When Louis awoke to recollection, he found himself lying on a mat, on
a stone floor, and in a dark apartment. A strange mingling of heavy
sounds murmured in his ear, as, with a confused sense of suffering and
of misery, he strove to recall past events. Such shades are of speedy
conjuration. Where he was, he could not guess; but he soon remembered
where he last knew consciousness: he too well remembered the last
scene which had met his eyes. Almost believing himself in some Moorish
dungeon, he turned his languid frame, in the resignation of utter
hopelessness. His hand touched a human face. He raised himself on his
arm, and found some one extended on the bare ground, near him, and, by
the hard breathing, in a profound sleep.
"Some unhappy wretch, like myself!" murmured he, and fell back upon his
bed. Whether he slumbered, or mused, he knew not; but he continued to
lie in a quiet, dreamy consciousness of irremedible misery.
A sound creaked in the darkness. He turned towards it and saw a door
opened at the extremity of the apartment by a shadowy figure, which
put its hand in for something that hung against the wall, and then
withdrew. A faint light glimmered from under the now open portal.
For some minutes, he could discern nothing distinctly; but the light
suddenly became vivid, and he had a clear, though transitory view of
the adjoining chamber. It seemed vaulted; and a number of men and women
were seated on the floor, round a heap of burning logs. Some smoked
segars; others spoke in whispers; some chanted low and dirge-like
tunes; while the rest silently applied to their flaggons, or fed the
fire with broken boughs. A high wind raged without; which, making its
way through the ill-contrived fastenings of this rugged abode, blew the
ashes and live embers over the wild group. Some had dropped asleep, and
lay in various attitudes, with their heads on their knees, or leaning
against the nearest substance for a pillow. The women, whose figures
were huge as their male companions, were apparently more robust, for
they did not seem to need the same restorer of nature. When all the
men were crouched down on their rocky bed, these beldames drew closely
around the fire; and bending over it, as if brooding incantation,
conversed with each other in low, grumbling tones. At last, they,
too, successively dozed over the dying embers, till the whole was
involved in total silence. The fire went perfectly out; and Louis'
over-strained nerves sunk into a kind of night-mare repose. About dawn
he was aroused by a stir in the next chamber. The noise had the same
effect upon his companion, who awoke with a deep sigh. The person rose,
and, leaving the vault, shut the door. All now was darkness; and the
lumbering bustle without, mingling with the voices of men and women,
gradually augmented to uproar; till, sinking by the same gradations,
every sound ceased, and the whole became profoundly still.
It was indifferent to Louis what passed; tumult, or silence; whether
he were still in the world, or committed to a living grave. He was
not himself; for the shock he had received had fevered his brain; and
he lay, as if the horrible past, and the inexplicable present, were
only parts of the same irksome dream. His eyes were closed, in this
carelessness of observation, when a ray gleamed through their lids. He
opened them instinctively, and saw the white light of day streaming
through the open door, and Lorenzo bending over him. His torpid
faculties aroused themselves at sight of the well-known countenance;
and the faithful servant as gladly made a response, which answered
the demand of where they were, though he could hardly speak for joy,
at seeing his master restored from the stupor, which had immediately
followed his recovery from the swoon in which Martini had committed him
to his arms in the felucca.
Lorenzo related, that, without a word of explanation, his brother had
ordered him to accompany the Marquis immediately back to the opposite
coast; and that, though Rodrigo's vessel could not so instantly return,
a comrade's boat was soon obtained, which landed them both at the place
of their former embarkation. The smugglers advised, and assisted him,
to carry his insensible charge up the mountain, to take a safe repose
in the cavern. There, they found their wives waiting to receive them.
But these women seemed to have nothing of the sex but the name. They
saw the pale, and scarcely breathing form of the Marquis de Montemar,
carried by them into the interior den, without a glance of pity. He
was a Grandee! one of those, whose family had held rule in Spain; and,
some day, he might be as ready as any of them, to drag to execution the
very men who now gave him shelter! This passed in the minds of these
women, as they joked on the great ladies who might then be weeping the
unexplained absence of the handsome Cavalier; and they exulted in the
idea, that not one female hand of the disdained gipsey tribe, would
condescend to smooth the pillow, or bestow a look, on the object of so
many courtly sighs.
As Lorenzo had marked these women, and their haughty rejection of their
husbands' orders, to administer to the comfort of their guest; he
feared their more active malice; and was not a little rejoiced when
their whole train parted in the morning on their various trafficks, and
he was left alone to convey his master from the cavern in the best way
he could. Finding him restored to sensibility and speech, he did not
venture to ask him the cause of his so terrible trance; for Martini had
warned him, neither to make such enquiries himself; nor to satisfy the
curiosity of persons in Spain, by recounting any part of the incidents
in the Sierra de Ronda, nor hinting at his transitory visit to the
opposite coast.
Louis listened, with a very few observations, to all that Lorenzo said.
As the fresh and balmy air of the morning breathed into the cavern,
his frame became braced; and, though still bewildered in his thoughts,
he rose; and walking out into the dell before the cave, dispatched his
companion to procure mules, for re-crossing the mountains. The animals
were soon on the rock: and, with an aimless mind, he commenced his
return to Madrid. A film was over every faculty, as he mechanically
pursued his journey. Lorenzo watched anxiously the rayless fixture of
his eye, which turned to no object, nor his ear to any sound, during
their rapid posting through the champaign country. But all his haste
was vain to check the fire that was preying on his master's veins; or
to arrive at Madrid, where alone he could expect relief or comfort.
In the Val de Penas Louis became too ill to proceed; and, happily, the
alarming symptoms seized him in sight of a monastery. Lorenzo, left
him in the carriage, and went forward alone to solicit the hospitality
of the Brotherhood. They were as eager to bestow, as he to ask, the
benevolence required; and Louis soon found assistance under their
charitable roof.
For three long weeks, he lingered between suffering and the grave. His
fever was on the nerves, and attended with delirium, and every other
prognostic of a speedy termination of his days. Lorenzo shared the
constant vigilance of the good Fathers, in watching by his side; and
at the commencement of the fourth week, the delirium left him. His
present recovery to recollection was not like that in the cave, dim and
distressing. He spoke with so much strength of voice, and clearness of
perception, that his affectionate attendant was transported with hope;
but the priest, who considered it as a last gleam from the departing
soul, (which often sheds its brightest beam on the earth it leaves for
ever,) bade the happy Lorenzo wait without for a few minutes, while he
discoursed, as became his faith, with the restored Marquis.
When he found himself obeyed, and that he was alone with his patient,
he cautiously apprised him of his approaching dissolution; and then as
piously exhorted him to dedicate the sane hour which had been granted
to him, in making his peace with God. "I have one act to perform,"
said he, "before I am called into the presence of my only father. Give
me writing materials."
The monk laid paper before him, but held the pen in his own hand.
"Dictate, and I will write, what, I trust will bring peace to your
soul."
"No," replied Louis, "my own hand alone must record what is on my soul.
And no eye, Lorenzo,"--he looked for that faithful servant, and finding
him absent, requested the monk to call him in. "He must be a witness,
with you Father, that the probably altered characters are mine."
Lorenzo was summoned, and the monk briefly told him the cause. He was
transfixed, till the gentle voice of his master addressed him.
"Lorenzo," said he, "your fidelity to me has been more that of a
brother than of a servant. I trust you with the charge of my last
testament, for I know you will execute it, as if my eye were then
looking upon you."
Lorenzo did not speak, but put to his lips the trembling hand that took
the pen from the friar.
Louis passed an hour in writing. Both witnesses sat at a distance;
Lorenzo, with his face bent down on his knees; and the priest,
marvelling within himself, at the firmness with which the dying
Marquis pursued his task. His eyes receded not once from the paper,
nor did his fingers relax, while, with determined truth, he related
all that had passed in the Hambra between him and his father; yet in
the dreadful confession, he pleaded his almost belief, that calamity
had disordered the senses of his unhappy parent. On these grounds, he
implored the Marquis Santa Cruz, (to whom the paper was addressed,)
not only to conceal this tale of shame from every hostile eye; but by
the friendship he once felt for both father and son, and by his vows
of Christian charity, to leave no means unexerted to re-call Ripperda
from his apostacy.
"If I deceive myself," continued this pious son, "in believing the
existence of that mental derangement, which would once have been my
most fearful deprecation, but since this direful crime is now my
fervent hope, many would tell me I must despair of his salvation. My
trust is in an higher judgement. In him who blessed me with such zeal
as your's, to be his minister to my erring parent; in him who promises
pardon to the penitent; and to whom all that seems impossible to man,
is as already done.
"In this faith I shall lay down my head in the grave, with perfect
confidence that a way is open by which the unhappy abjurer of his
Saviour's name, may yet be received to mercy. In the world to come, I
may hope to embrace my father, reconciled to his God and washed from
every worldly stain! Meanwhile, in this my last act, I recommend him
to your sacred exhortations:--To the prayers of my saint-like uncle of
Lindisfarne."
Here Louis paused, and a tear fell upon the paper. It was the first
that had moistened the burning surface of his eye, since the calamity
which had stretched him on that bed of death. It mingled with the ink
in writing the dear and honoured name.--He resumed.
"This paper must pass from your hands, my revered friend, to his. Let
those kindred eyes alone share the confidence of this sad narrative.
Let him know that his nephew, the child of his nurture, dies happy!
Happy in the hope that is, and that which is to come."
As he added an awful farewell to his beloved aunt and cousins, a crowd
of tender recollections thronged upon his soul. He hastily addressed
the packet to the Marquis Santa Cruz. Besides this comprehensive
letter, he wrote the few brief lines which comprised his will; and the
monk and Lorenzo having signed it, a seal was affixed to its cover. The
abbot was summoned to dispatch the one to Madrid; and Lorenzo received
the other, to convey to Lindisfarne, when his beloved master should be
no more.
This duty done, Louis sunk exhausted on his pillow. But the cord on his
heart was taken off. The benign image of his earliest friend, like the
vision of a ministering angel, had unloosed it; and a holy dew seemed
poured upon the desart of his soul. As he laid himself back on the bed
whence he expected never to rise again, he thought of the only hand
which he wished could have given him the last bread of life; the only
hand he could have wished might have closed his eyes, when temporal
life was fled. He wept at the distance which separated him from that
father of his moral being; he wept, that he must breathe his last sigh
on a stranger's bosom. But his spirit was resigned; and, as his tears
ceased to flow, he gently fell asleep.