Louis opened the sealed packet, and obeyed his father's dying
injunctions to the minutest circumstance.
According to the noble penitent's written command, and by the friendly
management of the faithful Arab, his death was concealed from the
Moors, until all was accomplished which he wished to be done. When
every thing was completed, his body was taken away by night to the
chapel of Saint Philip, and buried in its consecrated garden, without
pomp, or a register on his grave.
Louis remained for an hour alone, by the humbled relics of all that was
once admired and honoured in man. His heart would have been with that
cold corse, had he not known that its spirit must be sought in other
regions. But on that awful spot, he called on the shade of his mother;
he invoked the soul of him, who had sinned and been forgiven! He laid
his own ambition, and all that was yet within him of this world, on
that first altar of nature, at the foot of the cross. He rose with a
holy confidence, and was comforted.
He bade adieu to the brethren, who now knew him as the son of the
deceased, and blessed him for his filial heroism. The prior conducted
him, with a similar benediction, to the boat that was to convey him to
the late Basha's armed galleon in the bay. Martini was already there,
with the Count de Patinos. Ripperda had held him a close prisoner
in a remote tower of the Ginaraliph; but with his dying breath, he
pronounced his release; and the Count with other Christian captives, to
whom the same voice gave liberty, were now safely embarked, along with
the treasures of Ripperda, in the vessel that was to carry his son to
the opposite shore.
Nature seemed to have put on her mourning garments; for all was
universal darkness: not a star in the heavens, nor a glow-worm on the
beach, shed one ray of light to guide his little bark, as it silently
floated down the river.
He left a letter with the prior, for the Marquis Santa Cruz. It was to
be conveyed to Ceuta with the first messenger from the brotherhood; and
would inform him of the melancholy and decisive events in Tetuan. Louis
wrote fully on every subject; and told the Marquis, that his father had
ordered him to take de Patinos and the Christian captives to Gibraltar,
and from thence give them liberty. The Duke had also enjoined certain
sums to be left with the brethren of Ceuta and Tetuan, for the ransom
of other captives in the interior; while the treasure on board the
galleon was to be consigned to the governor of Gibraltar, under the
personal agency of Martini d'Urbino, for a general fund towards
freeing the numerous Christian slaves on the coast of Barbary.
Louis closed his letter, with his father's commands respecting his
return to England, and his own wish to the same purpose. But he added,
he would not take so decisive a step until he could consult the
Marquis, how far he might comply, without violating his pledged duty
to Spain. It was therefore his design to re-visit Ceuta, as soon as
he had fulfilled his commission at the British fortress; and from the
experienced counsel, and unswerving integrity of Santa Cruz, shape his
future fate.
But Louis was never to see Ceuta again; never to set his foot again
upon the Spanish shore; nor to hear the voice of Santa Cruz, till his
destiny was decided beyond the power of friendship to dissuade or annul.
A whirlwind from the north-west, caught the galleon and its newly
enfranchised crew, at the mouth of the bay of Tetuan, and drove it out
to sea, where it was beaten about at the mercy of the winds and waves
for many days. After having been twice nearly wrecked, first on the
coast of Algiers, and then on the spiky shores of Murcia, a Levanter
suddenly springing up, drove them as fiercely back towards the Straits;
and falling calm opposite the Bay of Gibraltar, on the tenth morning
after he sailed, Louis landed at the British fortress.
As he stepped out on the old mole, the partialities of his infancy
were awakened instantly by what he saw; and though more than a nominal
Spaniard, he felt the exultation of an Englishman, in viewing that
rock, and those bastions, where the most heroic and persevering
atchievements had been performed by the countrymen of his mother. It
was England's own imperial domain; and Louis sighed when he inwardly
exclaimed, "Oh! why did I wish for any other country?"
Lorenzo awaited him in the town with a packet from Santa Cruz. It was
in answer to that which the Tetuan monks had forwarded to Ceuta; and
was written just as the Spanish army was embarking on its return to
Spain. By order of the King, Santa Cruz had made peace with the new
government of the Moors, and was recalled with his whole family, to
rejoin the court at Seville, and attend it to Madrid. But this was
not all the Marquis had to communicate; he inclosed an angry letter
from the Queen, on the subject of Louis having preferred the errors
of heresy to the truths of the Church; and the prejudices of an
absurd education, to the favour of his too indulgent Sovereigns. Her
indignation was so highly incensed against so signal an instance of
folly and ingratitude, that she told Santa Cruz, the delinquent must
no longer consider himself protected by Spanish laws, should he ever
presume to re-enter that country.
"'Tis well!" said Louis to himself; and he turned the page.
Santa Cruz then addressed him as a father, consoling and cheering him
with every argument that could be drawn from an heroic and pious mind.
"You have convinced me," added he, "that the Holy One is no respecter
of persons; that all, of every country and sect, who work the _works
of righteousness_, are accepted by him. If I can bring you brighter
tidings from my at present inexorable mistress, you shall see me again
in Lindisfarne. Meanwhile, be assured of the parental exertions of
your unalienable friend,