"Ah, 'mid this scene
Of loveliness and deep serenity,
The traces of despair, and woe, and death
Were darkly visible!"
SHE fell at the very feet of her husband, and he looked down with a
smile that was sardonic in its bitterness. Zanotti, under an impulse
that paused not to reflect that under the circumstances the action was
an insult to the man who deemed himself already foully wronged, advanced
with the intention of raising her, but Prince Carlos waved him back. Not a
syllable had either of these men uttered. Their glances were sufficiently
intelligible without speech. They seemed mutually fascinated; a kind
of magnetism seemed to draw upon each the other's eyes. At length, the
terrible silence was broken. It was the prince that spoke, and, as he did
so, his look was terribly significant.
"Come, senor! You wear a sword!"
"What would your highness have?" said Zanotti, in the low, hoarse tone of
a man struggling to subdue irrepressible emotion.
"I have said it. Draw!" was the short reply.
"What, here?" The remark escaped Zanotti unconsciously, as his eye sought
the extended body of the insensible Leonora.
"Ay, sir!" said the prince. "She'll heed it not. In these little plays,
you know, a tragic scene is indispensable to keep up the interest. Why
should not the heroine witness it?"
Zanotti shuddered beneath the maniac look that accompanied this affected
jocularity.
"As you will, sir," said he, sternly, repressing all show of feeling.
"But," he ventured to add, "the lady, prince. It were unnecessary cruelty
to leave her thus."
"Rather say kindness," said the other, solemnly. "It were a mercy if she
never recovered."
The prince drew his sword as he spoke, and motioned to Zanotti to do
the same. He did so, and, even in the momentary period occupied by the
action, what a world of thoughts thronged upon him! He thought of his old
cloister life, when books were at once his mistresses and his friends; he
thought of his first meeting with Leonora d'Alvarez; of their parting,
mitigated by a hope of reunion under happier auspices; of the miserable
disappointment of that hope; and of the fearful future that was before
Leonora, whether he lived or died, unless--and how weak the chance!--her
husband could be convinced of her innocence.
"Prince Carlos," said he, abruptly, as the other placed himself on guard,
"before we enter upon a struggle beside that inanimate body--a struggle in
which death may seal my lips forever--I must crave a moment's attention.
Your wife"--the word seemed almost to choke him--"is innocent of any wrong
at which your suspicions would point."
The prince smiled--a smile of bitter, disdainful incredulity.
"It is true, and it were useless to deny it, I love her."
The prince started as if stung by an adder, the first departure he had
made from his courtly immobility. Zanotti observed the gesture, and it
gave him confidence; it showed this icy statue had human passions. He
added, in a firmer tone than he had been capable of using before--
"Yes, Prince Carlos, the only being my heart worships lies there at your
feet; but that love is of an earlier birth than her knowledge of your
highness, and therefore the acknowledgment cannot be insulting. To-night
I met her for the first time in the space of four years, and the meeting
was accidental. With scarcely the hope of its finding faith, I make this
asseveration. It is necessary for the reputation of that much injured
lady. Her virtue--her purity is as untarnished as yonder sky!"
"Of her _reputation_," said the other, haughtily, "_I_ know how to guard
it. For her VIRTUE". A cold, venomous look of unbelief said the rest.
"Prince," said Zanotti, and his face showed some indignation, mixed with
a haughty assumption of calmness--"prince, my words are probably those of
a man about to solve the mighty secret of futurity, and I swear to you she
is innocent! I pledge you all my hopes of eternal salvation, and trust
that God may spurn me from his throne of mercy if my words contain an
element of falsehood!"
"Oaths, on such an occasion," said the other, coldly, "are worthless.
This is a superfluous waste of words. Leave _her_ defence to herself. The
question is now between you and me. Your presence here, with the avowal of
passion you have made, is in itself an insult demanding reparation. _I_
consent to forget the difference of rank between a hireling soldier and a
prince of Spain, and you can hardly refuse to meet my vengeance."
"Enough, sir!" said Zanotti; "that slight was unnecessary. I am ready."
Their blades crossed, and, at first, every movement was studied and
cautious, as if each sought to measure the other's skill, and hesitated
to risk consequences that, in the situation in which they were placed,
involved life or death. Many a feint passed between them, and each found
in the other a much more formidable antagonist than he had anticipated.
The Italian, the moment his sword touched that of his adversary, regained
at once the calm, resolute bearing of one accustomed to rely upon those
qualities for existence; and the Spaniard, at first, exhibited an equal
degree of coolness. Gradually, however, he grew more excited, and made
one or two lunges, which were quickly parried, but no effort made to
return them. This indicated, on the part of Zanotti, an intention either
to confine his action to defence, or murderously wait an opportunity of
ending the struggle by a single, fatal stroke. Either supposition, as
be-speaking a consciousness of superiority, was sufficiently galling to
add to his excitement, and his thrusts increased in number, leaving him at
each more and more exposed. But, suddenly, Zanotti altered his tactics.
He brought his "_forte_" in contact with his opponent's "_foible_," and
the next instant the prince's weapon, twirled from his grasp, was spinning
through the air and fell upon the ground at some distance from where they
stood.
For one moment, one single moment, the Spaniard glared upon him, his face
bearing a look of concentrated venomous hate, then, snatching from its
jewelled sheath a short stiletto, he sprang with the bound of an enraged
panther upon his foe. Taken unprepared--for, the moment his adversary was
disarmed, he had dropped the point of his own weapon--Zanotti staggered
and fell, and the next instant the dagger was, as it seemed, plunged up to
the very hilt in his heart.
Drawing the weapon from its still palpitating sheath, he wiped the blade,
and then, with hands wet with her lover's blood, took the form of Leonora,
yet happily insensible, and bore it to the palazzo. There was still
revelry and mirth within.
* * * * *
Years have passed; it is night, and the stars are scattered over the
broad, clear face of heaven, an archipelago of worlds. There has been a
thunder storm during the afternoon, and large rain-drops still burden the
foliage and the grass, sparkling like a maiden's bridal tears. The sky
hangs, as it were, in quiet fondness over the earth, and the night-wind is
sighing love tales to the flowers.
In a garden, situated a few miles from Cordova, which incloses within its
high walls a lightly, but tastefully built edifice of considerable size,
are assembled some six or eight persons of both sexes. Their attitudes
and occupations are various. One young girl reclines negligently, but
gracefully, on the still damp grass, and touches the chords of a guitar
with no unskilful hand; a fine-looking man, in the prime of life, paces
up and down a long avenue, and seems to be absorbed in meditation;
and another, a lady, is weaving flowers into garlands. She is a
splendid-looking woman, of perhaps five-and-thirty years of age, with
those large, liquid black eyes that seem to absorb and reflect back to you
a portion of your own soul. Her look, however, is sad and hopeless, even
her smile giving but a pale, wintry gleam. Ever and anon she sighs, too,
and talks to herself in a tone unintelligible to the ear, but breathing a
sad, Æolian strain to the heart. Her eye wanders in bewilderment, seeking
imagined forms. Her emotions seem to be all mute, expressionless, without
a language, and translatable only by signs. _It is Leonora; she is crazed!_
* * * * *