on his knees in the chapel, imploring the Virgin to allay a tempest which
was strewing the coast with wrecks, when a sentinel brought word that a
Moorish cruiser was standing for the land. The Alcayde gave orders to ring
the alarm bells, light signal-fires on the hill tops, and rouse the
country; for the coast was subject to cruel maraudings from the Barbary
cruisers.
In a little while the horsemen of the neighborhood were seen pricking
along the beach, armed with such weapons as they could find; and the
Alcayde and his scanty garrison descended from the hill. In the meantime
the Moorish bark came rolling and pitching toward the land. As it drew
near, the rich carving and gilding with which it was decorated, its silken
bandaroles, and banks of crimson oars, showed it to be no warlike vessel,
but a sumptuous galleot, destined for state and ceremony. It bore the
marks of the tempest: the masts were broken, the oars shattered, and
fragments of snowy sails and silken awnings were fluttering in the blast.
As the galleot grounded upon the sand, the impatient rabble rushed into
the surf to capture and make spoil; but were awed into admiration and
respect by the appearance of the illustrious company on board. There were
Moors of both sexes sumptuously arrayed, and adorned with precious jewels,
bearing the demeanor of persons of lofty rank. Among them shone
conspicuous a youthful beauty, magnificently attired, to whom all seemed
to pay reverence.
Several of the Moors surrounded her with drawn swords, threatening death
to any that approached; others sprang from the bark, and, throwing
themselves on their knees before the Alcayde, implored him, by his honor
and courtesy as a knight, to protect a royal virgin from injury and
insult.
'You behold before you,' said they, 'the only daughter of the King of
Algiers, the betrothed bride of the son of the King of Tunis. We were
conducting her to the court of her expecting bridegroom, when a tempest
drove us from our course, and compelled us to take refuge on your coast.
Be not more cruel than the tempest, but deal nobly with that which even
sea and storm have spared.'
The Alcayde listened to their prayers. He conducted the princess and her
train to the castle, where every honor due to her rank was paid her. Some
of her ancient attendants interceded for her liberation, promising
countless sums to be paid by her father for her ransom; but the Alcayde
turned a deaf ear to all their golden offers. 'She is a royal captive,'
said he; 'it belongs to my sovereign alone to dispose of her.' After she
had reposed, therefore, for some days at the castle, and recovered from
the fatigue and terror of the seas, he caused her to be conducted, with
all her train, in magnificent state to the court of Don Roderick.
The beautiful Elyata entered Toledo more like a triumphant sovereign than
a captive. A chosen band of Christian horsemen, splendidly armed, appeared
to wait upon her as a mere guard of honor. She was surrounded by the
Moorish damsels of her train, and followed by her own Moslem guards, all
attired with the magnificence that had been intended to grace her arrival
at the court of Tunis. The princess was arrayed in bridal robes, woven in
the most costly looms of the orient; her diadem sparkled with diamonds,
and was decorated with the rarest plumes of the bird of paradise; and even
the silken trappings of her palfrey, which swept the ground, were covered
with pearls and precious stones. As this brilliant cavalcade crossed the
bridge of the Tagus, all Toledo poured forth to behold it; and nothing was
heard throughout the city but praises of the wonderful beauty of the
princess of Algiers. King Roderick came forth attended by the chivalry of
his court, to receive the royal captive. His recent voluptuous life had
disposed him for tender and amorous affections, and, at the first sight of
the beautiful Elyata, he was enraptured with her charms. Seeing her face
clouded with sorrow and anxiety, he soothed her with gentle and courteous
words, and, conducting her to a royal palace, 'Behold,' said he, 'thy
habitation where no one shall molest thee; consider thyself at home in the
mansion of thy father, and dispose of any thing according to thy will.'
Here the princess passed her time, with the female attendants who had
accompanied her from Algiers; and no one but the king was permitted to
visit her, who daily became more and more enamoured of his lovely captive,
and sought, by tender assiduity, to gain her affections. The distress of
the princess at her captivity was soothed by this gentle treatment. She
was of an age when sorrow cannot long hold sway over the heart.
Accompanied by her youthful attendants, she ranged the spacious apartments
of the palace, and sported among the groves and alleys of its garden.
Every day the remembrance of the paternal home grew less and less painful,
and the king became more and more amiable in her eyes; and when, at
length, he offered to share his heart and throne with her, she listened
with downcast looks and kindling blushes, but with an air of resignation.
One obstacle remained to the complete fruition of the monarch's wishes,
and this was the religion of the princess. Roderick forthwith employed the
Archbishop of Toledo to instruct the beautiful Elyata in the mysteries of
the Christian faith. The female intellect is quick in perceiving the
merits of new doctrines: the archbishop, therefore, soon succeeded in
converting, not merely the princess, but most of her attendants; and a day
was appointed for their public baptism. The ceremony was performed with
great pomp and solemnity, in the presence of all the nobility and chivalry
of the court. The princess and her damsels, clad in white, walked on foot
to the cathedral, while numerous beautiful children, arrayed as angels,
strewed the path with flowers; and the archbishop, meeting them at the
portal, received them, as it were, into the bosom of the church. The
princess abandoned her Moorish appellation of Elyata, and was baptised by
the name of Exilona, by which she was thenceforth called, and has
generally been known in history.
The nuptials of Roderick and the beautiful convert took place shortly
afterward, and were celebrated with great magnificence. There were jousts,
and tourneys, and banquets, and other rejoicings, which lasted twenty
days, and were attended by the principle nobles from all parts of Spain.
After these were over, such of the attendants of the princess as refused
to embrace Christianity, and desired to return to Africa, were dismissed
with munificent presents; and an embassy was sent to the King of Algiers,
to inform him of the nuptials of his daughter, and to proffer him the
friendship of King Roderick.
For a time Don Roderick lived happily with his young and beautiful queen,
and Toledo was the seat of festivity and splendor. The principal nobles
throughout the kingdom repaired to his court to pay him homage, and to
receive his commands; and none were more devoted in their reverence than
those who were obnoxious to suspicion, from their connection with the late
king.
Among the foremost of these was Count Julian, a man destined to be
infamously renowned in the dark story of his country's woes. He was of one
of the proudest Gothic families, lord of Consuegra and Algeziras, and
connected by marriage with Witizia and the Bishop Oppas; his wife, the
Countess Frandina, being their sister. In consequence of this connection,
and of his own merits, he had enjoyed the highest dignities and commands:
being one of the Espatorios, or royal sword-bearers; an office of the
greatest confidence about the person of the sovereign. He had, moreover,
been intrusted with the military government of the Spanish possessions on
the African coast of the strait, which at that time were threatened by the
Arabs of the East, the followers of Mahomet, who were advancing their
victorious standard to the extremity of Western Africa. Count Julian
established his seat of government at Ceuta, the frontier bulwark, and one
of the far-famed gates of the Mediterranean Sea. Here he boldly faced, and
held in check, the torrent of Moslem invasion.
Don Julian was a man of an active, but irregular genius, and a grasping
ambition; he had a love for power and grandeur, in which he was joined by
his haughty countess; and they could ill brook the downfall of their house
as threatened by the fate of Witizia. They had hastened, therefore, to pay
their court to the newly elevated monarch, and to assure him of their
fidelity to his interests.
Roderick was readily persuaded of the sincerity of Count Julian; he was
aware of his merits as a soldier and a governor, and continued him in his
important command; honoring him with many other marks of implicit
confidence. Count Julian sought to confirm this confidence by every proof
of devotion. It was a custom among the Goths to rear many of the children
of the most illustrious families in the royal household. They served as
pages to the king, and handmaids and ladies of honor to the queen, and
were instructed in all manner of accomplishments befitting their gentle
blood. When about to depart for Ceuta, to resume his command, Don Julian
brought his daughter Florinda to present her to the sovereigns. She was a
beautiful virgin, that had not as yet attained to womanhood. 'I confide
her to your protection,' said he to the king, 'to be unto her as a father;
and to have her trained in the paths of virtue. I can leave with you no
dearer pledge of my loyalty.'
King Roderick received the timid and blushing maiden into his paternal
care; promising to watch over her happiness with a parent's eye, and that
she should be enrolled among the most cherished attendants of the queen.
With this assurance of the welfare of his child, Count Julian departed,
well pleased, for his government at Ceuta.
The beautiful daughter of Count Julian was received with great favor by
the queen Exilona, and admitted among the noble damsels that attended upon
her person. Here she lived in honor and apparent security, and surrounded
by innocent delights. To gratify his queen, Don Roderick had built for her
rural recreation, a palace without the walls of Toledo, on the banks of
the Tagus. It stood in the midst of a garden, adorned after the luxurious
style of the east. The air was perfumed by fragrant shrubs and flowers;
the groves resounded with the song of the nightingale; while the gush of
fountains and waterfalls, and the distant murmur of the Tagus, made it a
delightful retreat during the sultry days of summer. The charm of perfect
privacy also reigned throughout the place; for the garden walls were high,
and numerous guards kept watch without to protect it from all intrusion.
In this delicious abode, more befitting an oriental voluptuary than a
Gothic king, Don Roderick was accustomed to while away much of that time
which should have been devoted to the toilsome cares of government. The
very security and peace which he had produced throughout his dominions, by
his precautions to abolish the means and habitudes of war, had effected a
disastrous change in his character. The hardy and heroic qualities which
had conducted him to the throne, were softened in the lap of indulgence.
Surrounded by the pleasures of an idle and effeminate court, and beguiled
by the example of his degenerate nobles, he gave way to a fatal sensuality
that had lain dormant in his nature during the virtuous days of his
adversity. The mere love of female beauty had first enamoured him of
Exilona; and the same passion, fostered by voluptuous idleness, now
betrayed him into the commission of an act fatal to himself and Spain. The
following is the story of his error, as gathered from an old chronicle and
legend.
In a remote part of the palace was an apartment devoted to the queen. It
was like an eastern harem, shut up from the foot of man, and where the
king himself but rarely entered. It had its own courts, and gardens, and
fountains, where the queen was wont to recreate herself with her damsels,
as she had been accustomed to do in the jealous privacy of her father's
palace.
One sultry day, the king, instead of taking his siesta, or mid-day
slumber, repaired to this apartment to seek the society of the queen. In
passing through a small oratory, he was drawn by the sound of female
voices to a casement overhung with myrtles and jessamines. It looked into
an interior garden, or court, set out with orange trees, in the midst of
which was a marble fountain, surrounded by a grassy bank, enamelled with
flowers.
It was the high noontide of a summer day, when, in sultry Spain, the
landscape trembles to the eye, and all nature seeks repose, except the
grasshopper, that pipes his lulling note to the herdsman as he sleeps
beneath the shade.
Around the fountain were several of the damsels of the queen, who,
confident of the sacred privacy of the place, were yielding in that cool
retreat to the indulgence prompted by the season and the hour. Some lay
asleep on the flowery bank; others sat on the margin of the fountain,
talking and laughing, as they bathed their feet in its limpid waters, and
King Roderick beheld delicate limbs shining through the wave, that might
rival the marble in whiteness.
Among the damsels was one who had come from the Barbary coast with the
queen. Her complexion had the dark tinge of Mauritania, but it was clear
and transparent, and the deep rich rose blushed through the lovely brown.
Her eyes were black and full of fire, and flashed from under long silken
eye-lashes.
A sportive contest arose among the maidens, as to the comparative beauty
of the Spanish and Moorish forms; but the Mauritanian damsel revealed
limbs of voluptuous symmetry that seemed to defy all rivalry.
The Spanish beauties were on the point of giving up the contest, when they
bethought themselves of the young Florinda, the daughter of Count Julian,
who lay on the grassy bank, abandoned to a summer slumber. The soft glow
of youth and health mantled on her cheek; her fringed eyelashes scarcely
covered their sleeping orbs; her moist and ruby lips were lightly parted,
just revealing a gleam of her ivory teeth; while her innocent bosom rose
and fell beneath her bodice, like the gentle swelling and sinking of a
tranquil sea. There was a breathing tenderness and beauty in the sleeping
virgin, that seemed to send forth sweetness like the flowers around her.
'Behold,' cried her companions exultingly, 'the champion of Spanish
beauty!'
In their playful eagerness they half disrobed the innocent Florinda before
she was aware. She awoke in time, however, to escape from their busy
hands; but enough of her charms had been revealed to convince the monarch
that they were not to be rivalled by the rarest beauties of Mauritania.
From this day the heart of Roderick was inflamed with a fatal passion. He
gazed on the beautiful Florinda with fervid desire, and sought to read in
her looks whether there was levity or wantonness in her bosom; but the eye
of the damsel ever sunk beneath his gaze, and remained bent on the earth
in virgin modesty.
It was in vain he called to mind the sacred trust reposed in him by Count
Julian, and the promise he had given to watch over his daughter with
paternal care; his heart was vitiated by sensual indulgence, and the
consciousness of power had rendered him selfish in his gratifications.
Being one evening in the garden where the queen was diverting herself with
her damsels, and coming to the fountain where he had beheld the innocent
maidens at their sport, he could no longer restrain the passion that raged
within his breast. Seating himself beside the fountain, he called Florinda
to him to draw forth a thorn which had pierced his hand. The maiden knelt
at his feet to examine his hand, and the touch of her slender fingers
thrilled through his veins. As she knelt, too, her amber locks fell in
rich ringlets about her beautiful head, her innocent bosom palpitated
beneath the crimson boddice, and her timid blushes increased the
effulgence of her charms.
Having examined the monarch's hand in vain, she looked up in his face with
artless perplexity.
'Senior,' said she, 'I can find no thorn, nor any sign of wound.'
Don Roderick grasped her hand and pressed it to his heart. 'It is here,
lovely Florinda!' said he, 'It is here! and thou alone canst pluck it
forth!'
'My lord!' exclaimed the blushing and astonished maiden.
'Florinda!' said Don Roderick, 'dost thou love me?'
'Senior,' said she, 'my father taught me to love and reverence you. He
confided me to your care as one who would be as a parent to me, when he
should be far distant, serving your majesty with life and loyalty. May God
incline your majesty ever to protect me as a father.' So saying, the
maiden dropped her eyes to the ground, and continued kneeling; but her
countenance had become deadly pale, and as she knelt she trembled.
'Florinda,' said the king, 'either thou dost not or thou wilt not
understand me. I would have thee love me, not as a father, nor as a
monarch, but as one who adores thee. Why dost thou start? No one shall
know our loves; and, moreover, the love of a monarch inflicts no
degradation like the love of a common man; riches and honors attend upon
it. I will advance thee to rank and dignity, and place thee above the
proudest females of my court. Thy father, too, shall be more exalted and
endowed than any noble in my realm.'
The soft eye of Florinda kindled at these words. 'Senior,' said she, 'the
line I spring from can receive no dignity by means so vile; and my father
would rather die than purchase rank and power by the dishonor of his
child. But I see,' continued she, 'that your majesty speaks in this manner
only to try me. You may have thought me light and simple and unworthy to
attend upon the queen. I pray your majesty to pardon me, that I have taken
your pleasantry in such serious part.'
In this way the agitated maiden sought to evade the addresses of the
monarch; but still her cheek was blanched, and her lip quivered as she
spake.
The king pressed her hand to his lips with fervor. 'May ruin seize me,'
cried he, 'if I speak to prove thee! My heart, my kingdom, are at thy
command. Only be mine, and thou shalt rule absolute mistress of myself and
my domains.'
The damsel rose from the earth where she had hitherto knelt, and her whole
countenance glowed with virtuous indignation. 'My Lord,' said she, 'I am
your subject, and in your power; take my life if it be your pleasure; but
nothing shall tempt me to commit a crime which would be treason to the
queen, disgrace to my father, agony to my mother, and perdition to
myself.' With these words she left the garden, and the king, for the
moment, was too much awed by her indignant virtue to oppose her departure.
We shall pass briefly over the succeeding events of the story of Florinda,
about which so much has been said and sung by chronicler and bard: for the
sober page of history should be carefully chastened from all scenes that
might inflame a wanton imagination; leaving them to poems and romances,
and such-like highly seasoned works of fantasy and recreation.
Let it suffice to say, that Don Roderick pursued his suit to the beautiful
Florinda, his passion being more and more inflamed by the resistance of
the virtuous damsel. At length, forgetting what was due to helpless
beauty, to his own honor as a knight, and his word as a sovereign, he
triumphed over her weakness by base and unmanly violence.
There are not wanting those who affirm that the hapless Florinda lent a
yielding ear to the solicitations of the monarch, and her name has been
treated with opprobrium in several of the ancient chronicles and legendary
ballads that have transmitted, from generation to generation, the story of
the woes of Spain. In very truth, however, she appears to have been a
guiltless victim, resisting, as far as helpless female could resist, the
arts and intrigues of a powerful monarch, who had nought to check the
indulgence of his will, and bewailing her disgrace with a poignancy that
shows how dearly she had prized her honor.
In the first paroxysm of her grief she wrote a letter to her father,
blotted with her tears, and almost incoherent from her agitation. 'Would
to God, my father,' said she, 'that the earth had opened and swallowed me
ere I had been reduced to write these lines! I blush to tell thee, what it
is not proper to conceal. Alas! my father; thou hast entrusted thy lamb to
the guardianship of the lion. Thy daughter has been dishonored, the royal
cradle of the Goths polluted, and our lineage insulted and disgraced.
Hasten, my father, to rescue your child from the power of the spoiler, and
to vindicate the honor of your house!'
When Florinda had written these lines, she summoned a youthful esquire,
who had been a page in the service of her father. 'Saddle thy steed,' said
she, 'and if thou dost aspire to knightly honor, or hope for lady's
grace--if thou hast fealty for thy lord, or devotion to his
daughter--speed swiftly upon my errand. Rest not, halt not, spare not the
spur; but hie thee day and night until thou reach the sea; take the first
bark, and haste with sail and oar to Ceuta, nor pause until thou give this
letter to the count my father.'
The youth put the letter in his bosom. 'Trust me, lady,' said he, 'I will
neither halt nor turn aside, nor cast a look behind, until I reach Count
Julian.' He mounted his fleet steed, sped his way across the bridge, and
soon left behind him the verdant valley of the Tagus.
* * * * *
The heart of Don Roderick was not so depraved by sensuality, but that the
wrong he had been guilty of toward the innocent Florinda, and the disgrace
he had inflicted on her house, weighed heavy on his spirits, and a cloud
began to gather on his once clear and unwrinkled brow.
Heaven, at this time, say the old Spanish chronicles, permitted a
marvellous intimation of the wrath with which it intended to visit the
monarch and his people, in punishment of their sins; nor are we, say the
same orthodox writers, to startle, and withhold our faith, when we meet in
the page of discreet and sober history with these signs and portents,
which transcend the probabilities of ordinary life; for the revolutions of
empires and the downfall of mighty kings are awful events, that shake the
physical as well as the moral world, and are often announced by
forerunning marvels and prodigious omens. With such-like cautious
preliminaries do the wary but credulous historiographers of yore usher in
a marvellous event of prophecy and enchantment, linked in ancient story
with the fortunes of Don Roderick, but which modern doubters would fain
hold up as an apocryphal tradition of Arabian origin.
Now, so it happened, according to the legend, that about this time, as
King Roderick was seated one day on his throne, surrounded by his nobles,
in the ancient city of Toledo, two men of venerable appearance entered the
hall of audience. Their snowy beards descended to their breasts, and their
gray hairs were bound with ivy. They were arrayed in white garments of
foreign or antiquated fashion, which swept the ground, and were cinctured
with girdles, wrought with the signs of the zodiac, from which were
suspended enormous bunches of keys of every variety of form. Having
approached the throne and made obeisance: 'Know, O King,' said one of the
old men, 'that in days of yore, when Hercules of Libya, surnamed the
strong, had set up his pillars at the ocean strait, he erected a tower
near to this ancient city of Toledo. He built it of prodigious strength,
and finished it with magic art, shutting up within it a fearful secret,
never to be penetrated without peril and disaster. To protect this
terrible mystery he closed the entrance to the edifice with a ponderous
door of iron, secured by a great lock of steel; and he left a command that
every king who should succeed him should add another lock to the portal;
denouncing wo and destruction on him who should eventually unfold the
secret of the tower.