When Santa Cruz landed at Ceuta, he proceeded direct to the quarters
of Don Joseph de Penil, and was told there of the attempt to storm the
fortress, and its miraculous defence by the inexperienced but intrepid
son of Ripperda. Don Joseph's wounds were in a mending state; and from
him he learnt, that his son was also on the recovery; but less hopes
durst be encouraged for the Marquis de Montemar.
"The worst wound is in his heart!" remarked Santa Cruz. For it could
no longer be disguised from de Penil and the whole garrison, that Aben
Humeya, the direful cause of all this bloodshed, was, though now an
apostate and a rebel, once the great Duke de Ripperda, the universally
honoured father of this noble young man!
His public attainder, and disgraced name at Seville, had made the
circumstance known to all there; and the new army spread it at once
through the lines of Ceuta.
But there was a kind hand which warded off a blow which might have been
fatal to his blameless son. Don Ferdinand and Louis de Montemar lay in
their wounds under the same roof; and by the same gentle ministry they
were attended.
The Marchioness and her daughter found no difference in their hearts
between the sufferers; for if the one had the claims of a brother and
a son upon their tenderness, the other had purchased the life of that
dear relative by the exposure of his own; and the bonds of gratitude
were not less sacred than those of kindred.
Marcella sought to cheer her brother, by assuring him that her
prejudices against a monastic life should no longer stand between him
and his happiness, if that compliance with her father's wishes could
obtain his consent to Ferdinand's union with the cousin of his friend.
But she did not withhold from her brother, the Marquis's remark on the
sacrifice she offered to make in his behalf.
"However," continued she, "our aunt, the abbess of the Ursalines,
is too charitable to force my conscience to more than the vow and
the seclusion; and I trust that Heaven will not see any crime in a
Protestant nun, worshipping in spirit and in truth, by the side of
sisters from whom the cloud of error has not yet been raised!"
Ferdinand gazed upon his sister while she spoke. Was the fabled
Iphigenia of Tauris half so fair, or the virgin daughter of Jephthah
so full of youthful loveliness, as she who now talked, with such sweet
smiles, of immolating herself for him? She was indeed the victim, clad
in the lilly and the rose; and the fragrance of the flowers, and the
morning dew of their leaves, breathed and sparkled from her lips, as
she pursued her disinterested theme. Bodily suffering, and hours of
solitary reflection, had opened to Ferdinand a clear view of his former
injustice in seeking happiness at the expence of his sister's liberty;
and, abhorring such utter selfishness, he was ashamed to acknowledge
its late power over him, even by disavowing its continuance; and with a
deep blush, and deeper sigh, he pressed her hand without a word.
But in Marcella's separated heart, the vow of abjuration from the
world was already registered. She had now but one duty;--to wait with
her lamp trimmed, while she ministered to all who needed her deeds of
charity; and, as a _Sister of Mercy_, whose garb she wore, she daily
attended her mother to the couch of the preserver of her brother.
The Marchioness's eager disposition was always too hasty in imparting
the evil as well as the good; and, therefore, her more considerate
daughter implored her, and every body who entered the room of the
Marquis de Montemar, not to breathe a word of the sentence which Philip
had passed upon the name of his father. From an instinct in her own
bosom, she knew that injuries are easier to be borne than disgrace;
and she guarded every approach to his ear with the watchfulness of an
attendant spirit.
As her own hand frequently administered the cordials to the
silently-suffering patient, his eyes thanked her, though his lips
seldom moved. His wounds were numerous and excruciating; and, from the
opium his surgeons mixed with every potion, he was almost always in a
seeming stupor. But neither his mental perceptions, nor the annotations
of his heart shared the lulling faculty. His shrouded vision discerned
the solicitude that hovered over him. He heard the tender voice that
gave directions for his comfort; he felt the soft touch of the hand
that smoothed his pillow; and his own spirit mingled in the prayer
which the holy accents of Marcella murmured over his apparently
unobserving form, when she gave place to the persons whose medical
balsams were less healing than the balm of her presence alone.
"It is the presence of virtue!" said he to himself, "and that is the
ministering angel of heaven."
Lorenzo had shared his master's dangers and his wounds, as he had
shared his sorrows and his prison. He had followed him from rampart to
rampart, stood by him on the breach; and sunk under the same sweep of
balls which had levelled both to the earth. As soon as he was able to
leave his chamber, he prevailed on his attendants to take him to that
of his master; for he had been told of the news which had astonished
the garrison;--that the exiled Ripperda was the man, who, under a
Moorish name, now made Spain tremble; and that the impotent revenge
of the Spanish court was to deprive him of a title he had already
abandoned.
It was during the absence of the Marchioness and Marcella at matin
prayers, that Lorenzo was borne to Louis's apartment. Ignorant that any
thing which the whole garrison knew, could have been withheld from him
who had most concern in it, Lorenzo, after his first felicitations on
finding his master declared out of danger, began to accuse the Spanish
government for not sparing the honours of Ripperda to the meritorious
son, though it had found it necessary to withdraw them from the
rebellion of the father. Louis started.--
"Explain yourself, Lorenzo."
Lorenzo was seized with a trembling that almost amounted to fainting,
when he found that he had intimated what his master's friends had
deemed it prudent to conceal. Louis regarded him with grateful pity,
while he armed himself to hear whatever was then to be told.
"Do not hesitate to speak all you know," continued he; "I have suffered
too much to shrink now. My heart has armour, Lorenzo, that the world
guesses not."
Lorenzo burst into tears; but he instantly told him all. Louis pressed
his hand; and, bidding him return to his room and take care of himself;
the faithful creature, with a full heart, permitted the servants to
carry him from the apartment; and when the door was closed on every
body, Louis laid himself back upon his couch. That was his hour of
agony; all that was yet within him of the world, mingled with the pang
of filial anguish, and agitated his spirit even unto death.
Ferdinand came into the room, leaning on his sister; and taking his
seat by the side of his friend's bed, gently touched him:--"Do you
sleep, De Montemar?" said he. "Here is a fresh northern breeze in this
sultry climate! Open your eyes and receive the genial visitant!"
Louis did not open his eyes, but he sighed heavily, and half muttered
in a smothered voice: "When shall I meet a genial visitant again! Oh,
Ferdinand," added he, turning his face upon the hand of his friend,
"better had it been for me, had I never been born!"
Marcella was retiring at the first exclamation; but, at the second, she
paused and drew near.
"De Montemar," said Ferdinand, "what can prompt you who are so
universally honoured, to such a sentiment?"
"My father's universal infamy," replied Louis. "He is now judged before
men and angels; and where shall I hide my head!"
"In the bosom of him who pierces the heart to purify it!" replied
Marcella, as she sunk on her knees beside him. "He only who wilfully
offends that gracious Being, may cry: _Better for me had I never been
born!_ If God have already judged your erring father before men and
angels, and given that once illustrious name to universal infamy,
receive that as a mercy; as a punishment here, that it may be remitted
hereafter."
Louis looked up from his thorny pillow. He took her hand, and pressed
it with grateful fervour to his lips.--
"You, you, holy Marcella!" cried he, "are the genial visitant I saw
not,--are the messenger from heaven that speaks peace to my soul! Pray
for me I beseech you; but, above all, pray for my misguided father. May
he be redeemed; and for disgrace,--trampling, overwhelming disgrace,
let it come!"
The speech was begun to her, but ended in an address to heaven, without
farther consciousness of who were present.
Ferdinand and his sister comprehended that some person had betrayed to
him the secret they had so carefully concealed; and both apprehended
the effects of so sudden a blow upon a mind whose keen sense of honour
seemed one with his being.
When the Marquis Santa Cruz learnt what had passed, he went to the
couch of his young friend; and dismissing every person, discoursed with
him alone, for more than an hour. The Marchioness met him in the room
of her son, and with maternal anxiety, enquired the result of his visit.
"I found him," replied Santa Cruz, "in a silence, which he had never
broken since my son and daughter left him; but when I spoke to him, he
answered me firmly. And then I discovered that it was not so much the
publication of his father's dishonour, which had so affected him, as
the conviction that such public degradation, by still farther incensing
the Duke, was the seal of his estrangement from his religion and his
country." "He is now an outcast!" cried he, "and driven to despair, he
will believe he is banished from the face of heaven and the Christian
world for ever!"
"Oh, my father," cried Marcella, "is there not one who teaches us where
all comfort _is written_? And in those sacred pages we are told, that
he who was cast out into the desert for mocking the promise of his God,
yet found an angel in the wilderness to save him from perishing."
"Louis de Montemar is no stranger to the volume which is your study,
my child;" gently answered her father; "and I soon learnt, that though
human nature shrunk under the stroke, there was a spirit within him
that sustained and cheered him with a better hope."
"My father," said Marcella, laying her trembling hand on the arm of
the Marquis, "can his faith be wrong, who is so supported?" Santa
Cruz shook off that appealing touch. A deep thoughtfulness passed over
his brow. It was troubled, but it was not severe; and he left the room
without answering her.