From his observations in passing the enemy's lines, he thought it
possible to throw himself into one of the trenches nearest their
position; and in the disguise of a Moor, return with the workmen into
the camp.
By means of his devoted Lorenzo, (who would have suffered the rack,
rather than betray the confidence of his master,) he procured the
accoutrements of a Moresco soldier, from a Jewish merchant in Ceuta.
The aspect of the night favoured his project; and he left the Spanish
fortress in company with the latest outpost. The growing shadows gave
him opportunity to glide from its neighbourhood unobserved; and having
his disguise previously hidden amongst the ruins of an old fort
midway between the Moorish and Spanish works, he covered himself with
the Moresco trowsers, haigue and turban; and arming his belt with the
accustomed number of knives and pistols, took his pic-axe in his hand,
and cautiously proceeded along the flank of the Moorish trenches, whose
line he discerned, by a pale and zig-zag gleam along the surface of the
ground. It was too faint to be noticeable at any distance, and arose
from the low lantherns within, by whose glow-worm light, when the sky
was obscured, the yet inexpert engineers performed their work.
When arrived near the verge of the excavations nearest the camp, he
listened breathlessly to the clash of cymbals, which announced an
exchange of workmen. Now was his moment. He slid down the bank into
the vacant fosse, and stood close in its angle, shrouded by complete
darkness. The lamps did not extend beyond the place of immediate
labour. He had hardly taken his station, when an iron gate opened into
the trench, the cymbals ceased, and an advance of numerous feet from
the camp sounded towards him. It was answered by a similar approach
from the lines. He drew himself closer into the angle, as the latter
passed him in enfilade; and observing that each man as he marched by a
particular officer, cried aloud, "Lahilla Lah!" and was then counted
by him, he saw the danger of being the last in the file; and stepping
in between the rapid step of one soldier in turning the angle, and
the halting approach of another, he repeated the expected response,
and moved forward unmolested. He entered the camp without impediment;
and the Moors parting to their different quarters, he turned quickly
in a direction which he thought from the description of the escaped
Spaniard, would bring him to the pavilion of its commander.
Excepting the words he had repeated as the parole of the night, and
of the meaning of which he was entirely ignorant, he knew not a word
of the Moresco tongue. The camp was partially lighted; and near the
Basha's quarters the lamps became thicker, until the platform around
his tent was one blaze of illumination.
Several Moorish officers were walking to and fro, as if waiting for
orders; and the ample circle in which the pavilion stood, was hemmed
round by the body guards of the Basha. These men were Negroes of huge
proportions, and equipped in the most formidable array of Barbaric
arms. They sat on the ground in the Moorish style, with each his hand
on his drawn cymetar.
Louis drew into the comparative obscurity of one of the tented streets
diverging from the platform; and, with a scrutinizing eye, revolved
how he should pass this excluding circle. While he looked from man
to man, the curtained entrance of the pavilion was drawn back by two
slaves, and a blaze of flambeaux issued forth. In the midst of it was a
military figure in a splendid Moorish dress. But it was not his father.
By one act, all the Negroes bent forward, and struck their foreheads
to the ground; even the officers made the same abasement to this
personage; who, graciously bowing his head, passed on, followed by a
procession of flambeaux. But still the light was glaring as noon-day,
around the tent. It was only by stratagem he could enter it, and his
life must be set on the hazard.
After watching nearly an hour, to afford opportunity for some
favourable accident to open him a way, without the desperate expedient
he revolved, he retreated through a cross passage of dark tents, that
led into the great illuminated avenue before the pavilion; and, having
wrapped his mother's picture, which he always wore round his neck, in
a silk handkerchief he had about him, he put it in his bosom, and then
boldly plunging from the darkened street into the full light of the
platform, moved direct to the curtained entrance.
In an instant a host of cymetars were at his breast. But he stood erect
before them all, and exclaiming
"Aben Humeya!"
took the handkerchief from his breast, and held it forth with a
commanding air towards the tent. He had not even repelled the weapons
with his hand, so firm did he stand in apparent inward dignity. It
awed the negroes, who stood for a moment gazing on each other; Louis
profited by their suspended faculties, and was passing on, when one in
the dress of an officer intercepted him. He addressed the intruder in
a barbarous attempt at the Moresco language, but really in a jargon,
comprised of every tongue on the Mediterranean shores; and saluting
Louis by the opprobrious appellation of slave, demanded, with other
viler epithets, how he presumed to violate that sacred threshold.
Louis saw the miserable soul of some base renegado of the Balearic
Isles, in this insolent attack; and answering him at once in Spanish,
warned him in laconic, but haughty language, to beware how he insulted
a man who came in the face of three hundred cymetars, to lay the spoil
of a brave Spaniard at the feet of Aben Humeya.
"Conduct me to his presence;" continued he, "or know, that he who can
speak Spanish like his native tongue, is not less able to prove a
Moorish sword his native weapon!"
The renegado eyed the speaker with a trembling suspicion. His head
might pay the forfeit, should he introduce an improper person into the
pavilion; and should his perverseness exclude one on whom the Basha
conferred confidence, he would incur equal jeopardy. He now wished he
had left the responsibility of this egress to the negroes; but he had
interposed, and must proceed.
"Your name?" said he.
"That the Basha will know when he sees me."
The officer feared to hesitate, and he preceded him to the first range
of the pavilion. Like the outer-court, it was lined with guards. The
renegado in a tone of some respect, told Louis he must stop in this
vestibule until his credentials in the handkerchief were delivered to
Aben Humeya. The alcaide of the guard, who carried it in, returned in a
few minutes with consternation in his countenance; and beckoning Louis
to follow him, passed through several chambers before they arrived at
the sacred inclosure; within whose sacred vestment none durst penetrate
without an especial summons from the Basha. The officer drew aside the
curtain, and pointing in silence to the door, Louis entered alone. The
Basha stood by a Moorish couch, directly under a lamp in the centre of
the place. A table was near him, on which lay a naked cymetar, and an
open casket containing the koran. He had the picture in his hand.
Louis's face was overshadowed by the dark folds of his turban; and as
he did not assume the usual position of all who (less than of equal
rank,) approached the august presence, the Basha fell back a step and
exclaimed!
"Who art thou, that darest so to approach Aben Humeya?"
Louis with clasped hands, bowed his head upon his breast, but could not
immediately answer. It was his Father's voice, and he had not ventured
his life in vain!
"Whence came this Christian spoil?" demanded Ripperda, "was it taken
from the living or the dead?" The voice was firm. But the tension
with which he grasped the picture, was sufficient assurance that an
exerted nerve was necessary to enable him to put the question with the
steadiness of one indifferent to the owner's fate.
"I took it from the living!" replied Louis, "To pass me into the
presence of him who gave me life."
An inarticulate sound burst from the lips of his father; he moved a few
hasty steps towards him; but as suddenly starting back;
"Presumptuous boy!" cried he, "what do you promise yourself by this
temerity? Are you not aware that the act which made me a Mussulman,
separated me from all former relations; and that in Louis de Montemar,
I can see no other than a Spanish spy?"
"No act of man," replied Louis, "can cut asunder the bands of nature;
can separate the unity of Son and Father, in the great objects of time
and eternity: And in that faith, I appear again before you, on a
second mission from your religion and your country."
"This told me a braver story!" returned Ripperda, sternly putting the
picture into the hand of his Son; "But speak your errand, that I may
dismiss the messenger."
Louis bore the taunt without reply; and with brevity, but energetic
persuasion, he repeated to his gloomily listening Father, the new
proposals from the Queen. They assured the banished Duke that the
decree of his exile was not merely recalled, and the King ready to
publicly declare the charges his enemies had alleged against him, to
be false; but His Majesty would grant him a general amnesty for his
present proceedings in Africa; and on his return to Spain, invest him
with a new and extraordinary trust at court, to the confusion of his
rivals, and the assertion of his character in the minds of all men. The
church too, should open its arms to receive him; for Isabella would
obtain an absolution from the Pope for the brief apostacy; while that
dark deed obliterated by penitence, might remain as totally unknown to
the world at large, as his son trusted, it would then be blotted out
from the book of God.
"Louis," replied the Duke, "have you known me so long by the best
proofs of man--his actions! and are yet to be told, that my religion
consists wholly of the prosperity of the country I serve? and that my
country is that which best knows the value of my services?"
"Then," returned his son, not wishing to comprehend the whole of this
speech; "that country is now Spain. Read the letter of Isabella, and
you will find the prayer of the nation in every line. She is, as a
Mother petitioning a beloved Son to spare his Brothers. Oh, my Father;
listen to the native magnanimity of your soul, rather than to this new
and unnatural pride; and resume at once the patriot and the Christian.
None, excepting the King and Queen, and the Marquis Santa Cruz, know
that Aben Humeya and Ripperda are the same; and having been spared that
open stigma, your religion and your country may yet be that of Spain."
Ripperda grasped the still un-read letter of the Queen; "De Montemar!"
said he, "and is it you that can think I would live under shelter of
any shrouded act? No; I have dared to be a Mussulman! To resume the
name of my Moorish ancestors; to tread in the unreceding steps of
Julian and de Valor. What I am, I am; and my banners, here, and in
Spain, shall proclaim to all the world, that Ripperda's injuries are in
the breast of Aben Humeya."
Again Louis urged him to read the last appeal of his former Sovereigns,
contained in the packet he held in his hand; and then trample on his
country and them, if vengeance must yet have place, with such ample
restitution.
"Restitution!" repeated the Duke, and broke the seal. He read the
letter, and threw it from him; but not with the same equanimity with
which he began the contents. In the offered pardon, and the promised
honours, all his imputed transgressions were recapitulated, to enhance
the merit of the amnesty; all the accusations of a vain woman's
jealousy, poured forth in extenuation of her share in his fall; and the
whole was wound up in a passion of reproaches, and entreaties, in which
the chains which had formerly bound him to her feet, were so apparent,
that his incensed spirit rose with every line; and he cast the letter
from him.
Louis trembled at this unexpected issue, from what he had hoped would
have made some softening impression on his Father's implacable revenge;
but with a firm voice, he asked, what was his reply to that petition
from a Queen and a woman?
Ripperda turned on him a penetrating and contemptuous look.
"Have you read that petition?"
"No, my Father; but I know it is to ratify all that I have assured you."
"I know not what it would ratify!" cried the Duke, stung by a sudden
recollection, and snatching up the letter, he tore it in pieces. "It
shall never be witness, that any one dared tamper with my honour; that
he who once commanded nations--But no more. I will answer this letter
to-morrow, on that field; and they who survive, may bear the writing to
their Queen."
"My Father!" exclaimed Louis.
"I have said it, young man," interrupted Ripperda in a voice of
thunder; "go, and tell them so--and it shall be finished."
"No;" returned Louis, "for in that field, you would have to meet your
own people, and your own son! You would drench your hands in the blood
you have so often sworn to cherish; you would give the last blow to the
name and race of Ripperda; and what will be your reward? The fetters of
a barbarian!"
The string had been touched, which vibrated to madness in the brain of
Ripperda. His apprehension became confused, and with terrific solemnity
he approached his son.
"Hitherto," said he, "I have heard you with patience! I read your
Queen's letter with patience; I received her General's flag of truce
with patience. But her letter was an insidious blazonry of all my false
accusers; and he who brought the flag of truce, whispered at my gates,
that Aben Humeya was a Spanish traitor. This is their truth, their
amnesty; this, my sheltered honour! And you appear the minister of such
an embassy! De Montemar," cried he grasping his arm; "are you aware to
what you move me? But I will not reason farther. Tell your Sovereign,
it is my will to be his enemy! That is my final answer."
Ripperda walked haughtily away: but Louis followed him, with all the
energy of a man determined to prevail. His father turned fiercely on
his filial eloquence.
"Silence," cried he, "my whole nature rejects the treacherous
influence. I am not to be betrayed a second time, by the arms which
once deserted me. You would sell me; but I am not to be bought. These
limbs shall never wither in a dungeon, closed by my own son! This head
shall never welter on a scaffold his hands have reared!"
His eye was fixed on the sword on the table. The expression was
portentous; and he moved towards it, muttering to himself the names
of de Paz and Wharton. Louis saw the urging demon; and clasping his
hands, while he tore his gaze from that ever revered face, he threw
himself between his father and the table.
"Parricide," cried Ripperda, "I am not at your mercy;" and with the
word, he made a stroke at the breast of his son. Louis seized the
frantic arm.
"Duke de Ripperda," said he, "I may fall by your slaves; but your own
hand shall not kill your son. If you indeed believe, that he who has
twice hazarded his life to recall you to your honour and your God, can
be leagued with falsehood to betray you, summon your guards to dispatch
me!"
Ripperda glared on him, as he firmly grasped the hand that held the
dagger. Louis's eyes were not less rivetted on those of his father.
"De Montemar," cried he, relaxing his hold on the weapon; "on the
perdition of us both, leave my presence; and see that we never meet
again. Your father is not what he was."
He struck his hand upon his burning forehead; and, trembling from head
to foot, sunk into a seat.
Louis observed him for a few minutes in silence; but his soul was then
prostrate before the only Being who could restore that noble mind; his
heart was at the feet of his father; and, falling on his knees beside
him, he put that now unarmed hand to his lips.
Ripperda had still enough of human tenderness to understand this
appeal; but his distempered imagination would not apprehend its truth;
and, starting from his position, he exclaimed:--
"Impossible! The world and your ingratitude have undone me. You are no
more a son to a rebel and a renegade. I, no more a father to him whose
treasons reduced me to this extremity!--Away, and by that path," added
he, pointing to a passage in the back of the pavilion.--"If we ever
meet again, you must finish your commission; or I blot from the earth
the dishonoured name of Ripperda!"
Louis was still on his knee, when his father hastily advanced to the
curtain and called aloud: A mute appeared; and the Basha, with an
instant recovery of composed dignity, commanded him to see that Moor,
(pointing to Louis,) to the outside of the camp towards the hill, and
leave him there.
Ripperda quitted the apartment as he spoke; and, with desolation in his
heart, Louis rose and followed his conductor.