Without, a ruin, broken, tangled, cumbrous,
Within, it was a little paradise,
Where Taste had made her dwelling. Statuary,
First-born of human art, moulded her images,
And bade men. mark and worship.
ANONYMOUS.
The Count of Paris and his lady attended the old man, whose advanced
age, his excellence in the use of the French language, which he spoke
to admiration,--above all, his skill in applying it to poetical and
romantic subjects, which was essential to what was then termed history
and belles lettres,--drew from the noble hearers a degree of applause,
which, as Agelastes had seldom been vain enough to consider as his due,
so, on the part of the Knight of Paris and his lady, had it been but
rarely conferred. They had walked for some time by a path which
sometimes seemed to hide itself among the woods that came down to the
shore of the Propontis, sometimes emerged from concealment, and skirted
the open margin of the strait, while, at every turn, it seemed guided
by the desire to select a choice and contrast of beauty. Variety of
scenes and manners enlivened, from their novelty, the landscape to the
pilgrims. By the sea-shore, nymphs were seen dancing, and shepherds
piping, or beating the tambourine to their steps, as represented in
some groups of ancient statuary. The very faces had a singular
resemblance to the antique. If old, their long robes, their attitudes,
and magnificent heads, presented the ideas which distinguish prophets
and saints; while, on the other hand, the features of the young
recalled the expressive countenances of the heroes of antiquity, and
the charms of those lovely females by whom their deeds were inspired.
But the race of the Greeks was no longer to be seen, even in its native
country, unmixed, or in absolute purity; on the contrary, they saw
groups of persons with features which argued a different descent.
In a retiring bosom of the shore, which was traversed by the path, the
rocks, receding from the beach, rounded off a spacious portion of level
sand, and, in some degree, enclosed it. A party of heathen Scythians
whom they beheld, presented the deformed features of the demons they
were said to worship--flat noses with expanded nostrils, which seemed
to admit the sight to their very brain; faces which extended rather in
breadth than length, with strange unintellectual eyes placed in the
extremity; figures short and dwarfish, yet garnished with legs and arms
of astonishing sinewy strength, disproportioned to their bodies. As the
travellers passed, the savages held a species of tournament, as the
Count termed it. In this they exercised themselves by darting at each
other long reeds, or canes, balanced for the purpose, which, in this
rude sport, they threw with such force, as not unfrequently to strike
each other from their steeds, and otherwise to cause serious damage.
Some of the combatants being, for the time, out of the play, devoured
with greedy looks the beauty of the Countess, and eyed her in such a
manner, that she said to Count Robert,--"I have never known fear, my
husband, nor is it for me to acknowledge it now; but if disgust be an
ingredient of it, these misformed brutes are qualified to inspire it."
"What, ho, Sir Knight!" exclaimed one of the infidels, "your wife, or
your lady love, has committed a fault against the privileges of the
Imperial Scythians, and not small will be the penalty she has incurred.
You may go your way as fast as you will out of this place, which is,
for the present; our hippodrome, or atmeidan, call it which you will,
as you prize the Roman or the Saracen language; but for your wife, if
the sacrament has united you, believe my word, that she parts not so
soon or so easy."
"Scoundrel heathen," said the Christian Knight, "dost thou hold that
language to a Peer of France?"
Agelastes here interposed, and using the sounding language of a Grecian
courtier, reminded the Scythians, (mercenary soldiers, as they seemed,
of the empire,) that all violence against the European pilgrims was, by
the Imperial orders, strictly prohibited under pain of death.
"I know better," said the exulting savage, shaking one or two javelins
with broad steel heads, and wings of the eagle's feather, which last
were dabbled in blood. "Ask the wings of my javelin," he said, "in
whose heart's blood these feathers have been dyed. They shall reply to
you, that if Alexius Comnenus be the friend of the European pilgrims,
it is only while he looks upon them; and we are too exemplary soldiers
to serve our Emperor otherwise than he wishes to be served."
"Peace, Toxartis," said the philosopher, "thou beliest thine Emperor."
"Peace thou!" said Toxartis, "or I will do a deed that misbecomes a
soldier, and rid the world of a prating old man."
So saying, he put forth his hand to take hold of the Countess's veil.
With the readiness which frequent use had given to the warlike lady,
she withdrew herself from the heathen's grasp, and with her trenchant
sword dealt him so sufficient a blow, that Toxartis lay lifeless on the
plain. The Count leapt on the fallen leader's steed, and crying his
war-cry, "Son of Charlemagne, to the rescue!" he rode amid the rout of
heathen cavaliers with a battle-axe, which he found at the saddlebow of
the deceased chieftain, and wielding it with remorseless dexterity, he
soon slew or wounded, or compelled to flight, the objects of his
resentment; nor was there any of them who abode an instant to support
the boast which they had made. "The despicable churls!" said the
Countess to Agelastes; "it irks me that a drop of such coward blood
should stain the hands of a noble knight. They call their exercise a
tournament, although in their whole exertions every blow is aimed
behind the back, and not one has the courage to throw his windlestraw
while he perceives that of another pointed against himself."
"Such is their custom," said Agelastes; "not perhaps so much from
cowardice as from habit, in exercising before his Imperial Majesty. I
have seen that Toxartis literally turn his back upon the mark when he
bent his bow in full career, and when in the act of galloping the
farthest from his object, he pierced it through the very centre with a
broad arrow."
"A force of such soldiers," said Count Robert, who had now rejoined his
friends, "could not, methinks, be very formidable, where there was but
an ounce of genuine courage in the assailants."
"Mean time, let us pass on to my kiosk," said Agelastes, "lest the
fugitives find friends to encourage them in thoughts of revenge."
"Such friends," said Count Robert, "methinks the insolent heathens
ought not to find in any land which calls itself Christian; and if I
survive the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre, I shall make it my first
business to enquire by what right your Emperor retains in his service a
band of Paynim and unmannerly cut-throats, who dare offer injury upon
the highway, which ought to be sacred to the peace of God and the king,
and to noble ladies and inoffensive pilgrims. It is one of a list of
many questions which, my vow accomplished, I will not fail to put to
him; ay, and expecting an answer, as they say, prompt and categorical."
"You shall gain no answer from me though," said Agelastes to himself.
"Your demands, Sir Knight, are over-peremptory, and imposed under too
rigid conditions, to be replied to by those who can evade them." He
changed the conversation, accordingly, with easy dexterity; and they
had not proceeded much farther, before they reached a spot, the natural
beauties of which called forth the admiration of his foreign
companions. A copious brook, gushing out of the woodland, descended to
the sea with no small noise and tumult; and, as if disdaining a quieter
course, which it might have gained by a little circuit to the right, it
took the readiest road to the ocean, plunging over the face of a lofty
and barren precipice which overhung the sea-shore, and from thence led
its little tribute, with as much noise as if it had the stream of a
full river to boast of, to the waters of the Hellespont.
The rock, we have said, was bare, unless in so far as it was clothed
with the foaming waters of the cataract; but the banks on each side
were covered with plane-trees, walnut-trees, cypresses, and other kinds
of large timber proper to the East. The fall of water, always agreeable
in a warm climate, and generally produced by artificial means, was here
natural, and had been chosen, something like the Sibyl's temple at
Tivoli, for the seat of a goddess to whom the invention of Polytheism
had assigned a sovereignty over the department around. The shrine was
small and circular, like many of the lesser temples of the rustic
deities, and enclosed by the wall of an outer court. After its
desecration, it had probably been converted into a luxurious summer
retreat by Agelastes, or some Epicurean philosopher. As the building,
itself of a light, airy, and fantastic character, was dimly seen
through the branches and foliage on the edge of the rock, so the mode
by which it was accessible was not at first apparent amongst the mist
of the cascade. A pathway, a good deal hidden, by vegetation, ascended
by a gentle acclivity, and prolonged by the architect by means of a few
broad and easy marble steps, making part of the original approach,
conducted the passenger to a small, but exquisitely lovely velvet lawn,
in front of the turret or temple we have described, the back part of
which building overhung the cataract.