Margarita, her face hidden in her hands, was weeping; she did not sob,
but the tears ran silently down her cheeks, slipping between her fingers
to fall to the earth toward which her brow was bent.
Near Margarita was Pedro, who from time to time lifted his eyes to steal
a glance at her and, seeing that she still wept, dropped them again,
maintaining for his part utter silence.
All was hushed about them, as if respecting her grief. The murmurs of
the field were stilled, the breeze of evening slept, and darkness was
beginning to envelop the dense growth of the wood.
Thus some moments passed, during which the trace of light that the dying
sun had left on the horizon faded quite away; the moon began to be
faintly sketched against the violet background of the twilight sky, and
one after another shone out the brighter stars.
Pedro broke at last that distressful silence, exclaiming in a hoarse and
gasping voice and as if he were communing with himself:
“‘Tis impossible--impossible!”
Then, coming close to the inconsolable maiden and taking one of her
hands, he continued in a softer, more caressing tone:
“Margarita, for thee love is all, and thou seest naught beyond love.
Yet there is one thing as binding as our love, and that is my duty. Our
lord the Count of Gômara goes forth to-morrow from his castle to join
his force to the army of King Fernando, who is on his way to deliver
Seville out of the power of the Infidels, and it is my duty to depart
with the Count.
“An obscure orphan, without name or family, I owe to him all that I am.
I have served him in the idle days of peace, I have slept beneath his
roof, I have been warmed at his hearth and eaten at his board. If I
forsake him now, to-morrow his men-at-arms, as they sally forth in
marching array from his castle gates, will ask, wondering at my absence:
‘Where is the favorite squire of the Count of Gômara?’ And my lord will
be silent for shame, and his pages and his fools will say in mocking
tone: ‘The Count’s squire is only a gallant of the jousts, a warrior in
the game of courtesy.’”
When he had spoken thus far, Margarita lifted her eyes full of tears to
meet those of her lover and moved her lips as if to answer him; but her
voice was choked in a sob.
Pedro, with still tenderer and more persuasive tone, went on:
“Weep not, for God’s sake, Margarita; weep not, for thy tears hurt me. I
must go from thee, but I will return as soon as I shall have gained a
little glory for my obscure name.
“Heaven will aid us in our holy enterprise; we shall conquer Seville,
and to us conquerors the King will give fiefs along the banks of the
Guadalquivir. Then I will come back for thee, and we will go together to
dwell in that paradise of the Arabs, where they say the sky is clearer
and more blue than the sky above Castile.
“I will come back, I swear to thee I will; I will return to keep the
troth solemnly pledged thee that day when I placed on thy finger this
ring, symbol of a promise.”
“Pedro!” here exclaimed Margarita, controlling her emotion and speaking
in a firm, determined tone:
“Go, go to uphold thine honor,” and on pronouncing these words, she
threw herself for the last time into the embrace of her lover. Then she
added in a tone lower and more shaken: “Go to uphold thine honor, but
come back--come back--to save mine.”
Pedro kissed the brow of Margarita, loosed his horse, that was tied to
one of the trees of the grove, and rode off at a gallop through the
depths of the poplar-wood.
Margarita followed Pedro with her eyes until his dim form was swallowed
up in the shades of night. When he could no longer be discerned, she
went back slowly to the village where her brothers were awaiting her.
“Put on thy gala dress,” one of them said to her as she entered, “for in
the morning we go to Gômara with all the neighborhood to see the Count
marching to Andalusia.”
“For my part, it saddens rather than gladdens me to see those go forth
who perchance shall not return,” replied Margarita with a sigh.
“Yet come with us thou must,” insisted the other brother, “and thou must
come with mien composed and glad; so that the gossiping folk shall have
no cause to say thou hast a lover in the castle, and thy lover goeth to
the war.”