said, catching his hand and leading him towards an interior room--“here
is another joy for thee.”
At sight of Kara Aziek whom the tumultuous sounds of their meeting had
roused, Gaspar stood a moment, as if collecting his scattered and
delightfully-amazed senses, then rushing forward, he cast himself at her
feet;
“What do I see?” he exclaimed, “dearest lady! am I to believe that the
virgin has heard my prayers, and united two hearts equally
noble--equally gifted, to bless--to attach--O joy too, too much!”
Love and happiness replied in the thrilling look which Kara Aziek
directed towards Sebastian, and then turned upon Gaspar; her eloquent
eyes ever seemed to render speech useless: Gaspar understood their
language; his transport redoubled, and as he alternately kissed the
hands of two persons dearer to him than life, he forgot that the world
was not at his disposal, and that the master he adored, might yet have
to wander from clime to clime a fugitive and a beggar.
Some moments were now given to mutual inquiries and mutual details:
various emotions of sorrow, indignation, commiseration, and gratitude,
were called forth by these recitals.
After much suffering, Gaspar had reached Brazil, and was now in the
service of Don Emanuel.
When he heard of Philip’s usurpation over Portugal, De Castro would have
immediately refused obeying his commands, had not the arrival of Gaspar,
and the hope he held out of Don Sebastian’s appearance at Brazil,
determined him to retain the vice-royalty, since it might enable him
hereafter to restore his legitimate sovereign. Time, however, wore away,
and Sebastian appeared not; the expectations of Don Emanuel and of
Gaspar gradually died:--each of them in secret believed him dead, or
still captive among the Moors; and just at the period of his arrival,
they had entirely abandoned all hope of beholding their King at St.
Salvador.
During this time of anxiety, De Castro had never ceased interrogating
his Portuguese correspondents upon the events of their country, and it
was from one of these he learnt what afforded him some ray of hope.
It was reported throughout Lisbon that the lady Gonsalva had beheld and
conversed with Don Sebastian in the palace of Xabregas: she refused to
repeat the nature of their interview, but asserted the fact with the
most startling obstinacy.--Strict search had been made upon this
information, by Antonio of Crato, but as it proved unsuccessful, the
people believed she had seen his spirit; and by degrees the same
horrible idea took possession of her own mind.
Terror and perpetual alarm now pursued her wherever she went; alone or
in society, in the arms of her guilty lover, or by the cradles of her
children, maddened imagination would suddenly conjure up his
phantom--armed, not with mortal weapon, but with looks that seemed
empowered to damn her.
At these instants, her hasty shriek struck others with the same panic
that convulsed herself: by degrees her friends and her attendants
deserted her;--Antonio unwillingly remained, ashamed of abandoning the
wretch he had made. But at length even he fled her abode; then
terminated the fate of Gonsalva: that phrenzy which had hitherto shewn
itself only at intervals, now seized on her wholly, and living in one
fearful paroxysm, she was left to rave out her life in the cell of a
convent where a charitable sisterhood devoted themselves to assuage this
last, worst calamity of human nature.
Too enlightened for belief in the monstrous notion of Don Sebastian’s
_spiritual_ re-appearance in a _tangible body_ (for Gonsalva
acknowledged having grasped his garments and his hand,) De Castro felt
confident that his royal master had really appeared in Lisbon; but of
the fate that had befallen him, he dared not think: it was too probable
that he had fallen a victim to his uncle or to his cousin.
By suspecting the former, Don Emanuel was guilty of injustice: the aged
King had been at that period scarcely more than a cypher; he was
governed by a ministry (the creatures of Philip,) who kept from his
knowledge every rumour of his nephew’s existence, prevented any subject
of whatever rank from addressing him save through their medium, and
finally dismissed Don Emanuel to Brazil, and allured Gaspar to prison,
without disclosing to the half-childish monarch their motives for
either action.
All that Gaspar knew of these events he briefly detailed, ere he
indulged his own private feelings by inquiring the situation of his
orphan sisters: Sebastian’s donation to them gave peace to his fraternal
anxiety.
Not unmoved did the King of Portugal hear the awful catastrophe of Donna
Gonsalva; his agitation however, did not appear outwardly in all its
force, for horror and amazement locked up the usual expressions of pity,
and it was only by the fitful variation of his complexion, and the
nervous startings of his body, that Kara Aziek’s heart felt the pangs
which wrung his:--she saw that he struggled to hide his suffering from
her observation.
Tenderly solicitous to divert him of the apprehension which made him
thus dissemble, she approached behind his chair, and bending over him,
rested her lips upon his forehead, then pressing his hand, whispered
softly, “I should not love thee, if thou didst not pity her.”
Sebastian wrapt his arms round Aziek without speaking; and his heart,
thus permitted by her to lament one whom he had formerly idolized,
opened itself to a moment of weakness.--Till now, an ocean of time
seemed to have flowed between those days, and these present; one instant
swept this away, and blended the two periods together: Sebastian saw
Gonsalva again in all her beauty and apparent innocence; again he felt
the successive thrills of resentment and transport, of misery and
delight, which her capricious character used to excite in him; he
remembered how he had doated,--he felt how much he now contemned!
Penetrated with a sense of the lamentable uncertainty of all human
goods, and of the yet sadder change which circumstances force our hearts
to make in their affections and in their wishes, he burst into tears,
convulsively pressed Aziek to his breast, then hastily relinquishing
her, would have hurried away, had she not gently detained him.
Her soft eyes filled with tears and raised tenderly to his, were
expressive of so much sympathy with his grief, and so much confidence in
his affection, that yielding to their mute intreaty, he let his head
sink again upon her bosom, where he wept unreservedly for some time:
Aziek was silent also; but she wept with him, and every sigh that heaved
his manly heart, was marked by a yet fonder pressure of her encircling
arms.
CHAP. VII.
Relieved by this indulgence of a natural sensibility, Sebastian raised
himself from the neck of his wife with a serener countenance, and bade
Gaspar conduct him to the viceroy’s: they went out together.
As they passed through the streets, silently taking that complacent
repose of the soul which follows tumultuous joy, Gaspar’s eyes remained
still fixed on his sovereign’s face, with an expression of affectionate
pleasure that seemed incapable of being sated:--his heart indeed
overflowed with happiness.
Sebastian was conducted to a private apartment in the house of De
Castro, at the entrance of which Gaspar left him to return and guard
Kara Aziek: Don Emanuel was standing alone; he came hastily forward,
fastened the door, and fell at his master’s feet. The King’s emotion
confused his sight, but he raised De Castro and embraced him warmly; a
long silence prevailed between them: the same recollections, the same
troubled anticipations of the future, were in the minds of each: their
meeting was less joyous than that with Gaspar, because their more
reflective characters acted on each other and roused serious thoughts,
but it was equally affectionate.
“When I first saw thee, De Castro!” said his sovereign, “could I have
foreseen this day, how would my frantic spirit have been appaled and
checked in its unjust”----Don Emanuel’s looks interrupted him; too
respectful for other interruption he only averted his head, and put the
King’s hand to his lips with the air of one that beseeches: Sebastian
gratefully eyed him.
“Generous De Castro!” he exclaimed, “vainly would you have me banish
from my mind those events which your figure so forcibly recalls.--I
cannot forget--I cannot forget!” he repeated, deeply sighing and sinking
into a reverie. Every scene in which De Castro had been an actor, was
now brought back with such frightful closeness to him, that regret and
compunction grew into absolute agony; the remembrances of Antonio and of
Gonsalva were so contradictory, so made up of the amiable and the
hateful, that they increased the anguish of Sebastian by increasing his
incertitude: he sought to end it, by suddenly inquiring of De Castro
whether he had known the guilt of Donna Gonsalva ere their departure for
Africa.
“By a singular chance it was discovered to me;” replied Don
Emanuel,--“On my return from the Indies I went to visit my affianced
wife, and found her all that she had been described to me in beauty,
wit, and accomplishments. I confess that these graces, together with
the animated reception she then gave me, dazzled away my intended
scrutiny of her disposition, and I reluctantly tore myself from the
temptation of making her wholly mine, in order to devote myself to the
last hours of my respected grandfather. When we met again, her manner
was changed; an air of haughty coldness, almost amounting to contempt,
gave to her beauty a new character, but that character was one which
disgusted me. I could only suppose that I was indebted for this to pique
at my preferring a sacred duty to the indulgence of passion.”
The death of my grandfather interrupted the uneasy thoughts which her
evident caprice or selfish vanity had created: my mourning was yet
fresh, when in journeying from Santaren to her father’s villa near
Crato, it was providentially ordained that I should pass through a
cluster of farm-houses, one of which was on fire. It was midnight at
this time; my servants assisted me to succour the inhabitants; most of
them were saved, but one woman, whom I rescued at the imminent hazard of
my life, was so grievously burned that that no hope could be entertained
of her recovery. On learning my name, she testified the most
extraordinary agitation and desiring to be left alone with me, entered
upon a confession of guilt which filled me with consternation.
Judge my astonishment, Sire! when I found that she was the confidential
maid of Donna Gonsalva, and having met with this fatal accident during a
short visit to her family, deemed it a visitation of divine
justice.--She told me”--here De Castro paused apprehensively.
“Proceed without fear!” said Sebastian, with a steady voice, though his
cheek was blanched--“the name once so dear to me is now only a
watch-word of horror or of pity. I am eager to know her, and her
seducer, completely.”
Don Emanuel resumed. “I learnt from the woman’s recital these
facts.--Left to the care of so indolent, unsuspicious and weak a
guardian as her aunt, Donna Gonsalva had ill brooked the retirement to
which she was condemned by the absence of her father and of her husband;
her restless vanity was eager for gratification, when chance shewed her
to Don Antonio of Crato. I pass over his passion and its seductions; he
found the fair Gonsalva too ready to sacrifice herself to vanity and
ambition: he was the King’s cousin, and he persuaded her that your
majesty had sworn never to marry, but resolved on declaring him heir to
the crown by substantiating his mother’s marriage with the Duke De Beja,
after which Antonio would endeavour to procure the Pope’s dispensation
for making her his wife.
“These temptations, added to the insinuating manners of her lover,
conquered the virtue of Gonsalva--she yielded herself to the prior.”
A crimson flush was reflected from the faces of each, as Don Emanuel
paused, and Sebastian covered his eyes with his hand: each felt at that
moment a sentiment of having been dishonoured.--De Castro resumed.
“Urracca, (this servant I spoke of,) was the confidant of their
meetings, for they took place in her apartments, and by her contrivance;
she assured me that their guilty attachment had endured for more than a
year, when I returned to Portugal. Gonsalva was then awakening from her
vain dream of a throne; for your Majesty had graciously announced to
your subjects that it was your intention to marry at some future period,
and negociations with France and Spain were even then on foot: she began
to think that to share my fortune and honours, was preferable to this
pursuit of a phantom; I was therefore received with flattering ardour.
“It was after this period that she saw her royal victim.--O, Sire! must
I go on?--dare I repeat those acts of treasonable deception,--of
amazing ingratitude, which--”
“All, all, De Castro!” replied Sebastian, “Judge not my heart exactly by
these coward cheeks of mine: ’tis the trick of my nature to grow pale
and red, at what stirs not the complexion of other men--go on--my
passions are not so inflammable as they used to be--go on!--”
Don Emanuel bowed his head and resumed.--“Your Majesty’s first interview
with Gonsalva charmed her vanity, it offered her amusement; she saw you
again; and when detailing the adventure to Urracca, she expressed a
certainty of being familiar with your features, and suddenly
exclaimed--“it is the portrait of Don Sebastian, that he resembles!”--In
one moment her vanity and imagination had too truly united this likeness
with the circumstance of the court being then at Crato, and when she saw
you again, Sire, by seemingly random railleries, she nearly confirmed
herself in her suspicion.
“Don Antonio had a picture of your Majesty on a snuff-box, Gonsalva
examined it attentively at their next meeting, and determining to be
satisfied compleatly, obtained her aunt’s permission to attend her to
the cathedral of Crato, where the court were to be present at the
celebration of high mass.--There, concealed under a veil, she beheld and
recognized her mysterious admirer.--
“I need not add, it was immediately subsequent to this, that my second
visit was received so haughtily.--About this period your majesty
remained several days absent from the villa, a circumstance which
alarmed the yet-unfixed hopes of Gonsalva: nightly Urracca watched from
the upper window of a turret where her mistress had granted you
permission to appear. One night she descried your royal person from
afar, and hastening down to inform Gonsalva, heard her propose to charm
you, by a seemingly unstudied display of her melodious voice. Assured
of your rank, Sire! instructed in your character by him who knew you
best, she learnt how to inflame your passion by a thousand charming
caprices, till she had brought you to the point desired.--Meanwhile
Antonio”----
“Ah what of Antonio?” interrupted the King, his limbs quivering with
restrained emotion, “did he conspire?--damned, damned dissembler!” he
added, losing his self-command, “when I was weaving him into my
soul--when I trusted him--poured out my love-sick heart to him
alone----boy, idiot, bubble that I was!--O De Castro, these are
recollections to madden!--I regret not such perfidious wretches,
but my blood grows fire when I think of the jest they must have
made of feelings like mine!”
Sebastian trod the apartment with fierce and irregular steps; De Castro
looked on him with an air of tender compassion--this sensibility to
injuries recalled their first interview at Lisbon, and he lamented its
continuance.
“Donna Gonsalva, he resumed, “determined not to disclose her secret to
Antonio till confident of your Majesty’s settled passion; your own
august lips first revealed it to the prior: surprize and resentment
nearly banished his discretion, but never having dared to let your
Majesty know the libertine license in which he indulged himself, he was
restrained from avowing any knowledge of Count Vimiosa’s daughter.--Of
course their subsequent meeting was one of reproach: Gonsalva
conquered.”
“She pleaded to Antonio the necessity of covering the consequences of
their intrigue by some marriage, and since he could not legitimatize the
child she carried, it was fortunate for them both, that instead of
resigning herself to the _observing, frigid De Castro_ (this was the
epithet she gave me, Sire!) she might aggrandize their offspring by a
union with Majesty itself.
“Antonio had yielded to her arguments, and they were impatiently waiting
the arrival of Vimiosa from France to break through the engagement with
me, when this abhorrent secret was confided to me by Urracca.--The woman
spoke with a dying breath, could I doubt her veracity?--recovering that
presence of mind which the shock had deprived me of, I besought her to
repeat the story in confession to a holy friar who might hereafter
support my testimony; she expired ere he arrived.
“It was now impossible for me to follow the impulse of my heart by
hastening to undeceive my Sovereign; would he believe a tale so horribly
improbable?--would he not deem it a malicious fabrication prompted by
jealousy, or disappointment?--I was obliged to smother it in my own
breast, and be content to watch the conduct of Gonsalva. Her third
reception of me sealed the truth of Urracca.
“Your Majesty must now guess at the motive of my former inexplicable
conduct: I sought only to gain time; I wished but to struggle with my
sovereign’s desires, till the condition of Donna Gonsalva should become
apparent to every eye, and the birth of her child render her shame
notorious. If I erred in not hazarding my life by avowing at once”----
“I should not have believed you, noble, injured De Castro!” interrupted
the King, stopping and fervently squeezing his hand, “how mad I was
then, you well remember. I loved that pernicious woman to such delirious
excess--no, no, it was not love,--let me not disgrace the sacred
sentiment which sympathizes with Aziek’s, by affixing the same name to
each!”
Sebastian had now afforded Don Emanuel an opportunity of giving a turn
to their discourse.--Familiar with the name of Kara Aziek, on which
Gasper had frequently dwelt in his narrative of their captivity, and
yielding to pleasurable surprize, De Castro inquired the meaning of his
Sovereign’s apostrophe.--
The succeeding explanation gave rise to a variety of sweet emotions in
the bosom of Sebastian, which spreading over his countenance the glow of
love and happiness, communicated to Don Emanuel a portion of his own
delight.--That faithful noble contemplated his royal master’s character
and person after a separation of nearly four years, with wonder and
satisfaction: how much more of character was visible on those admirable
lineaments!
The smiling beauty there, which was wont first to catch the sense, and
charm the fancy, was now lost in the majesty of nobler expression: it
was an expression that spoke sufferings magnanimously endured, passions
bravely subdued, virtues rapidly matured. De Castro felt it penetrate
his heart, and exalt the poignant feeling with which he revolved the
wrongs and the privations of so interesting a creature.
With what attention did he listen to the recital of Sebastian’s visit to
Portugal, his second captivity, his honorable reception at the court of
Persia, and the rare attachment of Kara Aziek! in return he distinctly
stated his own limited powers in Brazil.
Philip’s policy had gradually abridged them; yet aware of De Castro’s
upright conduct in the arduous station to which he had been elevated, he
suffered him to remain amongst the people whom his virtues rendered
obedient. Every post of influence in Brazil was now filled by Spaniards,
or Portuguese devoted to Spanish views: the colony was yet weak, and
therefore unable to act alone in the cause of its lawful sovereign,
should he even declare himself: its land could furnish only a
resting-place for him and his, where they might securely wait under De
Castro’s protection for some political change in Europe, which might
prove favorable to discovery.
The death of Philip, or the defection of his most powerful allies, or
possibly the insurrection of Portugal itself, might hereafter offer an
inviting conjuncture for a step of some risk: the recovery of his crown
could not be rashly attempted, if he would spare to his people the
misery of a fruitless contest. Don Emanuel suggested nothing but
patience, watchfulness, and hope.
Too well convinced by the arguments of De Castro, Sebastian saw that he
had no other line of conduct to choose; he must reconcile himself to an
obscure life in Brazil. He consented therefore to settle as a wealthy
but untitled individual, whom a mercantile speculation had brought to
the new world.
“I submit to my destiny;” he said, after they had discussed these
topics, “I submit to my destiny! an inglorious, unoccupied life is a
fresh trial for a spirit like mine.--Deem me not a boaster De Castro,
when I say, that to live without an aim, without great and
soul-quickening duties, will be in my eyes a living death: I shall
scarcely feel privileged to enjoy the happiness of loving and being
beloved by the little circle that now encloses all my affections.--To
what have I reduced myself?--to a nothing!--a worthless husk deprived of
what was valuable within!”
Sebastian sighed heavily, and fixed his eyes on the ground.
“Not so, my honored liege!” observed Don Emanuel, “a benevolent spirit
can everywhere make for itself duties and enjoyments, for to what spot
shall man fly, where the voice of suffering does not reach
him?--Ignorance is a calamity; it is the soil of crimes; and here we are
surrounded by ignorant natives, whom the memory of former cruelties
almost justifies in hating us. Those great and amiable qualities, which
even in a state of slavery made to themselves power and usefulness,
will surely enable my King to find the same noble pleasures in a more
liberal station.”
“You are right De Castro,” replied Sebastian, with a look of
satisfaction, “I may here study the people I once governed without
knowing; I may here endeavour to atone for the outrages of my ancestors,
to that simple race whose land they moistened with blood. The
magnificent gifts of Schah Abbas have made me rich,--adversity has made
me patient; wealth and patience added to a sincere desire of doing good,
ought to produce beneficial effects: if I can diffuse even a small
portion of comfort around me, my days will not pass in vain.”
Sebastian now minutely inquired the character and situation of the
neighbouring tribes, who tributary to the Portuguese government lived
under their protection, and occasionally trafficked with them in skins
and feathers: to attempt their civilization, appeared an object worth
consideration. Don Emanuel briefly replied to him.
Among the tribes he described, were the Guaymures, a ferocious race that
had formerly occupied the whole sweep of country, from Cape Frio to the
river St. Francis: after perpetual wars with other tribes and European
settlements, they were now driven beyond the southern bank of this great
river, and lived roaming round the borders of the inconsiderable
Cachoeira.
The Guaymures were cannibals: they devoured their prisoners taken in
battle, and to their idol Marakha, occasionally sacrificed even their
own infants. Armed with ponderous clubs and poisoned arrows, their naked
bodies besmeared with the juices of noisome plants, and rendered hideous
by strange punctures, their long black hair flying loose over their
bodies, these tremendous savages would issue from their woods, yelling
like beasts of prey, and falling on the plantations of the Europeans,
would fire their sugar-mills, slaughter the inhabitants, and make horrid
banquets upon their quivering limbs.