"What is it you require of me?" said he, "The minion of two Queens
must have some reason for bending thus low, to the man the one has
dishonoured, and the other betrayed!"
Louis looked up in that implacable countenance: He attempted to speak,
but no sound obeyed. He struggled for his father's hand, and wrung it
to his heart. Ripperda stood cold and collected.
"What would you yet seek of me? I have no longer fame, nor riches,
nor power to bestow. These were your idols! Deny it not! They were my
own! I found their food ashes. But the draught that turned my blood to
poison, was the desertion of my Son."
"Hear me, my father!" at last burst from the lips of de Montemar, as
he clung around that august, but torpid frame. No warmth glowed there,
but the gloomy flame of vengeance; no responsive throe whispered
there, that sympathy and forgiveness were within. The very stillness
with which he suffered, without returning or reproving this agonized
embrace, smote his son the more severely to the soul. Yet he thought
he saw more resentment, than the object of his lately conceived
apprehension, in the stern calmness of his father; and hoping to
prevail by reason, where reason yet reigned, in a less agitated voice,
he repeated.
"Hear me, and then condemn me! or believe me, and acquit me, before
the tribunal of Heaven and your own justice!"
Ripperda, with the same unmoved air, replied:
"Speak what you have to say; I will attend."
He pointed to a sofa, for Louis to sit. He obeyed; and his father
sat opposite to him, folded in his mantle. His eyes were bent to the
floor, except when he occasionally turned them in deep suspicion
upon the earnest narrator. Not one oral remark escaped him, till the
communication was brought to an end. He then looked up, and slowly
pronounced:
"Tis well; and the tale is marvellously told: But I have no connection
with its truth, or falsehood."
"Yes, my father!" returned Louis, "It contains your justification; the
acquittal of your son; and the atonement of your repentant sovereigns!"
"My justification is here!" exclaimed the Duke, proudly striking his
breast, and starting from his seat. "And for atonement! Heaven and
Earth cannot atone for my injuries. Tell your Queen, that William de
Ripperda was not born to quail to any man; nor, to hold his honours, by
flattery to a woman. I served the country of my ancestors for its own
sake; neither in homage to her, nor to the King. I devoted myself to
the prosperity and peace of the world. But they rejected peace: And,
they shall find a sword! All have spurned me! I am thrust out from
Europe. And, when I have found a land of refuge, they would ensnare
me to return! And, I will return! Return with desolation and death!
For Christendom, ungrateful Christendom, has sinned beyond my wish to
pardon."
"How am I to comprehend you, my father?"
"You cannot comprehend me. I would not be comprehended by a Spaniard!
You were once my son. And, you have satisfied me, you meant to be
loyal to me: But you cannot serve two masters."
"What master would oppose my serving my father? If you mean the King of
Spain, your own inexpugnable honour would not raise an arm against him;
and he will not, cannot, prevent me dedicating my life to you!"
"My honour, Louis! _Christian_ Knights have honour! The King of Spain
has honour; his ministers, and those of Austria have a thousand
honours! But where were they all when my _inexpugnable honour_ was
calumniated and betrayed? Where, when the man they durst not bring to
an open trial, was committed to the dungeons of the Inquisition, to be
silently, and securely, murdered?"
Louis acknowledged the justice of his father's indignation against the
ministry of Spain; yet enforced the Queen's persuasions for his return;
and dwelt on the glorious result of the public trial she had absolutely
promised him; and his own consequent satisfaction in pronouncing a
general forgiveness on the misguided people, who were still the objects
of his paternal love.
Ripperda walked the room during this discourse; and when it ended, gave
no other reply to its arguments, than pronouncing a brief and solemn
curse upon the whole land. Louis shuddered, as he gazed on the working
brow of that still noble countenance; and with a self-control, that
surprised even himself, commenced a new train of persuasions, to induce
his father to resume his first intention of passing over to Gibraltar.
He laid before him the advantages of seeking an asylum in England;
where he might live with honour in the bosom of his family; and under
the protection of a Government constituted to revere his virtues.
"But here," said he, "what can your free spirit expect in a land of
slaves?"
Ripperda drew near him. That mouth, on which the graces once played,
was distorted by a smile of such triumphant malice, that his son
recoiled.
"In the name of God, my father! what is it you intend?"
"I will tell you Louis;" returned he, "when I hear you repeat your oath
to adhere to your father against Earth and Heaven. Grapple with me,
my son, in this overthrow of our oppressors; and the name of Ripperda
shall redeem itself!"
The eyes of Ripperda shot terrific fires as he spoke; and Louis,
direfully convinced of his fears, answered with assumed calmness:--
"All that the laws of Earth and Heaven, and my own devoted heart,
dictate as duty to my father, I am ready to perform. To follow you
whithersoever you go; to abide with you, even in this worse than
wilderness, if it be your decisive will!"
Ripperda walked several times up and down the apartment. Several times
he glanced suspiciously towards his son; and stopped opposite to
him, as if he were going to speak; then turned away, and resumed his
perturbed pace. A consuming impatience inflamed every feature; and,
once or twice, he took out his watch, and looking at it, muttered to
himself.--At last, abruptly drawing near his son, he snatched the cross
of the Amaranth from his breast, and scornfully exclaimed.--
"If you would belong to me, forswear all of which this is the emblem."
Louis was dumb.--The Duke resumed with wild solemnity.
"One night in the Alcazar,--when my gaolers had left me no other light
than my injuries,--I bethought me who raised those walls!--In the black
darkness of my prison, I saw a host,--they who fell in the passes of
Grenada! And from that hour, the soul of Aben Humeya passed into my
breast. Yon is my ensign!" He pointed to a crescent, on a standard in
a far corner of the room. Louis still gazed on him without speaking;
but the apprehension in his mind was in his looks.
"Do not mistake me," rejoined the Duke, "my injuries have not made me
mad; but they have driven me to a desperation that will prove you to
the heart. Are you now willing to go, where I shall go; to lodge, where
I shall lodge? Shall my God, be your God? And my enemies, your enemies?
Or, am I cast out, like Ismael, to find my revenge on them who mock
me--alone?"
Louis had now subdued the effect of his fears, and rallied himself to
argue again with his father, as man with man. He could not penetrate
the whole of the threats he had heard; yet his rapid arguments
embraced every possible project of revenge. The Duke listened to him
with stoical apathy. But when the energetic pleader dwelt on the
heinousness of coalescing with the enemies of the Christian faith, in
any scheme of vengeance against its professors, Ripperda interrupted
him with a withering laugh.
"What, if I make their faith my own?"
"Impossible!" cried Louis, "you whose life has been a transcript of
your faith; noble and true! It is not in you, my father, to desert
a religion whose founder was perfectly holy, just, and merciful; to
embrace the creed of an impostor! One whose life was polluted with
every vice; and whose blasphemous doctrines sanctioned oppression, and
privileged murder! Oh, my father, it is not in you to become the very
thing that excites your vengeance."
As Louis continued a still more earnest appeal to his understanding and
his conscience, Ripperda suddenly stopped before him.
"You may spare your arguments, De Montemar; I know all you would say;
but it is my choice to be a Mussulman."
His son's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth; but he forced himself
to say: "Your choice to abjure the religion you believe? To cast from
you your God, and your redemption?"
"It is my choice to be revenged!" cried the Duke, gloomily striking his
sword; "we will talk of redemption hereafter."
"Oh my father, it may then be too late!"
"My soul on the issue!" returned he, with a second horrible smile; "you
are brave and daring, and will not shrink from the adventure. You will
buckle your life to your father's in the desperate leap!"
He grasped his son's arm as he spoke, and looked in his face with a
fierce resolution, which menaced some terrible judgement on the reply
he seemed to anticipate. A low monotonous cadence of many voices,
chanting a few dismal notes in regular rise and fall, broke the awful
pause. Ripperda dropped the arm he held, and calmly said:
"They come! In another hour, I shall be sealed an enemy of Christendom."
Louis comprehended all that was intended.
"By the Saviour you outrage in the dreadful intent!" cried he, "I
demand of you not to incur the deep perdition! By the honour and renown
you so richly possess, I conjure you not to consign all at once to such
universal infamy! By the memory of my mother, now in the heaven from
which you would seal your everlasting banishment,--I implore you to
remember that you are a Christian! That you are the Duke de Ripperda!
That you are my father."
With the last words, Louis sunk on his knees, and forcibly added: "my
life and your salvation hangs on this dreadful hour!"
All the passions of his nature were now in arms in the breast of
Ripperda. The boiling flood rushed to his brain, and pressed upon the
nerve that shook the seat of reason. He looked askance upon his son
with a horrible expression in his eyes. It spoke of suspicion, of
scorn, even of hate.
"De Montemar!" cried he "what would ye yet with one who reads you as
you are? What dare you expect from a father, who sees the desertion you
meditate? I will not be trifled with; for I cannot be deceived. Be with
me or against me! a Mussulman, or an enemy! For in this hour I forswear
all connection with the Christian world; all honour to the name of----."
But ere he could pronounce the fatal abjuration, an awful cry from his
son arrested the concluding words. It was the cry of a pleading angel,
at the bar of Eternal Judgment. With its piercing, beseeching appeal,
he stretched forth his arms to Heaven, supplicating its mercy to defend
his father from himself. At this juncture, the door opened, and Martini
announced the arrival of the sacred deputation. The Duke snatched his
hand from the grasp of his son; Louis seized his robe.
"Never will I leave you," cried he, "till you consent to quit these
enemies of your honour and of your soul!"
"Release me, on the peril of your life!" returned his father, with
a desperation equal to his own; but with a something added to
it, that made Martini draw a few steps nearer to the defenceless
Marquis.--Ripperda's fingers wandered over the hilt of a poniard that
was in his girdle.--
"Could my blood expiate the offence of Spain, and not pollute my
father's hand," cried Louis, "I would say, take the life you
gave.--Oh, at any sacrifice, but that of soul and spirit, leave this
accursed land!--If your freedom be pledged to these barbarians, give
them my youth and vigour in exchange.--Let _them_ drink my blood.--Let
them, cover me with insults and oppression!--Only, do you fly;--fly,
my father, and save me from veiling my eyes in the dreadful day of
Judgement!"
Ripperda did not answer; for his possessed mind heard not what was
said.--He continued gazing on his son, with a terrible fixture of eye,
while he only appeared to listen; and in the moment the sounds ceased,
he burst into a tremendous laugh; and attempted, by a force, almost
preternatural to break from his clinging arms. But the filial heart
was stronger than the madness of revenge. Louis grasped his knees,
exclaiming, in the agony of his spirit--"Oh, God, be my advocate!"
At that moment a clenched hand fell on his forehead with the weight of
death. Louis felt no more, for the blow was in his soul. His nerveless
fingers relaxed their hold;--he fell prostrate;--and Ripperda rushed
from the apartment.