Many and various are the accounts given in ancient chronicles of the
fortunes of Count Julian and his family, and many are the traditions
on the subject still extant among the populace of Spain, and
perpetuated in those countless ballads sung by peasants and
muleteers, which spread a singular charm over the whole of this
romantic land.
He who has travelled in Spain in the true way in which the country
ought to be travelled,--sojourning in its remote provinces, rambling
among the rugged defiles and secluded valleys of its mountains, and
making himself familiar with the people in their out-of-the-way
hamlets and rarely visited neighbourhoods,--will remember many a
group of travellers and muleteers, gathered of an evening around the
door or the spacious hearth of a mountain venta, wrapped in their
brown cloaks, and listening with grave and profound attention to the
long historic ballad of some rustic troubadour, either recited with
the true _ore rotunda_ and modulated cadences of Spanish elocution,
or chanted to the tinkling of a guitar. In this way he may have
heard the doleful end of Count Julian and his family recounted in
traditionary rhymes, that have been handed down from generation to
generation. The particulars, however, of the following wild legend
are chiefly gathered from the writings of the pseudo Moor Rasis; how
far they may be safely taken as historic facts it is impossible now
to ascertain; we must content ourselves, therefore, with their
answering to the exactions of poetic justice.
... Everything had prospered with Count Julian. He had gratified his
vengeance; he had been successful in his treason, and had acquired
countless riches from the ruin of his country. But it is not outward
success that constitutes prosperity. The tree flourishes with fruit
and foliage while blasted and withering at the heart. Wherever he
went, Count Julian read hatred in every eye. The Christians cursed
him as the cause of all their woe; the Moslems despised and
distrusted him as a traitor. Men whispered together as he
approached, and then turned away in scorn; and mothers snatched away
their children with horror if he offered to caress them. He withered
under the execration of his fellow-men, and last, and worst of all,
he began to loathe himself. He tried in vain to persuade himself
that he had but taken a justifiable vengeance; he felt that no
personal wrong can justify the crime of treason to one's country.
For a time he sought in luxurious indulgence to soothe or forget the
miseries of the mind. He assembled round him every pleasure and
gratification that boundless wealth could purchase, but all in vain.
He had no relish for the dainties of his board; music had no charm
wherewith to lull his soul, and remorse drove slumber from his
pillow. He sent to Ceuta for his wife Frandina, his daughter
Florinda, and his youthful son Alarbot; hoping in the bosom of his
family to find that sympathy and kindness which he could no longer
meet with in the world. Their presence, however, brought him no
alleviation. Florinda, the daughter of his heart, for whose sake he
had undertaken this signal vengeance, was sinking a victim to its
effects. Wherever she went, she found herself a byword of shame and
reproach. The outrage she had suffered was imputed to her as
wantonness, and her calamity was magnified into a crime. The
Christians never mentioned her name without a curse, and the Moslems,
the gainers by her misfortune, spake of her only by the appellation
of Cava, the vilest epithet they could apply to woman.
But the opprobrium of the world was nothing to the upbraiding of her
own heart. She charged herself with all the miseries of these
disastrous wars,--the deaths of so many gallant cavaliers, the
conquest and perdition of her country. The anguish of her mind
preyed upon the beauty of her person. Her eye, once soft and tender
in its expression, became wild and haggard; her cheek lost its bloom,
and became hollow and pallid, and at times there was desperation in
her words. When her father sought to embrace her she withdrew with
shuddering from his arms, for she thought of his treason and the ruin
it had brought upon Spain. Her wretchedness increased after her
return to her native country, until it rose to a degree of frenzy.
One day when she was walking with her parents in the garden of their
palace, she entered a tower, and, having barred the door, ascended to
the battlements. From thence she called to them in piercing accents,
expressive of her insupportable anguish and desperate determination.
"Let this city," said she, "be henceforth called Malacca, in memorial
of the most wretched of women, who therein put an end to her days."
So saying, she threw herself headlong from the tower and was dashed
to pieces. The city, adds the ancient chronicler, received the name
thus given it, though afterwards softened to Malaga, which it still
retains in memory of the tragical end of Florinda.
The Countess Frandina abandoned this scene of woe, and returned to
Ceuta, accompanied by her infant son. She took with her the remains
of her unfortunate daughter, and gave them honourable sepulture in a
mausoleum of the chapel belonging to the citadel. Count Julian
departed for Carthagena, where he remained plunged in horror at this
doleful event.
About this time, the cruel Suleiman, having destroyed the family of
Muza, had sent an Arab general, named Alahor, to succeed Abdalasis as
emir or governor of Spain. The new emir was of a cruel and
suspicious nature, and commenced his sway with a stern severity that
soon made those under his command look back with regret to the easy
rule of Abdalasis. He regarded with an eye of distrust the renegade
Christians who had aided in the conquest, and who bore arms in the
service of the Moslems; but his deepest suspicions fell upon Count
Julian. "He has been a traitor to his own country-men," said he;
"how can we be sure that he will not prove traitor to us?"
A sudden insurrection of the Christians who had taken refuge in the
Asturian Mountains quickened his suspicions, and inspired him with
fears of some dangerous conspiracy against his power. In the height
of his anxiety, he bethought him of an Arabian sage named Yuza, who
had accompanied him from Africa. This son of science was withered in
form, and looked as if he had outlived the usual term of mortal life.
In the course of his studies and travels in the East, he had
collected the knowledge and experience of ages; being skilled in
astrology, and, it is said, in necromancy, and possessing the
marvellous gift of prophecy or divination. To this expounder of
mysteries Alahor applied to learn whether any secret treason menaced
his safety.
The astrologer listened with deep attention and overwhelming brow to
all the surmises and suspicions of the emir, then shut himself up to
consult his books and commune with those supernatural intelligences
subservient to his wisdom. At an appointed hour the emir sought him
in his cell. It was filled with the smoke of perfumes; squares and
circles and various diagrams were described upon the floor, and the
astrologer was poring over a scroll of parchment, covered with
cabalistic characters. He received Alahor with a gloomy and sinister
aspect; pretending to have discovered fearful portents in the
heavens, and to have had strange dreams and mystic visions.
"O emir," said he, "be on your guard! treason is around you and in
your path; your life is in peril. Beware of Count Julian and his
family."
"Enough," said the emir. "They shall all die! Parents and
children.--all shall die!"
He forthwith sent a summons to Count Julian to attend him in Cordova.
The messenger found him plunged in affliction for the recent death of
his daughter. The count excused himself, on account of this
misfortune, from obeying the commands of the emir in person, but sent
several of his adherents. His hesitation, and the circumstance of
his having sent his family across the straits to Africa, were
construed by the jealous mind of the emir into proofs of guilt. He
no longer doubted his being concerned in the recent insurrections,
and that he had sent his family away, preparatory to an attempt, by
force of arms, to subvert the Moslem domination. In his fury he put
to death Siseburto and Evan, the nephews of Bishop Oppas and sons of
the former king, Witiza, suspecting them of taking part in the
treason. Thus did they expiate their treachery to their country in
the fatal battle of the Guadalete.
Alahor next hastened to Carthagena to seize upon Count Julian. So
rapid were his movements that the count had barely time to escape
with fifteen cavaliers, with whom he took refuge in the strong castle
of Marcuello, among the mountains of Aragon. The emir, enraged to be
disappointed of his prey, embarked at Carthagena and crossed the
straits to Ceuta, to make captives of the Countess Frandina and her
son.
The old chronicle from which we take this part of our legend presents
a gloomy picture of the countess in the stern fortress to which she
had fled for refuge,--a picture heightened by supernatural horrors.
These latter the sagacious reader will admit or reject according to
the measure of his faith and judgment; always remembering that in
dark and eventful times, like those in question, involving the
destinies of nations, the downfall of kingdoms, and the crimes of
rulers and mighty men, the hand of fate is sometimes strangely
visible, and confounds the wisdom of the worldly wise, by intimations
and portents above the ordinary course of things. With this proviso,
we make no scruple to follow the venerable chronicler in his
narration.
Now it so happened that the Countess Frandina was seated late at
night in her chamber in the citadel of Ceuta, which stands on a lofty
rock, overlooking the sea. She was revolving in gloomy thought the
late disasters of her family, when she heard a mournful noise like
that of the sea-breeze moaning about the castle walls. Raising her
eyes, she beheld her brother, the Bishop Oppas, at the entrance of
the chamber. She advanced to embrace him, but he forbade her with a
motion of his hand, and she observed that he was ghastly pale, and
that his eyes glared as with lambent flames.
"Touch me not, sister," said he, with a mournful voice, "lest thou be
consumed by the fire which rages within me. Guard well thy son, for
bloodhounds are upon his track. His innocence might have secured him
the protection of Heaven, but our crimes have involved him in our
common ruin." He ceased to speak and was no longer to be seen. His
coming and going were alike without noise, and the door of the
chamber remained fast bolted.
On the following morning a messenger arrived with tidings that the
Bishop Oppas had been made prisoner in battle by the insurgent
Christians of the Asturias, and had died in fetters in a tower of the
mountains. The same messenger brought word that the Emir Alahor had
put to death several of the friends of Count Julian; had obliged him
to fly for his life to a castle in Aragon, and was embarking with a
formidable force for Ceuta.
The Countess Frandina, as has already been shown, was of courageous
heart, and danger made her desperate. There were fifty Moorish
soldiers in the garrison; she feared that they would prove
treacherous, and take part with their countrymen. Summoning her
officers, therefore, she informed them of their danger, and commanded
them to put those Moors to death. The guards sallied forth to obey
her orders. Thirty-five of the Moors were in the great square,
unsuspicious of any danger, when they were severally singled out by
their executioners, and, at a concerted signal, killed on the spot.
The remaining fifteen took refuge in a tower. They saw the armada of
the emir at a distance, and hoped to be able to hold out until its
arrival. The soldiers of the countess saw it also, and made
extraordinary efforts to destroy these internal enemies before they
should be attacked from without. They made repeated attempts to
storm the tower, but were as often repulsed with severe loss. They
then undermined it, supporting its foundations by stanchions of wood.
To these they set fire and withdrew to a distance, keeping up a
constant shower of missiles to prevent the Moors from sallying forth
to extinguish the flames. The stanchions were rapidly consumed, and
when they gave way the tower fell to the ground. Some of the Moors
were crushed among the ruins; others were flung to a distance and
dashed among the rocks; those who survived were instantly put to the
sword.
The fleet of the emir arrived at Ceuta about the hour of vespers. He
landed, but found the gates closed against him. The countess herself
spoke to him from a tower, and set him at defiance. The emir
immediately laid siege to the city. He consulted the astrologer
Yuza, who told him that for seven days his star would have the
ascendant over that of the youth Alarbot, but after that time the
youth would be safe from his power, and would effect his ruin.
Alahor immediately ordered the city to be assailed on every side, and
at length carried it by storm. The countess took refuge with her
forces in the citadel, and made desperate defence; but the walls were
sapped and mined, and she saw that all resistance would soon be
unavailing. Her only thoughts now were to conceal her child.
"Surely," said she, "they will not think of seeking him among the
dead." She led him therefore into the dark and dismal chapel. "Thou
art not afraid to be alone in this darkness, my child?" said she.
"No, mother," replied the boy; "darkness gives silence and sleep."
She conducted him to the tomb of Florinda. "Fearest thou the dead,
my child?" "No mother; the dead can do no harm, and what should I
fear from my sister?"
The countess opened the sepulchre. "Listen, my son," said she.
"There are fierce and cruel people who have come hither to murder
thee. Stay here in company with thy sister, and be quiet as thou
dost value thy life!" The boy, who was of a courageous nature, did
as he was bidden, and remained there all that day, and all the night,
and the next day until the third hour.
In the meantime the walls of the citadel were sapped, the troops of
the emir poured in at the breach, and a great part of the garrison
was put to the sword. The countess was taken prisoner and brought
before the emir. She appeared in his presence with a haughty
demeanour, as if she had been a queen receiving homage; but when he
demanded her son, she faltered and turned pale, and replied, "My son
is with the dead."
"Countess," said the emir, "I am not to be deceived; tell me where
you have concealed the boy, or tortures shall wring from you the
secret."
"Emir," replied the countess, "may the greatest torments be my
portion, both here and hereafter, if what I speak be not the truth.
My darling child lies buried with the dead."
The emir was confounded by the solemnity of her words; but the
withered astrologer Yuza, who stood by his side regarding the
countess from beneath his bushed eyebrows, perceived trouble in her
countenance and equivocation in her words. "Leave this matter to
me," whispered he to Alahor; "I will produce the child."
He ordered strict search to be made by the soldiery and he obliged
the countess to be always present. When they came to the chapel, her
cheek turned pale and her lip quivered. "This," said the subtile
astrologer, "is the place of concealment!"
The search throughout the chapel, however, was equally vain, and the
soldiers were about to depart when Yuza remarked a slight gleam of
joy in the eye of the countess. "We are leaving our prey behind,"
thought he; "the countess is exulting."
He now called to mind the words of her asseveration, that her child
was with the dead. Turning suddenly to the soldiers he ordered them
to search the sepulchres. "If you find him not," said he, "drag
forth the bones of that wanton Cava, that they may be burnt, and the
ashes scattered to the winds."
The soldiers searched among the tombs and found that of Florinda
partly open. Within lay the boy in the sound sleep of childhood, and
one of the soldiers took him gently in his arms to bear him to the
emir.
When the countess beheld that her child was discovered, she rushed
into the presence of Alahor, and, forgetting all her pride, threw
herself upon her knees before him.
"Mercy! mercy!" cried she in piercing accents, "mercy on my son--my
only child! O Emir! listen to a mother's prayer and my lips shall
kiss thy feet. As thou art merciful to him so may the most high God
have mercy upon thee, and heap blessings on thy head."
"Bear that frantic woman hence," said the emir, "but guard her well."
The countess was dragged away by the soldiery, without regard to her
struggles and her cries, and confined in a dungeon of the citadel.
The child was now brought to the emir. He had been awakened by the
tumult, but gazed fearlessly on the stern countenances of the
soldiers. Had the heart of the emir been capable of pity, it would
have been touched by the tender youth and innocent beauty of the
child; but his heart was as the nether millstone, and he was bent
upon the destruction of the whole family of Julian. Calling to him
the astrologer, he gave the child into his charge with a secret
command. The withered son of the desert took the boy by the hand and
led him up the winding staircase of a tower. When they reached the
summit, Yuza placed him on the battlements.
"Cling not to me, my child," said he; "there is no danger." "Father,
I fear not," said the undaunted boy; "yet it is a wondrous height!"
The child looked around with delighted eyes. The breeze blew his
curling locks from about his face, and his cheek glowed at the
boundless prospect; for the tower was reared upon that lofty
promontory on which Hercules founded one of his pillars. The surges
of the sea were heard far below, beating upon the rocks, the sea-gull
screamed and wheeled about the foundations of the tower, and the
sails of lofty caraccas were as mere specks on the bosom of the deep.
"Dost thou know yonder land beyond the blue water?" said Yuza.
"It is Spain," replied the boy; "it is the land of my father and my
mother."
"Then stretch forth thy hands and bless it, my child," said the
astrologer.
The boy let go his hold of the wall; and, as he stretched forth his
hands, the aged son of Ishmael, exerting all the strength of his
withered limbs, suddenly pushed him over the battlements. He fell
headlong from the top of that tall tower, and not a bone in his
tender frame but was crushed upon the rocks beneath.
Alahor came to the foot of the winding stairs.
"Is the boy safe?" cried he.
"He is safe," replied Yuza; "come and behold the truth with thine own
eyes."
The emir ascended the tower and looked over the battlements, and
beheld the body of the child, a shapeless mass on the rocks far
below, and the seagulls hovering about it; and he gave orders that it
should be thrown into the sea, which was done.
On the following morning the countess was led forth from her dungeon
into the public square. She knew of the death of her child, and that
her own death was at hand, but she neither wept nor supplicated. Her
hair was dishevelled, her eyes were haggard with watching, and her
cheek was as the monumental stone; but there were the remains of
commanding beauty in her countenance, and the majesty of her presence
awed even the rabble into respect.
A multitude of Christian prisoners were then brought forth, and
Alahor cried out: "Behold the wife of Count Julian! behold one of
that traitorous family which has brought ruin upon yourselves and
upon your country!" And he ordered that they should stone her to
death. But the Christians drew back with horror from the deed, and
said, "In the hand of God is vengeance; let not her blood be upon our
heads." Upon this the emir swore with horrid imprecations that
whoever of the captives refused should himself be stoned to death.
So the cruel order was executed, and the Countess Frandina perished
by the hands of her countrymen. Having thus accomplished his
barbarous errand, the emir embarked for Spain, and ordered the
citadel of Ceuta to be set on fire, and crossed the straits at night
by the light of its towering flames.
The death of Count Julian, which took place not long after, closed
the tragic story of his family. How he died remains involved in
doubt. Some assert that the cruel Alahor pursued him to his retreat
among the mountains, and, having taken him prisoner, beheaded him;
others that the Moors confined him in a dungeon, and put an end to
his life with lingering torments; while others affirm that the tower
of the castle of Marcuello, near Huesca, in Aragon, in which he took
refuge, fell on him and crushed him to pieces. All agree that his
latter end was miserable in the extreme and his death violent. The
curse of Heaven, which had thus pursued him to the grave, was
extended to the very place which had given him shelter; for we are
told that the castle is no longer inhabited on account of the strange
and horrible noises that are heard in it; and that visions of armed
men are seen above it in the air; which are supposed to be the
troubled spirits of the apostate Christians who favoured the cause of
the traitor.
In after-times a stone sepulchre was shown, outside of the chapel of
the castle, as the tomb of Count Julian; but the traveller and the
pilgrim avoided it, or bestowed upon it a malediction; and the name
of Julian has remained a by-word and a scorn in the land for the
warning of all generations. Such ever be the lot of him who betrays
his country.
V