Stanhope's indignation was as vehement, as it was sincere, at what had
been done; and, to every one of the royal ministers, separately and
collectively, he spoke his mind with corresponding boldness. Indeed,
his remonstrances were so strong and what he urged in the Duke's
favour, so powerful; that, as it came repeatedly before the King,
they began to fear the issue.--Difficulties in substantiating their
various allegations against Ripperda, were starting up every hour,
and the charge of poisoning, was completely disproved. From all these
considerations, they saw the necessity of keeping the ruined minister
from any chance of gaining the royal ear; which, they augured, could
hardly be prevented, when his son should arrive; whose high character,
notwithstanding the aspersions of his enemies, was whispered about,
from the representations of Sinzendorff. Indeed, those who had seen
Louis, and knew the foibles of the Queen, were afraid, that should she
see him, she might transfer that notice to the son, personal jealousy
had alone withdrawn from the father. Impelled by these apprehensions,
they moved every engine to convict the Duke of heresy, before Louis
could arrive; and in that case, should the Inquisition once claim him
as their victim, they knew the bigotry of Philip would abandon his
former favourite without another question.
While these machinations were going on at Madrid, Ripperda found the
Alcazar at Segovia answer every purpose of his malignant rivals,
but that of subduing his spirit. They had placed him in charge of a
creature of their own. And though the noble prisoner lay for several
days in such extremity, that for as many nights his faithful servant
despaired of his ever seeing the light of another morning, yet no
physician was permitted to enter those dismal walls. A dungeon was his
chamber; and the coarsest fare, his support. The men, who would not
dare to administer poison or strangulation, calculated without remorse
on this way of ridding themselves of an obnoxious life. When they
thought him sufficiently reduced by sickness and bodily hardships, they
put his soul to the torture, by sending a well-tutored priest to extort
a confession of his crimes. The demand was backed by an insulting
assurance, that, on such a proof of penitence, he should be allowed the
indulgence of the state apartments, and the range of the garden for
exercise.
Ripperda rejected these insidious proffers, with indignation. Sometimes
the language of his Inquisitor provoked him beyond self-controul and,
between the delirium of illness, and the phrenzy of despair, he,
more than once, was left raving, or insensible, in the arms of his
servant. As time wore away, and no tidings of Louis or Lorenzo arrived,
his enemies took advantage of this circumstance; and on Martini
incautiously dropping a hint of the young Marquis's future revenge on
the injurers of his father, the priest intimated that Louis was in too
good an understanding with his own interests, to unite them again with
a discarded traitor, though he were his parent.
This imputation on his son was too much for the small remnant of
patience that remained to the Duke. He was now reduced to a maddening
state of mental irritation; to an exasperated hatred of human nature;
and denouncing Austria and Spain in one wide malediction, he fiercely
commanded their agent to leave his presence. The man, however, sat
unmoved in soul or in countenance, while Martini looked with anguish
on his master; as on a noble galley he had lately seen proudly stemming
its steady way through the raging sea, but now beheld bereft of rudder
and compass, and at the mercy of every wind.
The malignant priest waited for a momentary calm, and then threw out
some dark hints, that in a few days Ripperda would be removed to a
surer durance; and on a double charge of having secretly maintained the
principles of heresy in himself; and entrusted the interests of His
Catholic Majesty to his son, whom he knew to be a professed heretic.
The Duke listened to this in gloomy silence; but when the subtle agent
proceeded to say, that this son had offered his evidence to witness the
same, Ripperda started from his chair. He now knew no bounds to his
wrath; and he proclaimed it in such a manner, that the terrified priest
flew before him. Insult and outrage seemed to have given that bodily
vigour to Ripperda, which medicine and surgery had taken no pains to
restore.
"Revenge is within me, like a new principle of life!" cried he, to
Martini; "I will free myself. And then they shall feel the strength
that lies in this single arm!"
Martini learnt from the servants of the prison, that the priest's
denunciation was no vain threat; for preparations were silently making
for the Duke's removal to the Inquisition, as soon as the King could
be brought to sign the warrant. All knew that such a warrant was the
signal of death; and of such a death, that human nature shuddered at
the bare idea of its horrors. Martini hastened to his master with the
intelligence. He found him leaning over a map of the world, which
lay on the table before him. Ripperda attended to all he said, with
profound attention. When he had finished speaking, he commanded him
to withdraw for an hour; after which time, he would tell him his
resolution.
It was two hours, before the Duke called him in from the anti-chamber,
which was his usual station as his master's guard; and then he calmly
told him that it was his determination to effect his own escape, and
to take his revenge from the pillars of Hercules. As he spoke, he
pointed with his finger to the spot on the map which marked the Rock of
Gibraltar. Martini readily came into all his master's plans; and gladly
heard him discuss them, with all his former sobriety of manner, and
decision of command.
"But," asked the faithful servant, "should the Marquis visit this
prison when we are gone, how is he to know where to follow you?"
"My actions shall proclaim to him and to the world where to follow me!"
replied the Duke; "If he be the parricide these people represent, he
will then repent the poor part he has now taken; and see the policy,
if not the duty, of being true to the fortunes of such a father. But,
if these wretches have slandered him, and he be indeed my son,--then I
will make that England, which fostered him, what I would have made this
ungrateful, ruined country!"
Martini saw that a temporary mist clouded the mind of his master;
but that noble nature had been so smitten by universal ingratitude,
he did not wonder it should doubt every dubious appearance. He,
however, had seen enough of Louis, to admire and to love him; and he
zealously exerted himself to overthrow the suspicions against him which
occasionally arose in the mind of his father. Something influenced
by his reasoning, Ripperda employed the greatest part of the day in
writing a large packet for his son. He inclosed it under a cover to
the Marquis Santa Cruz, who had a villa in the neighbourhood. Martini
delivered it the same night into the hands of the Marchioness, her
husband being still in Sardinia; but she assured the faithful servant
of her care of its contents.
Ripperda's attention was next directed to put his plan of escape, in
train for execution. It was modelled by the difficult situation of
the Alcazar. This state prison stands on the summit of a huge rock,
overlooking the city of Segovia on one side; and on the other, which is
nearly perpendicular, and covered with matted underwood to a thickness
almost impenetrable, it precipitates down to a fosse, filled from the
river Atayada. The castle was erected by the Moors; and is fortified
according to their ancient mode. The large old square towers are bound
round their battlements with a heavy stone-work of chains, proclaiming
from afar the subjection in which the Moresco princes formerly held
the Spanish land. This once formidable fortress, like their banished
race, was, in many parts, in a state of decay; and, in others, totally
destroyed. Some of the buttresses were mouldering away; and, where
one of the towers had fallen, its ruins dammed up part of the ditch;
at least it raised a causeway under the water, so high that a person
acquainted with its direction, might pass over very safely, knee-deep
in the stream.
In a dungeon of the corresponding tower, on this side of the castle,
was the prison of Ripperda.
Martini prepared a couple of stout mules, and concealed them amongst
the thickets on the opposite side of the fosse. In that part, it was
little better than a morass, from the occasional overflowing of the
waters at the rainy seasons. He also procured the habits of muleteers,
for the Duke and himself; and a ladder of ropes, to descend from the
window of the prison to the top of the rock; whence they were to
scramble their way down its declivity to the edge of the ditch.
Every thing was prepared for the momentous attempt; but on the very
morning of the day fixed on for the escape, Ripperda was visited by
a Jesuit of rank; who came on a special commission from the Marquis
de Paz, to apprize him that the King had signed his warrant for the
Inquisition; and to mock him with the assurance, that nothing could now
save him from the extremest vengeance of the offended church, but a
full acknowledgement of all his heretical and political iniquities. The
gracious message then was, that in such a case he should be represented
to the Pope, and possibly might be pardoned.
The Jesuit expatiated on the curse of heaven, which now manifested
itself on the head of the Duke in every relation of his life. Whether
in its public or private circumstances, all bore the marks of
universal excommunication. His son had deserted him; and the fortunes
on which he leaned as on a rock, were now sinking in the ocean; or
becoming the prey of corsairs, to swell the iniquity of infidels
like himself. All this circumlocution only informed Ripperda of a
misfortune, unworthy of his attention at the present moment: the loss
of his Levant merchantmen; part, in the late heavy storms; and part,
taken by the pirates of Barbary.
To impose upon this new emissary, he had received him, lying on his
bed, where he affected to have sustained a relapse of his illness;
and, during the whole discourse kept a stern silence. At last, being
vehemently urged for some reply to the proposition respecting a
penitential appeal to the Pope, Ripperda raised himself on his arm; and
with eyes glaring on his visitor, like the roused lion from his lair,
he fiercely replied:--
"Tell your employers, that before they again lay hands on the Duke de
Ripperda, he will have made his appeal to a tribunal which shall make
them tremble! And for your arguments! I too, studied in the Jesuits'
college, and am not to be ensnared!"
The priest supposed the infuriated Duke anticipated his own death, and
meant the tribunal of heaven; and shaking his head, while he pronounced
the words "reprobate!" and "accursed!" he left the apartment.
Martini urged that nothing should delay their departure that night;
for, after the information which the Jesuit brought, he saw the
approach of _a Familiar_ in every shadow that flitted across the
dungeon wall.
Ripperda sat a long time, absorbed in thought. He heard no word
of Martini's; he saw nothing of his busy arrangements for their
flight. The corsairs of Barbary, his own Moorish ancestors, and the
banishment of part of their race, while his own line remained great
lords in Spain; were all before his mind's eye, in fearful, prompting
apparition. His warlike progenitor, Don Valor de Ripperda, two hundred
years ago, had married the only daughter of the Moresco King of Granada.
His son, the renowned Don Ferdinand de Valor shook the Christian
kingdoms of Spain to their centre, when the dark policy of Philip II.
issued his edict to expel the Moorish descendants from their ancient
seats in Spain. Aben-Humeya was the name of the Granada princes. De
Valor resumed it, when he raised the rebel standard on the Alpuxara
mountains.
"Another Philip shall hear that name again!" cried Ripperda to
himself; and covering his face with his hands, to prevent any outward
circumstance disturbing the current of his meditations, he sat without
word or motion, till the dungeon became wrapped in total darkness, and
the hour of his attempt drew near.
Martini had furnished himself with gold from his master's villa in the
neighbourhood; which he had visited secretly by the Duke's directions,
through ways known only to himself; and to a treasury under ground,
which had escaped the scrutiny of the police, and was abundant in
jewels and ingots. The wealth, which Ripperda deemed necessary for his
expedition, was sewed into various parts of their muleteer garments.
Martini appeared from his little anti-room, with a lamp in his hand, as
the prison clock struck ten. It was a rough autumnal night; a bright
moon, at times shewed her head through the flying clouds; and at others
was totally obscured under a mass of billowy vapours, rolling over each
other, and descending till they touched the hills.
The goaler had locked his prisoners in, and retired to rest. The
sentinels were planted at their posts; each on the ramparts of the
curtain that ran between the towers. Ripperda roused himself from
his portentous trance, and arrayed his noble figure in the rugged
habiliments of the muleteer. In vain he dyed his visage with the
bista-nut; in vain he shrouded himself in the leathern jerkin,
unshapely boots, and huge Sierra-bonnet; still the grandeur of his air,
and the grace of his person, proclaimed the descendant of princes; and
he who was used to command, and be obeyed.
The light Italian looked what he assumed; a brisk, active muleteer,
full of life and merriment.
Their belts were filled with loaded pistols, which they covered from
observation by the fringes of their vests; a poniard was in each
well-guarded bosom; and a trusty sword by their sides. Being fully
equipped, Ripperda looked around him on the walls of his dungeon. It
was still in the verge of possibility that his son might seek his
father in that dismal chamber. He paused; and hastily wrote a few
lines, to say that parent still lived, and would yet proclaim himself
with honour to the world. He directed the brief letter to the Marquis
de Montemar, and left it on the table.
Martini threw up his hooked-rope; which catching on the iron stanchel
of the window, he drew himself by it to the top, and dislodged the bars
from their slight holding. A few days before, he had filed away their
firm adhesion to their sockets. Having made open way for his master,
he fastened the rope-ladder to the opposite side of the window, and
dropping it out, slid down its sides till he reached the bottom. Here
he drove its spiked extremity into the earth. By that time the Duke
had mounted by the same means to the window; and drawing up the rope
by which he had ascended, remained seated on the stone casement, till
Martini had fixed all right below. It was no sooner accomplished, than
Ripperda was on the top of the ladder, and in a few seconds by his side.
The sentinel was singing a sequedilla above; and its notes came to them
with the wailing blast. The moon was now full upon them, and Martini
putting out his head a little from the wall distinctly saw the musket
and waving feather of the soldier as he walked to and fro at his post.
Their garments, however, were dark; and they moved cautiously along
amongst the bushes at the bottom of the curtain, till they reached the
ruined tower whose fallen masses lessened the perpendicular of the
descent. Like the rest, it was covered with thicket; and they clambered
down from bush to bush and projecting roots of trees now no more, till
they arrived at the brink of the fosse.
Martini had tried the ford the night before; and plunging in, which
example Ripperda followed, both found a firm footing in the water.
They crossed in safety; and Martini, taking up a fragment of the ruin,
rolled the Duke's sumptuous garments round it, and also his own, and
sunk it in the ditch. This was to prevent the suspicion of their having
changed their usual dresses, when they fled. Martini then turned aside
to seek the mules. The moon again shone out from the black clouds.
"Fortune favours me!" cried Ripperda, as he looked up to her bright
orb, and to the frowning battlements he had left. "Thy ensign may light
me back to this castle in a different garb from that in which I leave
it! When Spain sees me again, it will not be as a benefactor."
He turned into the thickets to follow Martini, and was soon lost in the
darkness.