out there is an air of unusual bustle and movement. Sturdy Goths are hurrying to and fro, their long, unkempt hair hanging on their shoulders, and others of a slighter mould, in outlandish draperies and white turbans, whose finer features betray an Eastern origin; for, as was often the case, African captives in battle gladly accepted, as slaves, the more peaceful service of the Christians, when no necessity was imposed on them of fighting their Moslem brethren.

In the countenances of all there is a look of surprise as they hurry by, carrying such golden utensils as served for the celebration of the Mass, jewelled cups, golden patens, embroidered cushions, and rich folds of arras and tapestry worked in Algerian looms, with which the chapel walls are decorated on high occasions of state.

A master of the ceremonies, or Jefe, bearing an ivory wand, stands in the centre of the court directing the servants. His flat Castilian cap of a bright colour, and dark manto lined with fur, sharp aquiline features and piercing eyes proclaim him a native-born Spaniard of the old type.

“Is it that foreign palmer,” he mutters between his teeth, “arrived from Navarre, or that Gallic knight who flies the fleur-de-lis with such heavy armour and delicate forms of speech? I warrant me he is a hypocrite to the core, as he comes from the Frankish king. One or both, they have bewitched our master. The palmer, with his sandalled feet and cockle-shell, an ill-favoured fellow one scents a mile off, dirt being, I am told, a quality next to holiness – but I like it not, the odour of garlic is strong enough for me – is shut up with my lord in his private closet. Anyway, the king has encountered the foul fiend somewhere, that he is tempted to risk his crown. Now they have been singing a laudamus in the chapel for the safe arrival of the French king, whom the devil confound as a stranger and an invader! Well-a-day! The Holy Virgin of Saragossa help us! We can die but once! Here, Poilo, Poilo!” he shouts at the top of his voice, to a rough, wolfish-looking dog which has precipitated itself with an angry growl and clenched teeth into the arcade.

“Fie upon you for an ill-mannered brute. Leave the king’s guests alone.”

Doffing his scarlet cap, the Jefe at once assumes the humble aspect of his condition, as two personages, evidently of importance, emerge from the arcade, taking no notice of his repeated low salutations or of the snarls of the dog which he now holds by a silver collar, as they walk up and down the court in eager conversation.

“Was the like ever heard?” exclaims one of them, a tall figure of martial aspect, attired in a rich robe trimmed at neck and shoulder with miniver, and secured on the breast with a huge gold brooch.

“Let Alonso forfeit his crown if he please,” is the answer, “but I will never consent to cut my own throat.”

“Nor I, Favila,” replies the other, a younger man, who holds the office of Chamberlain, wearing a heavy gold chain about his neck, his slight figure set off by a coquettishness in the fashion of the time – a close-fitting tunic of dark green, with a hood attached reaching to his waist, and a plume fixed by a jewel in a small cap poised on one ear.

“I, for one, will stoutly defend my castle and shake off all allegiance to Alonso. I would rather join the Moors, treacherous as they are and ready to pounce on us at every corner, than submit to an inroad of new enemies to overrun the land we have rescued with so much blood. Bad enough to have Charlemagne for a neighbour, without bringing him here to rule over us with the king’s leave. They say he and his paladins are already on the march. Why cannot the king be content to name his sister’s son his successor? Whom will he find better than the son of Saldaña and a royal infanta? I love Bernardo with all my heart.”

“That Alonso will never do,” rejoins the older man, “in face of his obstinate refusal to admit the legality of the marriage of Doña Ximena to the Count of Saldaña. They say he has destroyed the documents, and that Bernardo can never prove himself his father’s son.”

“He has no notion of trying,” answers Don Ricardo, “as far as I can see. He is strangely indifferent to name and position.”

“But is the reason of the king’s strange perversity known?” asked Don Favila.

“In part it is. First there is in his head this maggot of chastity.”

“He will not find that virtue among the Gallic monks he is so fond of harbouring,” Don Favila observes, twirling his black moustache. “Of all the hoary sinners – ”

“No matter,” interrupts Don Ricardo, “that is not to the point. You question me of the reason – if he has any tangible one and is not mad – that Alonso treats Bernardo as he does. Chastity in the first place. The propagation of his royal race offends him. He glories in the name of ‘the Chaste.’ He would have all his family the same.”

“Fool,” mutters Don Favila, but he offers no further interruption.

“Doña Ximena, his only sister, was destined to become the Abbess of the great Convent of San Marcos, outside the gate of Leon, which he is building. So averse to love is he himself – ”

“Then why in the foul fiend’s name did he marry Queen Berta?” puts in the younger man, evidently of an impatient temperament, but Don Ricardo passes the question by as irrelevant and proceeds:

“When he found that the Infanta preferred a mortal to an immortal spouse, and had actually gone the length of bearing him a child, he fell into such a state of blind rage that he declared she had never married, and shut her up with such rigour that she died.”

“By Santiago, a most barbarous act,” is the response; “but saints are always cruel.”

“About as barbarous,” answers Don Ricardo, “as calling in to inherit the Gothic throne a foreigner, Charlemagne, a Frank, to whom he offers the succession, when his own sister’s child is beside him branded with infamy.”

“If this is the Church’s teaching, I would fain be a Mussulman. What will Bernardo say when he hears of it?”

“Who speaks of me?” cries a clear young voice, coming from a more distant part of the patio where an arched gateway led out into the place of arms in which the Spanish knights and soldiers exercised themselves. A knight’s chain and spurs of gold show out from under a manto of dark velvet, which he throws on the ground, and which is instantly, with every sign of reverence, picked up by the Jefe, with difficulty holding Poilo back, who with sharp, quick barks and yells of delight seeks to precipitate itself on the young knight, much too preoccupied to observe it, save that with a quick wave of the hand he dismisses both the dog and the Jefe.

Bernardo’s somewhat short and sturdy figure is clothed in linked mail which rattles as he hastens forward to join Favila and Ricardo, at the moment that a louder and nearer clap of thunder is audible and a deeper shadow falls.

“Favila, Ricardo, you have heard this cursed news? I see it in your faces. By the blood of Saint Isidore, is the king distraught that he disposes of the kingdom of Leon as though he were a churl chaffering away his field? Can it be true? I am just come from the mountains, where I have met with sport both of men and beasts, for the Moor Kirza has planted himself at Selagon, and sends out detachments to the foot of the Asturias. Tell me, friends, can it be true?”

Both bow their heads.

“We will never submit,” said Favila, “to the Frankish king. Many are already gone from the court to place their castles in a state of defence.”

“What!” exclaims Bernardo, whose cheeks are flushing scarlet and the veins in his forehead swelling with growing passion. “What! give away the whole kingdom of Leon, with its warriors and nobles, to a foreigner, as if we were a flock of sheep? I am of no illustrious race myself” – at these words a significant look passes between his two companions, who turn their eyes on the ground. “Faith! I know not of what race I am,” with a short laugh, “nor do I care while the king continues his favour to me, but I am a Spaniard; I will sell my living to no man.”

“The king has no heir,” observes Favila, in a dry tone, raising curious eyes on Bernardo. “He says he desires to settle the succession before his death.”

“True,” answers Ricardo, “no legal heir,” and he, in his turn, shot a significant glance at Bernardo, who does not in the least observe it. “He may fear that some one of his blood might take his place that he would not approve.”

“Sir, you speak in riddles,” cries Bernardo, cutting in. “Who is there that the king fears will step into his place? Marry for me I know not, nor do I care. Confusion to his surname of ‘the Chaste,’ if Alonso brings in Charlemagne and his paladins into the hard-won land that the noble Pelayo wrested from the Moor. By the memory of the cave of Cavadonga and the sacred oath our ancestors swore among the savage rocks of the Asturias” (at these words, Bernardo raises his steel cap from his head, and stands with open brow and glistening eyes full in the glory of the fitful sunshine), “I pledge myself never to sheathe my unworthy sword until every invader, be he enemy or friend, Frank, Berber, or Moor, be driven out of the limits of Leon. I swear it,” he adds in a deep tone, laying his right hand on his breast, where, on a laced front of velvet, was embroidered the cognizance he had received from the king. “You are witnesses, my friends?” At which Don Favila and Don Ricardo incline their heads, and Bernardo replaces the helmet on his head from which floated a sombre plume, then adding, with a light laugh, “Let Alonso play the anchorite if he will, but all of us are not blest with his virtues.”