During the confinement of Louis in the monastery of Val de Penas;
and while the Marquis Santa Cruz, and the Queen of Spain, were
alike wondering at no intelligence having arrived from him since
his departure from Madrid; news of various kinds created as various
perplexities in the cabinet of the King.
Two Spanish galleons had been taken by a fleet of Barbary corsairs. The
coasts of the Mediterranean were filled with pirates of every-sized
vessel, manoeuvred with a courage and a skill that baffled every art
to avoid them; and while this extraordinary accession to the Barbary
marine arose on the sea like an exhalation, a Moor, under the name of
Aben Humeya, as suddenly made his appearance in Morocco, carrying all
before him in the field and in the state. He possessed the confidence
of Abdallah, without a rival; and, after having discomfited that
monarch's rebellious kinsman Muley Hamet, was advancing at the head
of his victorious army to redeem to the Emperor the possession of
Ceuta:--the Gibraltar of the Spaniards on the African shore.
Hostilities were at this time hanging in the balance between Great
Britain and Spain, on account of Gibraltar; and to awe the replies
of the Britannic minister to its demanded restitution, an army of
twenty-five thousand men, (which were on their march to Italy to
effect a similar object on the duchies of Parma and Placentia,) were
ordered to fall back, and make demonstrations towards the British
fortress. Part of this army were in Valentia; and on a second courier
arriving from Ceuta with intelligence that Aben Humeya had concluded
a treaty defensive and offensive between the Moorish Emperor, and
the other Barbary Powers, King Philip saw the necessity of detaching
one division at least to the protection of his African dominions. He
appointed Santa Cruz to the command; but on some strange inconsistent
and perverse arguments of his ministers, when the Marquis appeared
for his last directions, His Majesty informed him, that a thousand
men were sufficient to raise the siege. If more were necessary, they
should be sent; but too formidable a body at first, would only increase
difficulties, by raising the consequence of a Barbarian chief in the
eyes of Christian Europe. Santa Cruz saw that the jealousy of the
ministers against himself was the origin of this damp on the first
vigorous proposal of the King; but determined to do his own duty at
least, he acquiesced, and withdrew from the royal presence. He made a
rapid journey to Val del Uzeda where he found his son just arrived
from Italy; and giving him orders to hold himself in readiness to
accompany any second detachment to Ceuta, he took a parental farewell
of his family, and returned to Madrid. In the same evening that
he alighted at his own hotel he received the packet from Louis de
Montemar, and had a long and distressing conversation with the friar,
who brought it.
The contents of the letter filled him with astonishment and trouble.
He had no need of further investigation, to conclude who was the Aben
Humeya, who was putting so new and menacing a face on every thing in
Barbary; and considering that circumstances demanded the disclosure
to the Queen, he hastened to the palace. A private audience was
immediately granted, and the letter of the dying son of the lost
Ripperda confided to Her Majesty.
Isabella read it with indignation. Ripperda's treasures had then
spread the Spanish seas with depredators; his domination had
concentrated the states of Barbary into one interest; his resentment
had turned their whole force against the power of Spain! She had but
one policy; to wrest this mighty Son of Vengeance from his passion and
his influence. And, having determined it as most prudent to conceal
the discovery from the King and his ministers, she gave her present
counsellor _carte blanche_, to reconcile Ripperda on any terms; and,
should his more worthy son be found alive, she commanded that he should
be made the agent with his father.
"But, should he be no more?" inquired the Marquis, with a sigh which
could hardly have been deeper for his own son.
"Then," replied she, "you must chuse another embassador. I will reward
him, according to his success with this formidable renegado." With
this commission, though without a hope of seeing the son of Ripperda
yet an inhabitant of this world, Santa Cruz took the convent in his
way to the plains of Valentia. When he alighted at the gate, the Abbot
met him; and answered to his fearful question, "That the Marquis de
Montemar not merely breathed, but he trusted was far advanced in his
recovery."
From the night in which the dispatch left him, the virulence of the
fever disappeared. He felt and bewailed himself as a man; and the fiend
which despair had locked within his bosom, fled with the genial flood.
He remained in a state of calm that astonished himself; while it amazed
all around, to see one who was a heretic, so evidently comforted by an
influence from on high.
Santa Cruz sent to inform him of his arrival, and was immediately
admitted to his cell. Lorenzo withdrew as the Marquis entered. Louis
was dressed in his usual cloaths, but from present weakness yet lay
on a couch. The window of his cell was open to admit the mountain air,
which blew fresh and cheeringly over his face. That face was not to be
described:--It spoke of heaven, and his whole form harmonized with the
celestial witness.
Santa Cruz stopped and gazed on him; while Louis, raising himself on
his arm, stretched his hand towards him with a smile that made the
veteran's head bow before the youthful saint. He advanced and embraced
him. Louis bent his face upon the Marquis's hand.
"You will live my son!" cried Santa Cruz, in a burst of manly
sensibility; "you will recover your father to his God, and to his
country!"
"I could wish to live for that purpose!" replied Louis, "but be it as
heaven wills. My prayers may be effected without my own agency."
When recovered from his emotion, the Marquis communicated his present
commission; and in recapitulating the tidings from Morocco, the
mantling colour on the hectic cheek of Louis shewed, that he too,
recognised his father in the new Aben Humeya. In narrating the rapid
successes of the apostate Duke, Santa Cruz dwelt on one circumstance,
which contained some antidote to the poison of the rest.
Muley Hamet, with a large army of disaffected Moors, had appeared on
the plain of Marmora, about half a day's journey from the capital
of Morocco. Aben Humeya assembled the household troops; and on the
same day the tidings arrived, marched to oppose him. His forces were
inferior in number to the enemy; but their leader gave them an example
of confidence, telling them they must strictly obey his orders, and on
his head he would assure them victory. Muley Hamet practised the usual
Moorish stratagems, which the discipline of his adversary so completely
baffled, that enraged with disappointment he dared a general
engagement in the very worst position he could have chosen. Aben Humeya
had drawn him into the declivities of the mountains, where the cavalry,
his principal strength, could not act; and sending a detachment to
block up the regress, by occupying the pass of Cedi Cassem, the rebel
Prince suffered a total defeat. Every soul might have been cut off,
but the new Mussulman had not yet forgotten the warfare of Christian
nations. He called to his men to remember that the misguided followers
of Muley Hamet were their brethren; and that after the signal
chastisement they had received, it was the victor's duty to suffer
the escape of the remnant. Aben Humeya pursued the same conciliatory
conduct in taking Tetuan and Arzilla from the power of the rebel; and
an offer of general pardon being spread amongst the refractory Moors,
the troops of Muley Hamet deserted to his adversary, and he fled to
the mountains.
"This consummate policy is the Duke de Ripperda's," said the Marquis;
"and the Duke in his sanest mind."
"I would draw another inference from such policy," rejoined his son,
"that whether his mind be in full health or disordered, this mercy is a
sure pledge, the Christian principle remains in his heart."
"There is no disordered intellect in these plans and executions;"
returned Santa Cruz, "but a stretch of capacity, and an extravagant
exertion of its power, which compels common minds to pause and wonder.
Genius, however, may often be mistaken for madness; for it frequently
acts so entirely under the influence of imagination, as to do things so
utterly irrational, that if it be not the effect of an absolute want
of reason, it is certainly that of a dereliction from reason, and
produces the consequences of madness."
Louis knew to whom this latter remark might have too well applied, and
with stifled emotion, he answered:--
"That conduct then, is most likely to be according to good judgement,
which is actuated by sober experience alone."
"That conduct," replied the Marquis, "which avoids the enthusiasm of
fancy and the passions, as he would the shoals and quicksands of the
sea! But there is something more required than sober experience. A well
regulated mind must sit in judgement upon that experience; and, my dear
de Montemar," continued he, pausing, and impressively pressing his
hand, "wisdom and virtue will be the issue."
Louis returned to the last act of his father upon the plains of
Marmora. It obliterated the phrenzied moment of their parting; and
opening his heart to a dawn of hope, he took the letter of the Queen,
which her own hand had addressed to the banished Ripperda, and putting
it in his bosom, told his veteran friend he was ready once again to
visit the African shores.
This re-animation was not transitory. Santa Cruz was to set off the
following morning towards his army; and having calculated the slower
progress of troops to the coast, and the usual delays in getting on
board the transports, a day was fixed for Louis joining him, without
any dangerous haste, at the place of embarkation.
Youth and inward vigour, with the bracing, life-inspiring air that is
breathed from the lips of a friend, restored Louis to such a strength,
that at the time appointed, he appeared on the quarter-deck of the
_Trinidada_, the vessel that was to bear Santa Cruz to the Mahommedan
shore.
Unconscious of the wound they probed, the officers of the General's
staff discoursed largely on the crusade to which they were going;
and descanted with unrestrained freedom on the Moorish leader. Some
affirmed him to be an Arab; others a brother of the Emperor, who was so
distinguished in their father's life-time, as to awaken the jealousy of
Abdallah; and on his accession, the Prince suddenly disappeared. Rumour
spoke of the bow-string; but hints being also spread, of a perpetual
imprisonment in the seven towers of Mequinez, it was afterwards
supposed that he had purchased liberty and honour by assuming a new
name, and fighting the battles of his brother.
Louis could not bear these guesses; nor the invectives, (to the justice
of which his own heart assented,) in which these young men indulged
against the renegadoes at the court of Abdallah. Sidi Ali, a Sicilian
apostate, and a celebrated engineer, was most especially the object of
their anathemas; as, from his skill, they expected some protraction in
the glory of repelling Aben Humeya from the walls of Ceuta. When these
discussions began, Louis usually retired to a distant corner on the
quarter deck, to commune with his own thoughts; and while his upright
mind armed itself in its own integrity, his body derived its wonted
vigour from the genial breezes of the sea.
On the night of the sixth day after they had set sail from the port of
Carthagena, the little fleet entered the bay of Ceuta; and, on a wave
smooth as glass, the troops stepped into boats which rowed them to the
perpendicular walls of the town. Here all was deep shadow. Louis saw
nothing through the universal blackness. Nor did he note the dreary
splashing of the boats in the fathomless water; nor did he feel the
chilling vapour which arose from its cold surface, withheld from
evaporation by the height and closeness of the outworks. He was in the
first pinnace; and had no thought, nor observation, but for the object
of their landing.
An archway, and a long flight of steps in the rock between two walls,
were the only egress on this side into the fortress. The boats crowded
to the spot, where their crews severally leaped on the narrow platform,
and ascended the stony ladder. A light heart was in every brave
breast; and plumed with anticipated victory, they seemed to fly. Louis
alone, whose whole soul was once as much on the wing for military
atchievements, moved with a slow, but a firm step; for, against whom
was the sword of his first field to be drawn?
On entering the fortress he fully understood how necessary was all this
silence in gaining the shore. Count de Blas the governor, informed
the Marquis Santa Cruz, that the Moors were in great force before the
town. That several skirmishes had taken place between the corps of
observation from the garrison, and the advanced posts of the Moresco
camp. The Spaniards had been beaten in with loss; and in short, so
universal a panic prevailed in the garrison, no confidence could be put
in its steadiness in case of an attack. The consequence was already
seen, in the audacity with which Aben Humeya was opening his trenches;
and until Santa Cruz arrived, De Blas was in nightly dread of an
attempt being made to storm the town. To prevent this, he suggested the
advantage of the new troops surprising the Moors by an immediate sally.
Prior to Aben Humeya having taken up this position, the Count continued
to say, he had reduced the whole of the rebellious Bashas to the
obedience of their Emperor. Their leader Muley Hamet, had extended
his flight from the hilly country, to the deserts of Taffilet; and
Abdallah, that very morning, had sent a deputation of his royal
brothers to invest Aben Humeya, with the dignity of Basha of Tetuan;
and to present him with a new banner, on which was embroidered:--
"_Proceed! to exceed is no longer possible!_"
Santa Cruz replied to the urgency of de Blas for an immediate
attack, that he had orders from his sovereign to act with peculiar
circumspection. He must communicate with the Moorish general; and to
do this with the necessary knowledge, he must have time to make his
military observations, and to estimate their relative strength.
In the course of these investigations, in the prosecution of which
Santa Cruz was always attended by Louis, the group of observation
mounted on a redoubt far to the front in the Spanish lines. The Marquis
contemplated with his glass the order, and scientific precision with
which the enemy's works were advancing. The Count de Blas stood near
him, and expatiated with much heat, on the probable effects of the new
discipline introduced into the Moorish army by its present chief.
"But these European tactics" cried he, "are engrafted on a true
barbarian soil. One flag of truce, that I ventured to dispatch merely
to gain time, was fired on in its return; and in attempting to
make good its retreat, a party of the enemy rushed from behind yon
epaulement to the left, and took the whole troop to a man. One who made
his escape, informed me, the proud Aben Humeya chose to take offence
at some want of official reverence in the Spanish officer's manner of
quitting the camp; and that the moment he was told of it, he ordered
him to be pursued and taken; and at the same time denounced a similar
fate on all who should henceforward presume to bear any Spanish flag
within reach of his lines."
While the Governor was speaking, a squadron of Moors turned that very
side-work, and presented themselves on the plain, glittering in all
the splendid array of the Basha's peculiar suite. In the midst of the
groupe, which immediately parted to short distances, Louis beheld an
august figure. De Blas instantly proclaimed it to be Aben Humeya. In
that clear atmosphere, no glass was necessary to note an object just
without the reach of musquet shot; and to observe this, Louis's whole
soul was in his eye.
At sight of the Basha, the acclamations of the Moors in the trenches
were loud and incessant. He was mounted on a black horse, whose rich
caparisons seemed to vie with the habit of its rider. The dress of
the new Mussulman was loose of blue and gold tissue over a yellow
caftan embroidered with gold. His belt, and the arms which stuck in
it, were studded with jewels; and a splendid cymetar hung at his side.
His turban was crested with a large jewelled crescent and heron plume.
And the bridle in his hand sparkled with brilliant studs; while the
magnificent housings of his horse, almost touched the ground. Aben
Humeya rode forward, and again the air was rent with shouts. He bowed
his head, and at the motion of his hand, the whole was respectfully
silent. A flourish of wind instruments succeeded, and his suite began
to play their evolutions before him, in all the various exercises of
the lance and dart.
Louis could not mistake the demeanor of his father. But all this
supremacy over the rest of mankind in personal dignity and grace,
seemed to his virtuous son, only a garment of mockery to the fallen
spirit within. It was horrible in his eyes, and he turned silently
from the vociferous observations of de Blas.
That same evening Santa Cruz ordered a flag of truce to be in readiness
for the Moorish camp at day-break. At the mention of so dangerous an
expedition, every motion was arrested amongst the class of officers
who were usually selected for that duty. None spoke. But Santa Cruz
neither addressed any, nor looked on any; for the forlorn hope on this
enterprize was already chosen.
When Louis came in the morning for his last orders, he found the
Governor with his General, remonstrating on the madness of exposing so
distinguished a young man as the Marquis de Montemar, in so perilous a
hazard. Santa Cruz repeated to his young friend, all the intimidating
representations of De Blas, who added there was not a man in the
garrison, who did not shrink from being his escort.
Louis bowed gratefully to the implied solicitude of the Count; but
answered the Marquis, by requesting to have the white flag delivered
to him, when he would go alone. To hamper him with cowards, Santa Cruz
thought would only invite danger; and he put the flag into his hand.
Louis left the gates, with no other companion than his courage and
his faith. Santa Cruz's anxious eye watched the desperate adventure.
The works were crowded in every part, to witness his progress and
reception. At a given spot, he halted to unfurl his white banner.
Again he shot forward, waving its staff before him, to be seen by the
Moorish out-posts as he advanced within their fire. A hundred turbans
emerged from the nearest trenches:--while a yell of such horrid import
burst from every mouth, that his horse started back on his haunches,
with a strange noise from its nostrils fully descriptive of surprize
and terror. Nothing, however checked its rider. He struck his spurs
into the animal, and resumed his onward speed at the moment the savage
cries from below were echoed by a thousand voices from the works
above;--a volley of musquetry was discharged, and Louis was lost in
the smoke, from the eyes of them who watched on the walls of Ceuta.
It cleared away; and the resolute bearer of the flag was yet seen
galloping towards the camp. Another volley succeeded, and the plain
was again obscured: vengeance alone occupied the breasts of the men
upon the Spanish lines. Their courage revived with their indignation;
and rushing without command from a salley port, they charged fiercely
towards the point of their revenge. At sight of this sortie, a similar
detachment issued from the gates of the camp. The horse of Louis was
transfixed by two balls; and lay struggling on the ground. He had
extricated himself from the dying animal, and was risen from its side,
just as the salley-port of Ceuta opened to rescue or avenge him. When
on foot, the broken ground in the plain concealed his advance to his
friends until he rejoined them, and mounted a horse presented to him by
his faithful Lorenzo.
This circumstance being discerned by Santa Cruz, who stood on the
redoubt, the sortie was recalled, and Louis, with the troop, re-entered
the garrison.
The implacable fury of this second breach of the received laws of war,
inflamed the Spaniards with the most vehement indignation. There was no
name, opprobrious to a man and a soldier, which they did not lavish on
the fierce Aben Humeya.
Louis withdrew to the quarters of Santa Cruz. His resolution was
taken; and he only awaited his sanction, to put it in execution that
very night. To go by stealth into the Moorish camp, and depend on
providence for conducting him to the presence of his father.
The Marquis would not hear him to an end. He regarded this last act,
of firing upon a single man, as so base a proof of Ripperda's apostacy
from honour as well as from religion, that he no longer retained a hope
of his return to duty:--
"No, de Montemar," said he, "we must now let that alone for ever. You
would only lose yourself, without recovering him."
"I should lose myself indeed," replied he, "were I to abandon the only
purpose for which I came to this country; the only purpose for which,
I believe my life is lengthened. He will not imbrue his hands in the
blood of his own son; and, who in that camp, will dare to touch the
man, of whom he will say--Let his life be protected!"
"This is delusion, de Montemar. He has abandoned his God. He has
trampled on his honour. And, with these facts, there is no reasonable
hope."
"My hope may be beyond reason; but it is not against it," replied
he. "Grant me the means to fulfil my resolution; and, I dare promise
myself, that you will, see me again."
"Never," returned Santa Cruz, "the blood of rashness shall never be on
my head. Leave me now, and we will discourse of more rational projects
to-morrow."
Louis obeyed. But that morrow might never occur to him. When he
withdrew it was to pursue his determination. That night, alone, and
unassisted, to seek the presence of his father.