bracelet, exclaimed, “Poor youth! I would not rob thee for the whole
world; thy brain is disordered, thou knowest not what thou are doing.”
Touched with such uncommon disinterestedness, the amiable monarch
exerted himself to convince Lopez that he was perfectly reasonable and
sincere; after much difficulty he succeeded: Lopez took the jewels, and
gave up his title to Barémel. Sebastian squeezed the hand of his host,
and telling him to remember the Moorish lady in his prayers, plunged
into a neighbouring thicket.
The royal wanderer was now journeying towards the river Zadaon, near the
extremity of which lay the home of Gaspar: he hoped to learn there
something of that humble friend, to have preserved whose life he would
willingly have poured forth all his blood; and hope yet surviving every
shock, began to soothe him with promises of Gaspar’s safety.
On that subject alone, could hope exert her heart-supporting influence,
all others were desperate; and the wretched Sebastian, blasted in every
tender expectation, dishonored by the matchless depravity of her who was
to have shared his throne, wished only to find some gloomy solitude
where he might bury his shame and his despair.
A betrayed lover cannot easily learn to think of the woman who once
entranced him, in any other manner than that to which he has been
accustomed; impressions repeated again and again are not to be
immediately effaced by one impression, however just; the heart retains
its first print of excellence long after a faithless object has ceased
to impress it: we may regret without weakness for a while, what it would
be meanness to love on, for ever; in short, we may lament that the
brightest vision of our days was _but_ a vision!
Sebastian could not revert to his last interview with Donna Gonsalva,
and not find his thoughts hurried away by a multitude of softening
recollections; past looks of tenderness, impassioned replies, tears,
caresses, the touch of her hand, the tone of her voice, thrilled through
his veins with the force of present existence; then returned the
conviction of her baseness, and he cast himself on the ground, bathing
it with tears, and uttering a thousand distracted exclamations.
His devious course was too frequently interrupted by these bursts of
despair; but he quickly recovered himself, for friendship yet claimed a
share in his soul, and whether Gaspar lived or died, his family had
claims on the protection of Sebastian.
Travelling through the wildest, because least frequented roads, the King
procured food at goat-herds’ huts, or from passing muleteers; his
remaining sequins gave him the means of paying these people well, and
the watchfulness of Barémel rendered any precaution for his personal
safety wholly needless: at night they slept together amongst woods, and
in the day journied along, rarely noticed by those who met them.
During his route, Sebastian had more than once taken out the letter
given him by Kara Aziek, but his bleeding heart shrunk from the pain of
reading sentiments so tender and so noble; sentiments which would revive
too forcibly the vanished virtue of Donna Gonsalva. “Another time,” he
exclaimed, as he returned the sealed vellum to his breast, “another
time, matchless angel! for _woman_ I will not call thee. I was to have
read this after my re-union with----,” that perfidious name died upon
his tongue; he started up, called to Barémel, and hastened to lose
thought, in the rapidity of violent motion.
Remembering the directions originally given by Gaspar, Sebastian left
the Zadaon on his right, and entered some beautiful meadows, among which
stood the cottage of his friend’s mother. The mists of morning were but
just beginning to clear away from its low roof, and no sound of man or
cattle came from the fields around. He approached the cottage; its
windows were closed, its garden in ruins: the silence that reigned there
caused his heart to stop; could it be possible, he thought, for the
family of Gaspar to have shared his cruel fate? grief and horror seized
him at this suggestion.
With an unsteady hand he shook the fastened door, calling loudly for
admittance: after several attempts to rouse the inhabitants, if
inhabitants there were, he was preparing to relinquish them in despair,
when a casement was cautiously opened, and a female voice was heard to
ask, in a tone of extreme alarm, who was there; this question was only
answered by a hasty inquiry of whether she belonged to the family of
Gaspar Ribeiro.
At this demand the young woman uttered a faint cry, exclaiming “O, don’t
harm us!--indeed, indeed, he is not here.”
Perceiving that she mistook him for some officer of justice, the King
told her in a tone of convincing gentleness, that he was a friend, not
an enemy; one that had shared captivity with Gaspar, and sought only
the satisfaction of beholding him again.
At this assurance the girl hastened down, and opening the door, admitted
Sebastian into a low, earth-floored room, in which he saw a younger
girl, half clothed, pale, and trembling: their resemblance to Gaspar,
and the desolateness of their situation, struck him so forcibly, that
uttering an expression of concern, in which the name of his friend was
more than once repeated, he sat down to recover himself.
The two young women looked at him fearfully: his habit, indeed, was mean
and shattered, but the nobleness of his countenance, the grandeur of his
mien, awakened a suspicion of his real character. “My brother spoke but
of one companion in slavery,” said Marakita, the eldest, hesitating as
she proceeded, “and to him he gave a pledge at parting, a ring which--”
Without speaking, Sebastian held out his hand, and Marakita recognizing
on it a coarse bauble that had once been her own, hastened to prostrate
herself at the feet of her sovereign: struggling in vain to repress his
extreme emotion, Sebastian raised her and her sister, desiring them to
tell him the fate of their brother. Marakita took out a letter from an
old leather case which she had hidden under a stone of the door-way, and
gave it the King; opening it, he read eagerly as follows.
“Most honoured sovereign, and may I venture to say, dear as honoured!
should these ill-written lines ever come into your hands, (and God alone
knows how to bring that blessed event to pass) I hope they may be given
you on your throne; then you will not forget, sire, the poor orphans who
present it, nor blush to acknowledge their self-exiled brother: but if,
as I fear, it should be given to you after your unassisted return, O!
let it warn you to trust no man in Portugal. Interest and ambition have
corrupted every heart.
“They who should have loved their King most, have injured him most. I
have personally applied to Donna Gonsalva, to Don Antonio, to the Dukes
of Braganza and D’Aveyro, nay, to the Cardinal Regent himself, and all
have pretended to disbelieve me. I have been imprisoned for my zeal, but
thanks to an honest fellow-soldier have escaped, and am at this moment
writing in a vessel bound for the land of Brazil: a man who is leaving
her, and will journey towards the interior, has promised to convey this
packet to my sisters. May the saints guide him on his way!
“I go, sire, to make a last effort for justice. Don Emanuel de Castro,
the most upright of your majesty’s subjects, having been ransomed out of
Barbary, is at present the Viceroy at St. Salvador; his great soul never
yet knew any other ambition than that of being unsurpassed in virtue: he
will hear and credit my story, and assuredly will interest the powers of
Europe in his master’s cause.
“Rely on him, sire, and if he still rule in the new world when your
majesty receives this letter, follow me thither: O! trust not your
precious life amongst a set of traitors, who have thirsted even for the
blood of your humble messenger.
“Obeying the call of a superior duty, I trust my family confidently to
the Holy Spirit: fortunately no one knew more of me than my name, and my
sisters may therefore live without fear of molestation.
“I invoke Jesus, and the Virgin Mother, to hear all those prayers I
daily put up for the good Kara Aziek and for my injured sovereign!--I
throw myself at his august feet, and venture to kiss and to embrace his
sacred hands.--
“The devoted GASPAR.”
The first emotion of joy which had for some time warmed the frozen heart
of Sebastian, now glowed there; transported out of himself by this
unexpected assurance of his friend’s existence, he exclaimed aloud, “Not
at his feet Gaspar, in your King’s arms!”--
A profound sigh followed these words, and Sebastian’s mind was soon
filled with so many torturing remembrances of the worthlessness of
others, that he forgot both his situation and his companions. Starting
from a reverie at an action of Barémel’s, he addressed the awestruck
girls, enquiring about their condition and their resources.
From the younger he learnt that they obtained a living by working in
vineyards, (their mother having died while Gaspar was in Africa,) and
that the eldest might be married to the son of a wealthy muleteer, did
she possess only a portion of five gold crowns.
How often had the present of Kara Aziek kept Sebastian from feeling the
sharpest sting of misery, an inability to reward services or to bestow
relief! he now took out the Moorish handkerchief in which it was wrapt,
and bidding Marakita advance, put into her hands some ornaments of
precious stones; “Take these,” he said, “they are all that is left an
injured monarch to bestow; they will enrich your husband, and enable you
to give a portion to your young sister when she is of an age to marry:
the remainder I go to share with Gaspar.--Do not shew these gems for
awhile; I may then be far from pursuit--far from a country where love,
loyalty, friendship, the ties of blood, and the closer bond of
affection, exist no more for me.”
Alarmed by the excessive wildness of the young monarch’s looks and
voice, and well informed of his sad story, the two sisters shed tears in
abundance, timidly asking a few questions, and scarce venturing to raise
their eyes, while they invoked blessings on their royal benefactor and
on their brother.
Much affected, the King returned their blessings, adding with a
strangely-frantic smile, “Hear me, ye guardian saints of
Portugal,--unless I am Heaven’s outcast also!”
The sun’s broad light now warned him to begone; and repeating his
injunctions, he bade adieu to Marakita and her sister.
CHAP. V.
Directing his course downwards towards the coast, the King found himself
at night in a mean town six leagues from Setuval; some shops were open,
and at one of them he purchased a homely dress, better calculated for
disguise than the mutilated habit he had brought with him from Africa:
but alas! the unfortunate Sebastian scarcely needed any other disguise
than the alterations wrought on him by hardships and sorrows. The
roundness of health and youth was no more to be seen in his figure,
giving beauty to strength, and proportion to grace: his cheeks were wan
and hollow, his eyes dim, his brow furrowed with the frequent
contraction of thought; that enchanting smile which used to distinguish
him from all mankind, never appeared on his lips; who then was to
recognize Sebastian in this gloomy-looking traveller?
He slept in the town, and the next morning resumed the road to Setuval.
The second night he took up his abode in a cavern on the coast whence
there was a noble view of the town and bay. A radiant moon, brightened
by slight frost, (for it was now November,) illuminated this quiet
retreat; its roof, hung with crystal stalactites, like natural fringes
of diamonds, startled Sebastian on entering, he paused and looked back:
the same resplendent moon was more temperately reflected from a vast
stretch of sea; myriads of stars twinkled around her; the vessels in the
bay, and the buildings in the town were silvered by her light, and only
a faint dashing of waves broke the tranquillity of the scene.
Is there a heart to which moonlight is not hallowed by some association,
or in which it does not awaken devotional feelings? Sebastian felt its
softening, purifying influence, and making the sign of the cross over
his breast and forehead, gently breathed a prayer to the Divine Being
from whom that lovely orb derived her beauty and her light.
He entered the cavern with a calmed spirit: when he beheld its fantastic
interior flashing splendor on him from a thousand tremulous crystals, he
owned with admiration that no mortal palace could surpass the
magnificence of this to which chance had conducted him.
The tumult of indignant emotions that had agitated him incessantly since
his reception from Donna Gonsalva, now gave way for awhile to tenderness
only: he was about to leave his country and his people, he was going to
try the attachment of subjects, who, situated in another quarter of the
globe, knew him solely by his choice of their former governors. Could he
expect to find from them that grateful fidelity which his own court and
familiar friends had failed to shew! and was it from the harshly-treated
De Castro that he was to seek for love and duty?
“Yes, from De Castro!” answered the noble spirit of Sebastian, “I cannot
better recompence his virtue and efface my own injustice than by
voluntarily affording him an opportunity of serving me.”
To the Brazils therefore he determined to go, confidently expecting to
be there recognized and obeyed; he might then dispatch letters to all
the powers of Europe, notifying his existence, and requiring their
assistance for the restoration of his rights; to regain those rights
without bloodshed was his earnest wish: his heart sickened at the
prospect of a civil war, should he, by remaining in Portugal, give the
different parties a hope of securing his person; for if those now in
authority chose to start doubts of his identity, he must call on his
inferior subjects to rise in arms for his support.
This extremity was what he sought to avoid: indeed the wounds inflicted
by the perfidy of his cousin and mistress, bled inwardly, making every
well-known scene hateful to his eyes, and every friend to whom otherwise
he might have revealed himself, an object of suspicion.
While these thoughts were gloomily displacing the serener melancholy
with which he entered his present lodging, he had thrown himself along
the ground, and raising his arm to form a support for his head, struck
it against something, which, on moving out of the way, he found to be a
tablet, with writing on it in discoloured ink. He cast his eyes
incuriously over the writing; the first line struck the chief chord in
his own breast; and with his hand shading the tablet from the dazzling
glare of the cavern, he read the following wild effusion.
O that it were no sin to ask for death!
Then would I pray to yield this hateful breath;
Then from life’s desart vast, its spectred gloom,
These eyes would turn and rest upon the tomb!
There griefs approach not, pain and thought are still;
Nor hope, nor fear, can wake one trembling thrill:
Smote by the glare of death’s petrific eye,
Locked in eternal ice, life’s currents lie;
No more their tides quick-circling through each part,
Send warm emotions to the eager heart
No more the gates of sense delighted move;
No more weak reason yields her throne to love;
But all things cease; thought, feeling, mem’ry gone,
And black oblivion broods unmarked alone.
Whether our souls released, immediate go,
Or sleep in trance awhile, we ne’er shall know,
Till as our change begins, experience shews
The awful secret of the grave’s repose;
But pardon, Heav’n! a frantic wretch who dares
To own a heart so torn by rending cares,
So loathing each remembrance, so possessed,
As but to groan and pray for _endless rest_!
If when these vital fires have ceased to burn,
Thought, or mere consciousness, should e’er return,
Say, would not _her_ idea rush again
And stab seraphic bliss with piercing pain?
Mixed with my being all, for ever mixed,
Of change incapable, her thought is fixed,
And here on earth, or there in Heav’n would come
To render still the same my bitter doom.
* * * * *
O God of mercy! from thy records raze
This guilty frenzy!--let some pitying rays
Beam on my madden’d brain, and teach my soul
To bow submissive to thy wise control!
Teach me to know, that when I loved too well,
I gave a mortal in thy place to dwell!
O teach me then to own thy just decree,
And bless the thorny path that leads to thee!
Pity, heightened to the poignancy of agony by fatal sympathy with the
situation here described, seized Sebastian; he put down the tablet in
extreme agitation, for love began now to struggle with indignation, and
the tenderness of the unhappy unknown became infectious: a confusion of
fond, delightful recollections, at once entered his soul; some rare
moments of transcendent happiness again re-appeared,--moments in which
the beauty, the accomplishments, the well-acted love and purity of
Gonsalva had exalted him to beatitude. O! how was it possible that this
transport had been deceptive, that this perfection of woman’s charms
was even then immersed in the low gratifications of illicit passion, in
the horrible practice of systematic deceit?
After this hateful idea rapidly followed a recapitulation of her various
arts while urging on a secret marriage, which was too surely destined to
cover the proof of her shameful conduct, as by no difficult manœuvre her
child might have been passed upon him and on his people for the
legitimate heir to the crown of Portugal. Fury flashed from Sebastian’s
eyes at this thought; tenderness fled; and the frenzy of a heart
outraged and betrayed in every point, suddenly succeeded. “No,
perfidious monster!” he exclaimed aloud, “thy crimes murder
regret.--Thou hast not been commonly frail, nor deserted me for another
honorable lover; then I might have lamented thee, pity might have united
with love in regretting that thou wast not perfect, and I might have
still doated on the past, like this fond wretch: but thou hast fallen
into such an abyss of guilt, that even memory sees thee only as thou
art now.”
He closed his eyes as if to shut out her image, and turning to another
part of the cavern, threw himself down once more in the hope of
obtaining repose.
It was long ere his tumultuous feelings and throbbing brain were stilled
by sleep: piercing thoughts, like flashes of lightning quivering by fits
through the blackness of some starless night, frequently shot across the
gloom that gradually succeeded to frenzy: but at length the dumb
caresses of Barémel softened every emotion, and he sunk to rest amid the
calm of rising resignation.
Sebastian dreamt, and he dreamt of Kara Aziek. He fancied himself once
more going through the last interview with Donna Gonsalva, and dragged
by her orders to a loathsome dungeon; there he beheld the gentle Aziek
braving death for the sake of pouring balm upon his wounded spirit: he
felt himself in her arms, he heard her touching voice, her tears dropt
over his face, while bending down she impressed on it a kiss of tender
compassion.
At this instant of his dream, Sebastian awoke; his heart was beating
strongly; the kiss, the breath of Kara Aziek, seemed yet warm upon his
lips: so lively was their impression that he stretched out his arms with
an entranced look, believing he should indeed clasp her within them.--He
leaped from the ground; no one was visible; the moon had set, and
profound silence and darkness reigned throughout the cavern.
“Aziek! angelic Aziek!” he repeated in a voice tender as her
own--“friend, comforter, benefactress! where art thou?” he stopped and
scarcely respired; for as yet his heart and his imagination were
dreaming, and he expected to hear her speak, or at least sigh.
While the echo of his own exclamation murmured along the walls, his
senses gradually recovered from their delusion, and he knew himself to
be alone in a place remote from her he dreamt of: tenderness rapidly
diffused itself over his whole soul, while he supposed his dream
realized, and himself held in the pitying arms of Kara Aziek. Her
artlessness, her sweetness, her mild yet heroic goodness, her trembling
soul-subduing love, her soft beauty, and still softer voice, floated
before him, awaking hopes and wishes which a few hours previous, he
would have deemed it impossible for him to feel.
How naturally does the warm and youthful heart cling to the source of
man’s sweetest emotions! how eagerly does it embrace the hope of finding
its transports renewed; of blessing and being blessed,--of learning
again to behold the world with complacency for the sake of one amiable
object!--Sebastian believed himself solely yielding to friendship,
gratitude, and the desire of atoning to Aziek for the wounds he had
unintentionally given her peace, when he was thus dwelling delighted on
the probability of one day becoming her husband.
“She would share my varying fate without a murmur;” he said to himself,
“if happy, she would exalt and refine my enjoyments; if wretched, she
would alleviate my afflictions. On a throne, or in obscurity, with her
my grateful heart could never know a want; her love, boundless as her
virtues, would satisfy and fill it.”
While he uttered this sentence, a thrill of more genuine affection than
had ever stirred his bosom for Donna Gonsalva, glided through his veins:
perfect esteem, perfect admiration, perfect gratitude,--what are they,
but the purest species of love?
To these sentiments were now added the conviction of no longer
possessing any other source of happiness.
Delicacy gives law to woman’s heart; Honor to that of man: woman blushes
at the idea of entertaining a second passion, yet naturally tender,
adheres too tenaciously sometimes to a changed object. Man, accustomed
to consider the weaker sex as dependent on him for protection, abhors to
exercise his power in proportion as it is easy to do so, and while he
believes himself beloved, refuses to break through ties of which he may
have become weary.
Unconsciously this sentiment of honor had long been Gonsalva’s auxiliary
while Sebastian was in Africa; the transporting emotions caused by Kara
Aziek’s inestimable qualities, and those tenderer ones inspired by her
devotedness, had then been uniformly repressed by remembrance rather
than by anticipation: when he recollected whole days of exquisite
felicity, he paused not to discover, that after having become acquainted
with such a being as Kara Aziek, the less endearing character of Donna
Gonsalva could no longer satisfy him.
Now was the moment for a perusal of the letter: Sebastian drew it from
his vest, and hurried to the mouth of the cavern; but clouds and
darkness had succeeded to the moon’s radiance, and it was impossible for
him to read it. He returned with chagrin, and seated himself on a
projection of rock, holding the precious vellum in his hand.
While thus watching the dawn of day, his mind became busied by a
multitude of new projects to which the conviction of Aziek’s attachment
gave birth; to bestow happiness on her, was now, he thought, an act of
justice: while Gonsalva appeared virtuous and faithful, honour and
inclination retained him in her chains; but since she had shamefully
forfeited those rights, gratitude imperiously demanded him for Kara
Aziek: the disinterestedness of her love had been proved, he had
therefore no circumstance to lament or to dread in an union with her,
except her hateful religion.
To this serious obstacle the ardent character of the King, yet sanguine
and romantic, opposed the delightful hope of becoming Heaven’s
instrument for her conversion: perhaps the fond zeal of a husband might
be destined to remove this only blemish from what otherwise seemed
perfection. He dwelt on so gratifying a conclusion, till expectation
assumed the form of certainty.