At last, after completing this minute
examination
of the locality, he
hid himself upon a sloping bank near some black poplars whose high and
interlacing tops cast a dark shadow, and at whose feet grew a clump of
mastic shrubs high enough to conceal a man lying prone on the ground.
hid himself upon a sloping bank near some black poplars whose high and
interlacing tops cast a dark shadow, and at whose feet grew a clump of
mastic shrubs high enough to conceal a man lying prone on the ground.
Gustavo Adolfo Becuqer
The silent streets of Toledo now
resounded night and day with the stirring sound of kettle-drums and
trumpets; and in the Moorish gateway of Visagra, or in that of Cambron,
or in the narrow entrance to the ancient bridge of St. Martin, not an
hour passed without one's hearing the hoarse cry of the sentinels
proclaiming the arrival of some knight who, preceded by his seigniorial
banner and followed by horsemen and foot-soldiers, had come to join the
main body of the Castilian army.
The time which remained before taking the road to the frontier and
completing the order of the royal hosts was spent in public
entertainments, lavish feasts and brilliant tournaments, until at last,
on the evening before the day appointed by His Highness for the setting
out of the army, a grand ball closed the festivities.
On the night of the ball, the royal palace presented a singular
appearance. In the spacious courts might be seen, promiscuously mingled
around huge bonfires, a motley multitude of pages, soldiers, crossbowmen
and hangers-on, who, some grooming their chargers and polishing their
arms preparatory to combat, others bewailing with outcries and
blasphemies the unforeseen turns of Fortune, personified for them in the
cast of the dice, and others chorusing the refrain of a martial ballad
which a minstrel was chanting to the accompaniment of a rude violin;
others still buying of a palmer cockle-shells, crosses and girdles
hallowed by the touch of the sepulchre of Santiago, or greeting with
wild outbursts of laughter the jokes of a clown, or practising on the
trumpets the battle-airs of the several seigniories, or telling old
stories of chivalry and love adventures, or of miracles recently
performed,--all contributed their quota to an infernal,
undistinguishable uproar impossible to describe in words.
Above that tumultuous ocean of war songs, noise of hammers smiting
anvils, creaking of files that bit the steel, stamping of horses,
insolent voices, irrepressible laughter, disorderly shouts and
intemperate reproaches, oaths and all manner of strange, discordant
sounds, there floated at intervals like a breath of harmony the distant
music of the ball.
This, which was taking place in the salons of the second story of the
palace, offered in its turn a picture, if not so fantastic and
capricious, more dazzling and magnificent.
Through galleries of far extent which formed an intricate labyrinth of
slender columns and ogees of fretted stone delicate as lace; through
great halls hung with tapestries on which silk and gold had pictured
with a thousand diverse colors scenes of love, of the chase and of
war,--halls adorned with trophies of arms and escutcheons over which was
shed a sea of sparkling light from innumerable lamps, suspended from the
loftiest vaults, and from candelabras of bronze, silver and gold,
fastened into the massive blocks of the walls; on all sides, wherever
the eyes turned, might be seen floating and drifting hither and thither
a cloud of beautiful ladies in rich, gold-embroidered garments, nets of
pearls imprisoning their tresses, necklaces of rubies blazing upon their
breasts, feather fans with ivory handles hanging from their wrists,
veils of white laces caressing their cheeks; and joyous throngs of
gallants with velvet sword-belts, brocaded jackets and silken trousers,
morocco buskins, full-sleeved mantelets with pointed
[Illustration: THE VISAGRA GATE]
hoods, poniards with ornamental hilts, and rapiers polished, thin and
light.
But in that bright and shining assemblage of youthful cavaliers and
ladies, whom their elders, seated in the high larch chairs which
encircled the royal dais, with smiles of joy saw defiling by, there was
one woman who attracted attention for her incomparable loveliness, one
who had been hailed Queen of Beauty in all the tournaments and courts of
love of the period, one whose colors the most valiant knights had
adopted as their emblem, one whose charms were the theme of the songs of
the troubadours most proficient in the _gay science_, one toward whom
all eyes turned with wonder, for whom all hearts sighed in secret,
around whom might be seen gathering with eagerness, like humble vassals
in the train of their mistress, the most illustrious scions of the
Toledan nobility assembled at the ball that night.
Those presumptive gallants who were continually in the retinue of the
Dona Ines de Tordesillas, for such was the name of this celebrated
beauty, were never discouraged in their suit despite her haughty and
disdainful character. One was emboldened by a smile which he thought he
detected on her lips; another, by a gracious look which he deemed he had
surprised in her eyes; another, by a flattering word, the slightest sign
of preference, or a vague promise. Each in silence cherished the hope
that he would be her choice. Yet among them all there were two
particularly prominent for their assiduity and devotion, two who to all
appearance, if not the acknowledged favorites of the beauty, might claim
to be the farthest advanced upon the path to her heart. These two
knights, equals in birth, valor and chivalric accomplishments, subjects
of the same king and aspirants for the same lady, were Alonso de
Carrillo and Lope de Sandoval.
Both were natives of Toledo; together they had first borne arms; and on
one and the same day, their eyes meeting those of Dona Ines, both had
conceived a hidden and ardent love for her, a love that for some time
grew in secrecy and silence, but at length came to an involuntary
betrayal of itself in their actions and conversation.
At the tournaments in the Zocodover, at the floral games of the court,
whenever opportunity was presented for rivalry in gallantry or wit, both
knights had availed themselves of it with eagerness, desirous to win
distinction under the eyes of their lady; and that night, impelled
doubtless by the same passion, changing their helmets for plumes and
their mail for brocade and silk, standing together by the seat where she
rested a moment after a turn through the salons, they began to engage in
a brilliant contest of exquisite and ingenious phrases or keen and
covert epigrams.
The lesser stars of that sparkling constellation, forming a gilded
semicircle around the two gallants, laughed and cheered on the delicate
strife; and the fair lady, the prize of that word-tournament, approved
with a scarcely perceptible smile the flashes of wit, elegantly phrased
or full of hidden meaning, whether they fell from the lips of her
adorers like a light wave of perfume flattering to her vanity, or leapt
forth like a sharp arrow seeking to pierce the opponent in his most
vulnerable point, his self-love.
Already with each sally the courtly combat of wit and gallantry was
growing fiercer; the phrases were still civil in form, but terse and
dry, and in the speaking, accompanied though it was by a slight curving
of the lips in semblance of a smile, unconcealable lightnings of the
eyes betrayed that repressed anger which raged in the breasts of the
rivals.
It was a situation that could not be sustained. The lady, so perceiving,
had risen to make another tour of the salons, when an incident occurred
that broke down the barrier of formal courtesy which had hitherto
restrained the two enamoured youths. Perchance intentionally, perchance
through carelessness, Dona Ines had let fall upon her lap one of her
perfumed gloves whose golden buttons she had amused herself in pulling
off one by one during the conversation. As she rose, the glove slipped
between the wide silken plaits of her dress and fell upon the carpet.
Seeing it drop, all the knights who formed her brilliant retinue bent
eagerly to recover it, disputing with one another the honor of a slight
inclination of her head as a reward of their gallantry.
Noting the precipitation with which all stooped to pick up her glove, a
half smile of satisfied vanity appeared on the lips of the haughty Dona
Ines. With a gesture of general acknowledgment to the cavaliers who had
shown such eagerness to serve her, the lady, with a lofty, arrogant mien
and scarcely glancing in that direction, reached out her hand for the
glove toward Lope and Alonso, the first to reach it. In fact, both
youths had seen the glove fall close to their feet, both had stooped
with equal haste to pick it up and, on rising, each held it seized by
one end. On seeing them immovable, looking silent defiance each upon the
other, and both determined not to give up the glove which they had just
raised from the floor, the lady uttered a light, involuntary cry,
stifled by the murmur of the astonished spectators. The whole presented
a threatening scene, that there in the royal castle and in the presence
of the king might be designated as a serious breach of courtesy.
Lope and Alonso, notwithstanding, remained motionless, mute, scanning
each other from head to foot, showing no sign of the tempest in their
souls save by a slight nervous tremor which shivered through their limbs
as if they had been attacked by a sudden fever.
The murmurs and exclamations were reaching a climax. The people began to
group themselves around the principal actors in the scene. Dona Ines,
either bewildered or taking delight in prolonging the situation, was
moving to and fro as if seeking refuge or escape from the eyes of the
throng whose numbers were continually augmented. Catastrophe now seemed
inevitable. The two young men had already exchanged a few words in an
undertone, and each, while still with one hand holding the glove in a
convulsive grip, seemed instinctively to be seeking with the other the
golden hilt of his poniard, when the crowd of spectators respectfully
opened and there appeared the king.
His brow was tranquil. There was neither indignation in his countenance
nor anger in his bearing.
He surveyed the scene; one glance was sufficient to put him in command
of the situation. With all the grace of the most accomplished page, he
drew the glove from the young knights' hands which, as though moved by a
spring, opened without difficulty at the touch of their sovereign, and
turning to Dona Ines de Tordesillas, who, leaning on the arm of a
duenna, seemed about to faint, said with a firm though controlled voice,
as he presented the glove:
"Take it, _senora_, and be careful not to let it fall again, lest when
you recover it, you find it stained with blood. "
By the time the king had finished speaking, Dona Ines, we will not
undertake to say whether overcome by emotion, or in order to retreat
more gracefully from the situation, had swooned in the arms of those
about her.
Alonso and Lope, the former crushing in silence between his hands his
velvet cap whose plume trailed along the carpet, and the latter biting
his lips till the blood came, fixed each other with a stubborn, intense
stare.
A stare at that crisis was equivalent to a blow, a glove thrown in the
face, a challenge to mortal combat.
II.
At midnight, the king and queen retired to their chamber. The ball was
at an end, and the inquisitive folk outside, who, forming groups and
circles in the vicinity of the palace, had been impatiently awaiting
this moment, ran to station themselves beside the steep road, up in the
balconies along the route, and in the central square of the city, known
as the Zocodover.
For an hour or two there reigned, at these points and in the adjacent
streets, clamor, bustle, activity indescribable. Everywhere might be
seen squires caracoling on their richly caparisoned steeds,
masters-at-arms with showy vestments full of shields and heraldic
devices, drummers dressed in gay colors, soldiers in shining armor,
pages in velvet cloaks and plumed hats, footmen who preceded luxurious
chairs and litters covered with rich cloth. The great, blazing torches
borne by the footmen cast a rosy glow upon the multitude, who, with
wondering faces, open mouths and frightened eyes, saw with amazement all
the chief nobility of Castile passing by, surrounded on that occasion by
fabulous splendor and pomp.
Then, by degrees, the noise and excitement subsided, the stained glass
in the lofty ogive windows of the palace ceased to shine, the last
cavalcade passed through the close-packed throngs, the rabble in their
turn began to disperse in all directions, disappearing among the shadows
of the puzzling labyrinth formed by those dark, narrow, tortuous
streets, and now the deep silence of the night was broken only by the
far-off call of some sentinel, the footsteps of some lingerer whose
curiosity had left him to the last, the clang of bolts and bars in
closing gates, when on the summit of the stone stairway which leads to
the platform of the palace, there appeared a knight, who, after looking
on all sides as if seeking some one who should have been expecting him,
slowly descended to the Cuesta del Alcazar, by which he took his way
toward the Zocodover.
On arriving at the square, he halted a moment and cast a searching
glance around. The night was dark, not a star glistened in the sky, nor
in all the square could a single light be seen; yet afar off, and in the
same direction in which he began to perceive a slight sound as of
approaching footsteps, he believed he saw the figure of a man, without
doubt the same whom he had seemed to await with such impatience.
The knight who had just quitted the castle for the Zocodover was Alonso
Carrillo, who, on account of the post of honor which he held near the
person of the king, had been kept on attendance in the royal chamber
until that hour. The man coming to meet him out of the shadows of the
arcades which surround the square was Lope de Sandoval. When the two
knights were face to face, they exchanged a few sentences in suppressed
voices.
"I thought you would be expecting me," said the one.
"I hoped that you would surmise as much," answered the other.
"Where shall we go? "
"Wherever there can be found four handsbreadth of ground to turn around
in and a ray to give us light. "
This briefest of dialogues ended, the two young men plunged into one of
the narrow streets leading out from the Zocodover and vanished in the
darkness like those phantoms of the night, which, after terrifying for
an instant the beholder, dissolve into atoms of mist and are lost in the
depth of the shadows.
A long time they went on, traversing the streets of Toledo, seeking a
suitable place to end their quarrel, but the darkness of the night was
so dense that the duel seemed impossible. Yet both wished to fight and
to fight before the whitening of the east; for at dawn the royal hosts
were to go forth, and Alonso with them.
So they pressed on, threading at random deserted squares, dusky alleys,
long and gloomy passages, till at last they saw shining in the distance
a light, a light small and waning, about which the mist formed a circle
of ghostly, glimmering lustre.
They had reached the Street of the Christ, and the radiance discernible
at one end seemed to come from the small lantern which illuminated then
and illuminates still the image that gives the street its name.
On seeing it, both let escape an exclamation of joy and, quickening
their steps toward it, were not long in finding themselves near the
shrine in which it burned.
An arched recess in the wall, in the depths of which might be seen the
image of the Redeemer, nailed to the cross, with a skull at his feet, a
rude board covering for protection from the weather, and a small lantern
hung by a cord, swaying with the wind and shedding a faint effulgence,
constituted the entire shrine. About it clung festoons of ivy which had
sprung up among the dark and broken stones forming, as it were, a
curtain of verdure.
The cavaliers, after reverently saluting the image of Christ by removing
their military caps and murmuring a short prayer, glanced over the
ground, threw off their mantles and, each perceiving the other to be
ready for the combat and both giving the signal by a slight motion of
the head, crossed swords. But scarcely had the blades touched when,
before either of the combatants had been able to take a single step or
strike a blow, the light suddenly went out, leaving the street plunged
in utter darkness. As if moved by the same thought, the two antagonists,
on finding themselves surrounded by that instantaneous gloom, took a
step backward, lowered the points of their swords to the ground and
raised their eyes to the lantern, whose light, a moment before
extinguished, began to shine anew at the very instant the duel was
suspended.
"It must have been some passing gust that lowered the flame," exclaimed
Carrillo, placing himself again on guard, and giving warning to Lope,
who seemed preoccupied.
Lope took a step forward to recover the lost ground, extended his arm
and the blades touched once more, but at their touching the light again
went out of itself, remaining thus until the swords separated.
"In truth, but this is strange! " murmured Lope, gazing at the lantern
which had begun spontaneously to burn again. The gleam, slowly wavering
with the wind, spread a tremulous, wonderful radiance over the yellow
skull placed at the feet of Christ.
"Bah! " said Alonso, "it must be because the holy woman who has charge of
the lamp cheats the devotees and scants the oil, so that the light,
almost out, brightens and then darkens again in its dying agony. "
Thus speaking, the impetuous youth placed himself once more in attitude
of defence. His opponent did the same; but this time, not only were they
enveloped in a thick and impenetrable gloom, but simultaneously there
fell upon their ears the deep echo of a mysterious voice like those long
sighs of the south-west wind which seems to complain and articulate
words as it wanders imprisoned in the crooked, narrow and dim streets of
Toledo.
What was uttered by that fearful and superhuman voice never could be
learned; but on hearing it, both youths were seized with such profound
terror that their swords dropped from their hands, their hair stood on
end, and over their bodies, shaken by an involuntary tremor, and down
their pallid and distorted brows a cold sweat like that of death began
to flow.
The light, for the third time quenched, for the third time shone again
and dispelled the dark.
"Ah! " exclaimed Lope, beholding him who was now his opponent, in other
days his best friend, astounded like himself, like himself pale and
motionless, "God does not mean to permit this combat, for it is a
fratricidal contest; because a duel between us is an offence to heaven
in whose sight we have sworn a hundred times eternal friendship. " And
saying this he threw himself into the arms of Alonso, who clasped him in
his own with unspeakable strength and fervor.
III.
Some moments passed during which both youths indulged in every
endearment of friendship and love. Alonso spoke first and, in accents
touched by the scene which we have just related, exclaimed, addressing
his comrade:
"Lope, I know that you love Dona Ines; perhaps not as much as I, but you
love her. Since a duel between us is impossible, let us agree to place
our fate in her hands. Let us go and seek her, let her decide with free
choice which of us shall be the happy one, which the wretched. Her
decision shall be respected by both, and he who does not gain her favor
shall to-morrow go forth with the King of Toledo and shall seek the
comfort of forgetfulness in the excitement of war. "
"Since you wish it, so let it be," replied Lope.
And arm in arm the two friends took their way toward the cathedral
beneath whose shadow, in a palace of which there are now no remains,
dwelt Dona Ines de Tordesillas.
It was early dawn, and as some of the kindred of Dona Ines, among them
her brothers, were to march the coming day with the royal army, it was
not impossible that early in the morning they could gain admittance to
her palace.
Inspired by this hope they arrived, at last, at the base of the Gothic
tower of the church, but on reaching that point a peculiar noise
attracted their attention and, stopping in one of the angles, concealed
among the shadows of the lofty buttresses that support the walls, they
saw, to their amazement, a man emerging from a window upon the balcony
of their lady's apartments in the palace. He lightly descended to the
ground by the help of a rope and, finally, a white figure, Dona Ines
undoubtedly, appeared upon the balcony and, leaning over the fretted
parapet, exchanged tender phrases of farewell with her mysterious lover.
The first motion of the two youths was to place their hands on their
sword-hilts, but checking themselves, as though struck by a common
thought, they turned to look on one another, each discerning on the
other's face a look of astonishment so ludicrous that both broke forth
into loud laughter, laughter which, rolling on from echo to echo in the
silence of the night, resounded through the square even to the palace.
Hearing it, the white figure vanished from the balcony, a noise of
slamming doors was heard, and then silence resumed her reign.
On the following day, the queen, seated on a most sumptuous dais, saw
defile past her the hosts who were marching to the war against the
Moors. At her side were the principal ladies of Toledo. Among them was
Dona Ines de Tordesillas on whom this day, as ever, all eyes were bent.
But it seemed to her that they wore a different expression from that to
which she was accustomed. She would have said that in all the curious
looks cast upon her lurked a mocking smile.
This discovery could not but disquiet her, remembering, as she did, the
noisy laughter which, the night before, she had thought she heard at a
distance in one of the angles of the square, while she was closing her
balcony and bidding adieu to her lover; but when she saw among the ranks
of the army marching below the dais, sparks of fire glancing from their
brilliant armor, and a cloud of dust enveloping them, the two reunited
banners of the houses of Carrillo and Sandoval; when she saw the
significant smile which the two former rivals, on saluting the queen,
directed toward herself, she comprehended all. The blush of shame
reddened her face and tears of chagrin glistened in her eyes.
THE WHITE DOE
In a small town of Aragon, about the end of the thirteenth century or a
little later, there lived retired in his seigniorial castle a renowned
knight named Don Dionis, who, having served his king in the war against
the infidels, was then taking his ease, giving himself up to the merry
exercise of hunting, after the wearisome hardships of war.
It chanced once to this cavalier, engaged in his favorite diversion,
accompanied by his daughter whose singular beauty, of the blond type
extraordinary in Spain, had won her the name of White Lily, that as the
increasing heat of the day began to tell upon them, absorbed in pursuing
a quarry in the mountainous part of his estate, he took for his
resting-place during the hours of the siesta a glen through which ran a
rivulet leaping from rock to rock with a soft and pleasant sound.
It might have been a matter of some two hours that Don Dionis had
lingered in that delectable retreat, reclining on the delicate grass in
the shade of a black-poplar grove, talking affably with his huntsmen
about the incidents of the day, while they related one to another more
or less curious adventures that had befallen them in their hunting
experiences, when along the top of the highest ridge and between
alternating murmurs of the wind which stirred the leaves on the trees,
he began to perceive, each time more near, the sound of a little bell
like that of the leader of a flock.
In truth, it was really that, for very soon after the first hearing of
the bell, there came leaping over the thick undergrowth of lavender and
thyme, descending to the opposite bank of the rivulet, nearly a hundred
lambs white as snow, and behind them appeared their shepherd with his
pointed hood drawn over his brows to protect him from the vertical rays
of the sun and with his shoulder-bag swung from the end of a stick.
"Speaking of remarkable adventures," exclaimed on seeing him one of the
huntsmen of Don Dionis, addressing his lord, "here is Esteban, the
shepherd-lad, who has been now for some time more of a fool than God
made him, which was fool enough. He can give us an amusing half-hour by
relating the cause of his continual frights. "
"But what is it that happens to this poor devil? " exclaimed Don Dionis
with an air of piqued curiosity.
"A mere trifle," continued the huntsman in a jesting tone. "The case is
this--that without having been born on Good Friday, or bearing a
birthmark of the cross, or, so far as one can infer from his regular
Christian habits, binding himself to the Devil, he finds himself, not
knowing why or whence, endowed with the most marvellous faculty that any
man ever possessed, unless it be Solomon, who, they say, understood even
the language of birds. "
"And with what does this remarkable faculty have to do? "
"It has to do," pursued the huntsman, "as he affirms, and he swears and
forswears it by all that is most sacred, with a conspiracy among the
deer which course through these mountains not to leave him in peace, the
drollest thing about it being that on more than one occasion he has
surprised them in the act of contriving the pranks they were going to
play on him and after those tricks had been carried through he has
overheard the noisy bursts of laughter with which they applaud them. "
While the huntsman was thus speaking, Constanza, as the beautiful
daughter of Don Dionis was named, had drawn near the group of sportsmen
and, as she appeared curious to hear the strange experience of Esteban,
one of them ran on to the place where the young shepherd was watering
his flock and brought him into the presence of his lord, who, to dispel
the perturbation and evident embarrassment of the poor peasant, hastened
to greet him by name, accompanying the salutation with a benevolent
smile.
Esteban was a boy of nineteen or twenty years, robust in build, with a
small head sunken between his shoulders, little blue eyes, a wavering,
stupid glance like that of albinos, a flat nose, thick, half open lips,
low forehead, complexion fair but tanned by the sun, and hair which fell
partly over his eyes and partly around his face, in rough red locks like
the mane of a sorrel nag.
Such, more or less exactly, was Esteban in point of physique. In respect
to his character, it could be asserted without fear of denial on his own
part or on that of any one who knew him, that he was an entirely honest,
simple-hearted lad, though, like a true peasant, a little suspicious and
malicious.
As soon as the shepherd had recovered from his confusion, Don Dionis
again addressed him and, in the most serious tone in the world, feigning
an extraordinary interest in learning the details of the event to which
his huntsman had referred, put to him a multitude of questions to which
Esteban began to reply evasively, as if desirous of escaping any
discussion of the subject.
Constrained, nevertheless, by the demands of his lord and the entreaties
of Constanza, who seemed most curious and eager that the shepherd should
relate his astounding adventures, he decided to talk freely, but not
without casting a distrustful glance about him as though fearing to be
overheard by others than those present, and scratching his head three
or four times in the effort to connect his recollections or find the
thread of his narrative, before at last he thus began:
"The fact is, my lord, that as a priest of Tarazona to whom, not long
ago, I went for help in my troubles, told me, wits don't serve against
the Devil, but mum! finger on lip, many good prayers to Saint
Bartholomew--who, none better, knows his knaveries--and let him have his
sport; for God, who is just, and sits up thereon high, will see that all
comes right in the end.
"Resolved on this course I had decided never again to say a word to any
one about it,--no, not for anything; but I will do it to-day to satisfy
your curiosity, and in good sooth, if, after all, the Devil calls me to
account and goes to troubling me in punishment for my indiscretion, I
carry the Holy Gospels sewed inside my sheepskin coat, and with their
help, I think that, as at other times, I may make telling use of a
cudgel. "
"But, come! " exclaimed Don Dionis, out of patience with the digressions
of the shepherd, which it seemed would never end, "let the whys and
wherefores go, and come directly to the subject. "
"I am coming to it," calmly replied Esteban, and after calling together,
by dint of a shout and a whistle, the lambs of which he had not lost
sight and which were now beginning to scatter over the mountain-side, he
scratched his head again and proceeded thus:
"On the one hand, your own continual hunting trips, and on the other,
the persistency of those trespassers who, what with snare and what with
crossbow, hardly leave a deer alive in twenty days' journey round about,
had, a little time ago, so thinned out the game in these mountains that
you could not find a stag in them, not though you would give one of your
eyes.
"I was speaking of this in the town, seated in the porch of the church,
where after mass on Sunday I was in the habit of joining some laborers
who till the soil in Veraton, when some of them said to me:
"'Well, man, I don't know why it is you fail to run across them, since,
as for us, we can give you our word that we don't once go down to the
ploughed land without coming upon their tracks, and it is only three or
four days since, without going further back, a herd, which, to judge by
their hoof-prints, must have numbered more than twenty, cut down before
its time a crop of wheat belonging to the care-taker of the Virgen del
Romeral. '
"'And in what direction did the track lead? ' I asked the laborers, with
a mind to see if I could fall in with the herd.
"'Toward the Lavender Glen,' they replied.
"This information did not enter one ear to go out at the other; that
very night I posted myself among the poplars. During all its hours I
kept hearing here and there, far off as well as near by, the trumpeting
of the deer as they called one to another, and from time to time I felt
the boughs stirring behind me; but however sharply I looked, the truth
is, I could distinguish nothing.
"Nevertheless, at break of day, when I took the lambs to water, at the
bank of the stream, about two throws of the sling from the place where
we now are, and in so dense a shade of poplars that not even at mid-day
is it pierced by a ray of sunshine, I found fresh deer-tracks, broken
branches, the stream a little roiled and, what is more peculiar, among
the deer-tracks the short prints of tiny feet no larger than the half of
the palm of my hand, without any exaggeration. "
On saying this, the boy, instinctively seeming to seek a point of
comparison, directed his glance to the foot of Constanza, which peeped
from beneath her petticoat shod in a dainty sandal of yellow morocco,
but as the eyes of Don Dionis and of some of the huntsmen who were
about him followed Esteban's, the beautiful girl hastened to conceal it,
exclaiming in the most natural voice in the world:
"Oh, no! unluckily mine are not so tiny, for feet of this size are found
only among the fairies of whom the troubadours sing. "
"But I did not give up with this," continued the shepherd, when
Constanza had finished. "Another time, having concealed myself in
another hiding-place by which, undoubtedly, the deer would have to pass
in going to the glen, at just about midnight sleep overcame me for a
little, although not so much but that I opened my eyes at the very
moment when I perceived the branches were stirring around me. I opened
my eyes, as I have said; I rose with the utmost caution and, listening
intently to the confused murmur, which every moment sounded nearer, I
heard in the gusts of wind something like cries and strange songs,
bursts of laughter, and three or four distinct voices which talked
together with a chatter and gay confusion like that of the young girls
at the village when, laughing and jesting on the way, they return in
groups from the fountain with their water-jars on their heads.
"As I gathered from the nearness of the voices and close-by crackle of
twigs which broke noisily in giving way to that throng of merry maids,
they were just about to come out of the thicket on to a little platform
formed by a jut of the mountain there where I was hid when, right at my
back, as near or nearer than I am to you, I heard a new voice, fresh,
fine and vibrant, which said--believe it, _senores_, it is as true as
that I have to die--it said, clearly and distinctly, these very words:
"'Hither, hither, comrades dear!
That dolt of an Esteban is here! '"
On reaching this point in the shepherd's story, the bystanders could no
longer repress the merriment which for many minutes had been dancing in
their eyes and, giving free rein to their mirth, they broke into
clamorous laughter. Among the first to begin to laugh, and the last to
leave off, were Don Dionis, who, notwithstanding his air of dignity,
could not but take part in the general hilarity, and his daughter
Constanza, who, every time she looked at Esteban, all in suspense and
embarrassment as he was, fell to laughing again like mad till the tears
sprang from her eyes.
The shepherd-lad, for his part, although without heeding the effect his
story had produced, seemed disturbed and restless, and while the great
folk laughed to their hearts' content at his simple tale, he turned his
face from one side to the other with visible signs of fear and as if
trying to descry something beyond the intertwined trunks of the trees.
"What is it, Esteban, what is the matter? " asked one of the huntsmen,
noting the growing disquietude of the poor boy, who now was fixing his
frightened eyes on the laughing daughter of Don Dionis, and again gazing
all around him with an expression of astonishment and dull dismay:
"A very strange thing is happening to me," exclaimed Esteban. "When,
after hearing the words which I have just repeated, I quickly sat
upright to surprise the person who had spoken them, a doe white as snow
leaped from the very copse in which I was hidden and, taking a few
prodigious bounds over the tops of the evergreen oaks and mastic trees,
sped away, followed by a herd of deer of the natural color; and these,
like the white one who was guiding them, did not utter the cries of deer
in flight, but laughed with great peals of laughter, whose echo, I could
swear, is sounding in my ears at this moment. "
"Bah, bah, Esteban! " exclaimed Don Dionis, with a jesting air, "follow
the counsels of the priest of Tarazona; do not talk of your adventures
with the joke-loving deer, lest the Devil bring it to pass that in the
end you lose the little sense you have, and since now you are provided
with the gospels and know the prayer of Saint Bartholomew, return to
your lambs which are beginning to scatter through the glen. If the evil
spirits tease you again, you know the remedy--_Pater Noster_ and a big
stick. "
The shepherd, after putting away in his pouch a half loaf of white bread
and a piece of boar's meat, and in his stomach a mighty draught of wine,
which, by order of his lord, one of the grooms gave him, took leave of
Don Dionis and his daughter and had scarcely gone four steps when he
began whirling his sling, casting stones from it to gather the lambs
together.
As, by this time, Don Dionis observed that, what with one diversion and
another, the hours of heat were now passed and the light afternoon
breeze was beginning to stir the leaves of the poplars and to freshen
the fields, he gave orders to his retinue to make ready the horses which
were grazing loose in the grove hard by; and when everything was
prepared, he signalled to some to slip the leashes, and to others to
blow the horns and, sallying forth in a troop from the poplar-grove,
took up the interrupted chase.
II.
Among the huntsmen of Don Dionis was one named Garces, the son of an old
servitor of the house and therefore held in high regard by the family.
Garces was of about the age of Constanza, and from early boyhood had
been accustomed to anticipate the least of her wishes and to divine and
gratify the lightest of her whims.
He amused himself in his moments of leisure in sharpening with his own
hand the pointed arrows of her ivory crossbow; he broke in the colts for
her mounts; he trained her favorite hounds in the arts of the chase and
tamed her falcons for which he bought at the fairs of Castile red hoods
embroidered with gold.
But as for the other huntsmen, the pages and the common folk in the
service of Don Dionis, the delicate attentions of Garces and the marks
of esteem with which his superiors distinguished him had caused them to
hold him in a sort of general dislike, even to the point of saying, in
their envy, that all his assiduous efforts to anticipate the caprices of
his mistress revealed the character of a flatterer and a sycophant. Yet
there were not wanting those who, more keen-sighted or malicious than
the rest, believed that they detected in the young retainer's devotion
signs of an ill-dissembled passion.
If this were really so, the secret love of Garces had more than abundant
excuse in the incomparable charms of Constanza. He must needs have had a
breast of stone, and a heart of ice, who could remain unmoved day after
day at the side of that woman, peerless in her beauty and her bewitching
graces.
The Lily of the Moncayo they called her for twenty leagues around, and
well she merited this soubriquet, for she was so exquisite, so white and
so delicately flushed that it would seem that God had made her, like the
lilies, of snow and gold.
Nevertheless, among the neighboring gentry it was whispered that the
beautiful Lady of Veraton was not so pure of blood as she was fair, and
that despite her bright tresses and her alabaster complexion, she had
had a gipsy mother. How much truth there was in these rumors no one
could say, for, in fact, Don Dionis had in his youth led an adventurous
life, and after fighting long under the banner of the King of Aragon,
from whom he received among other rewards the fief of the Moncayo, had
gone to Palestine, where he wandered for some years, finally returning
to establish himself in his castle of Veraton with a little daughter
born, doubtless, on foreign soil. The only person who could have told
anything about the mysterious origin of Constanza, having attended Don
Dionis in his travels abroad, was the father of Garces, and he had died
some time since without saying a single word on the subject, not even to
his own son who, at various times and with manifestations of great
interest, had questioned him.
The temperament of Constanza, with its swift alternations from reserve
and melancholy to mirth and glee; the singular vividness of her
imagination; her wild moods; her extraordinary ways; even the
peculiarity of having eyes and eyebrows black as night while her
complexion was white and rosy and her hair as bright as gold, had
contributed to furnish food for the gossip of the countryside; and even
Garces himself, who knew her so intimately, had come to the conclusion
that his liege lady was something apart and did not resemble the rest of
womankind.
Present, as the other huntsmen were, at the narration of Esteban, Garces
was perhaps the only one who listened with genuine curiosity to the
details of the shepherd's incredible adventure; and though he could not
help smiling when the lad repeated the words of the white doe, no sooner
had he left the grove in which they had taken their siesta, than he
began to revolve in his mind the most ridiculous fancies.
"Without doubt this tale of the talking of the deer is a sheer delusion
of Esteban's, who is a perfect simpleton," the young huntsman said to
himself as, mounted on a powerful sorrel, he followed step by step the
palfrey of Constanza, who seemed also somewhat preoccupied and was so
silent and so withdrawn from the group of hunters as scarcely to take
any part in the sport. "Yet who can say that in the story which this
poor fool tells there may not be a grain of truth? " thought on the young
retainer. "We have seen stranger things in the world, and a white doe
may indeed exist, since if we can credit the folk-songs, Saint Hubert,
the patron of huntsmen, had one. Oh, if I could take a white doe alive
for an offering to my lady! "
Thus thinking and dreaming, Garces passed the afternoon; and when the
sun began to descend behind the neighboring hills, and Don Dionis gave
the order to his retinue for the return to the castle, he slipped away
from the company unnoticed and went in search of the shepherd through
the densest and most entangled coverts of the mountain.
Night had almost completely closed in when Don Dionis arrived at the
gates of his castle. Immediately there was placed before him a frugal
collation and he sat down with his daughter at the table.
"And Garces, where is he? " asked Constanza, noticing that her huntsman
was not there to serve her as usual.
"We do not know," the other attendants hastened to reply. "He
disappeared from among us near the glen and we have not seen him since. "
At that instant Garces arrived, all breathless, his forehead still
covered with perspiration, but with the most happy and satisfied
expression imaginable.
"Pardon me, my lady," he exclaimed, addressing Constanza, "pardon me if
I have been wanting a moment in my duty, but there whence I came at my
horse's best speed, there, as here, I was busied only in your service. "
"In my service? " repeated Constanza. "I do not understand what you
mean. "
"Yes, my lady, in your service," repeated the youth, "for I have
ascertained that the white doe really does exist. Besides Esteban, it is
vouched for by various other shepherds, who swear they have seen it more
than once; and with their aid I hope in God and in my patron Saint
Hubert to bring it, living or dead, within three days to you at the
castle. "
"Bah! Bah! " exclaimed Constanza with a jesting air, while the derisive
laughter, more or less dissimulated, of the bystanders chorused her
words. "Have done with midnight hunts and with white does. Bear in mind
that the Devil loves to tempt the simple; and if you persist in
following at his heels, he will make you a laughing-stock like poor
Esteban. "
"My lady," interrupted Garces with a broken voice, concealing as far as
possible the anger which the merry scoffs of his companions stirred in
him, "I have never yet had to do with the Devil and consequently I am
not acquainted with his practices; but, for myself, I swear to you that,
do all he can, he will not make me an object of laughter, for that is a
privilege I know how to tolerate in yourself alone. "
Constanza saw the effect which her mocking had produced on the enamoured
youth, but desiring to test his patience to the uttermost, she continued
in the same tone:
"And what if, on aiming at the doe, she salutes you with another laugh
like that which Esteban heard, or flings it into your very face, and
you, hearing those supernatural peals of merriment, let fall your bow
from your hands, and before you recover from the fright, the white doe
has vanished swifter than lightning--what then? "
"Oh, as for that! " exclaimed Garces, "be sure that if I can speed a
shaft before she is out of bowshot, although she play me more tricks
than a juggler; although she speak to me, not in the language of the
country, but in Latin like the Abbot of Munilla, she will not get off
without an arrow-head in her body. "
At this stage in the conversation, Don Dionis joined in with a forced
gravity through which might be detected the entire irony of his words,
and began to give the now persecuted boy the most original counsels in
the world, in case he should suddenly meet with the demon changed into
a white doe.
At each new suggestion of her father, Constanza fixed her eyes on the
distressed Garces, and broke into extravagant laughter, while his
fellow-servitors encouraged the jesting with glances of intelligence and
ill-disguised delight.
Only with the close of the supper ceased this scene, in which the
credulity of the young hunter was, so to speak, the theme on which the
general mirth played variations, so that when the cloth was removed and
Don Dionis and Constanza had withdrawn to their apartments, and all the
inmates of the castle had gone to rest, Garces remained for a long time
irresolute, debating whether, notwithstanding the jeers of his liege
lord and lady, he would stand firm to his purpose, or absolutely abandon
the enterprise.
"What the devil," he exclaimed, rousing himself from the state of
uncertainty into which he had fallen. "Greater harm than that which has
overtaken me cannot come to pass and if, on the other hand, what Esteban
has told us is true, oh, then, how sweet will be the taste of my
triumph! "
Thus speaking, he fitted a shaft to his crossbow--not without having
made the sign of the cross on the point of the arrow--and swinging it
over his shoulder, he directed his steps toward the postern gate of the
castle to take the mountain path.
When Garces reached the glen and the point where, according to the
instructions of Esteban, he was to lie in wait for the appearance of the
deer, the moon was slowly rising behind the neighboring mountains.
Like a good hunter, well-practised in his craft, he spent a considerable
time, before selecting a suitable place for an ambush, in going to and
fro, scanning the byways and paths thereabouts, the grouping of the
trees, the irregularities of the ground, the curves of the river and the
depth of its waters.
At last, after completing this minute examination of the locality, he
hid himself upon a sloping bank near some black poplars whose high and
interlacing tops cast a dark shadow, and at whose feet grew a clump of
mastic shrubs high enough to conceal a man lying prone on the ground.
The river, which, from the mossy rocks where it rose, came following the
windings of the rugged fief of the Moncayo to enter the glen by a
cascade, thence went gliding on, bathing the roots of the willows that
shaded its bank, or playing with a murmurous ripple among the stones
rolled down from the mountain, until it fell into a pool very near the
point which served the hunter for a hiding-place.
The poplars, whose silvered leaves the wind stirred with the sweetest
rustle, the willows which, leaning over the limpid current, bedewed in
it the tips of their pale branches, and the crowded groups of evergreen
oaks about whose trunks honeysuckles and blue morning-glories clambered
and twined, formed a thick wall of foliage around this quiet river-pool.
The wind, stirring the leafy curtains of living green which spread round
about their floating shadow, let penetrate at intervals a stealthy ray
of light that gleamed like a flash of silver over the surface of the
motionless, deep waters.
Hidden among the bushes, his ear attent to the slightest sound, and his
gaze fixed upon the spot where, according to his calculations, the deer
should come, Garces waited a long time in vain.
Everything about him remained buried in a deep calm.
Little by little, and it might well be that the lateness of the
hour--for it was past midnight--began to weigh upon his lids--might well
be that far-off murmurs of the water, the penetrating scent of the wild
flowers and the caresses of the wind affected his senses with the soft
drowsiness in which all nature seemed to be steeped--the enamoured boy,
who until now had been occupied in revolving in his mind the most
alluring fancies, began to find that his ideas took shape more slowly
and his thoughts drifted into vague and indecisive forms.
After lingering a little in this dim border-land between waking and
sleeping, at last he closed his eyes, let his crossbow slip from his
hands, and sank into a profound slumber.
* * * * *
It must have been for two or three hours now that the young hunter had
been snoring at his ease, enjoying to the full one of the serenest
dreams of his life, when suddenly he opened his eyes, with a stare, and
half raised himself to a sitting posture, full yet of that stupor with
which one wakes suddenly from profound sleep.
In the breathings of the wind and blended with the light noises of the
night, he thought he detected a strange hum of delicate voices, sweet
and mysterious, which were talking with one another, laughing or
singing, each in its own individual strain, making a twitter as
clamorous and confused as that of the birds awakening at the first ray
of the sun amid the leaves of a poplar grove.
This extraordinary sound was heard for an instant only, and then all was
still again.
"Without doubt, I was dreaming of the absurdities of which the shepherd
told us," exclaimed Garces, rubbing his eyes in all tranquillity, and
firmly persuaded that what he had thought he heard was no more than that
vague impression of slumber which, on awaking, lingers in the
imagination, as the closing cadence of a melody dwells in the ear after
the last trembling note has ceased. And overcome by the unconquerable
languor weighing down his limbs, he was about to lay his head again upon
the turf, when he heard anew the distant echo of those mystic voices,
which to the accompaniment of the soft stir of the air, the water and
the leaves were singing thus:
CHORUS.
"The archer who watched on the top of the tower has laid his heavy
head down on the wall.
The stealthy hunter who was expecting to surprise the deer has been
surprised by sleep.
The shepherd who awaited the day, consulting the stars, sleeps now,
and will sleep till dawn.
Queen of the water-sprites, follow our steps.
Come to swing in the branches of the willows over the surface of
the water.
"Come to intoxicate thyself with the perfume of the violets which
open at dusk.
"Come to enjoy the night, which is the day of the spirits. "
While the sweet notes of that delicious music floated on the air, Garces
remained motionless. After it had melted away, with much caution he
slightly parted the branches and, not without experiencing a certain
shock, saw come into sight the deer, which, moving in a confused group
and sometimes bounding over the bushes with incredible lightness,
stopping as though listening for others, frolicking together, now hiding
in the thicket, now sallying out again into the path, were descending
the mountain in the direction of the river-pool.
In advance of her companions, more agile, more graceful, more sportive,
more joyous than all of them, leaping, running, pausing and running
again so lightly that she seemed not to touch the ground with her feet,
went the white doe, whose wonderful color stood out like a fantastic
light against the dark background of the trees.
Although the young man was inclined to see in his surroundings something
of the supernatural and miraculous, the fact of the case was that, apart
from the momentary hallucination which disturbed his senses for an
instant, suggesting to him music, murmurs and words, there was nothing
either in the form of the deer, nor in their movements, nor in their
short cries with which they seemed to call one to another, that ought
not to be entirely familiar to a huntsman experienced in this sort of
night expeditions.
In proportion as he put away the first impression, Garces began to take
the practical view of the situation and, smiling inwardly at his
credulity and fright, from that instant was intent only on determining,
in view of the route they were following, the point where the deer would
take the water.
Having made his calculation, he gripped his crossbow between his teeth
and, twisting along like a snake behind the mastic shrubs, located
himself about forty paces from his former situation. Once ensconced in
his new ambush, he waited long enough for the deer to be within the
river, that his aim might be the surer. Scarcely had he begun to hear
that peculiar sound which is produced by the violent disturbance of
water, when Garces commenced to lift himself little by little, with the
greatest precaution, resting first on the tips of his fingers, and
afterwards on one knee.
Erect at last, and assuring himself by touch that his weapon was ready,
he took a step forward, craned his neck above the shrubs to command a
view of the pool and aimed the shaft, but at the very moment when he
strained his eyes, together with the cord, in search of the victim whom
he must wound, there escaped from his lips a faint, involuntary cry of
amazement.
The moon, which had been slowly climbing up the broad horizon, was
motionless, and hung as if suspended in the height of heaven. Her clear
radiance flooded the forest, shimmered on the unquiet surface of the
river, and caused objects to be seen as through an azure gauze.
The deer had disappeared.
In their place, Garces, filled with consternation and almost with
terror, saw a throng of most beautiful women, some of whom were
sportively entering the water, while others were just freeing themselves
from the light garments which as yet concealed from the covetous view
the treasure of their forms.
In those thin, brief dreams of dawn, rich in joyous and luxurious
images,--dreams as diaphanous and celestial as the light which then
begins to shine through the white bed-curtains, never had the
imagination of twenty years sketched with fanciful coloring a scene
equal to that which now presented itself to the eyes of the astonished
Garces.
Having now cast off their robes and their veils of a thousand colors
which, suspended from the trees or thrown carelessly down on the carpet
of turf, stood out against the dim background, the maidens ran hither
and thither through the grove, forming picturesque groups, going in and
out of the water and splashing it in glistening sparks over the flowers
of the margin, like a little shower of dewdrops.
Here, one of them, white as the fleece of a lamb, lifted her fair head
among the green floating leaves of an aquatic plant of which she seemed
the half-opened blossom whose flexible stem, one might imagine, could be
seen to tremble beneath the endless gleaming circles of the waves.
Another, with her hair loose on her shoulders, swung from the branch of
a willow over the river, and her little rose-colored feet made a ray of
silvery light as they grazed the smooth surface. While some remained
couched on the bank, with their blue eyes drowsy, breathing voluptuously
the perfume of the flowers and shivering slightly at the touch of the
fresh breeze, others were dancing in a giddy round, interlacing their
hands capriciously, letting their heads droop back with delicious
abandon, and striking the ground with their feet in harmonious cadence.
It was impossible to follow them in their agile movements, impossible to
take in with a glance the infinite details of the picture they formed,
some running, some gambolling and chasing one another with merry
laughter in and out the labyrinth of trees; others skimming the water
swanlike and cutting the current with uplifted breast; others, diving
into the depths where they remained long before rising to the surface,
bringing one of those wonderful flowers that spring unseen in the bed of
the deep waters.
The gaze of the astonished hunter wandered spellbound from one side to
another, without knowing where to fix itself, until he believed he saw,
seated under swaying boughs which seemed to serve her as a canopy and
surrounded by a group of women, each more beautiful than the rest, who
were aiding her in freeing herself from her delicate vestments, the
object of his secret worship, the daughter of the noble Don Dionis, the
incomparable Constanza.
Passing from one surprise to another, the enamoured youth dared not
credit the testimony of his senses, and thought he was under the
influence of a fascinating, delusive dream.
Still, he struggled in vain to convince himself that all he had seen was
the effect of disordered imagination, for the longer and more
attentively he looked, the more convinced he became that this woman was
Constanza.
He could not doubt; hers were those dusky eyes shaded by the long lashes
that scarcely sufficed to soften the brilliancy of their glance; hers
that wealth of shining hair, which, after crowning her brow, fell over
her white bosom and soft shoulders like a cascade of gold; hers, too,
that graceful neck which supported her languid head, lightly drooping
like a flower weary with its weight of dewdrops; and that fair figure of
which, perchance, he had dreamed, and those hands like clusters of
jasmine, and those tiny feet, comparable only to two morsels of snow
which the sun has not been able to melt and which in the morning lie
white on the greensward.
At the moment when Constanza emerged from the little thicket, all her
beauty unveiled to her lover's eyes, her companions, beginning anew to
sing, carolled these words to the sweetest of melodies.
CHORUS.
"Genii of the air, dwelling in the luminous ether, enveloped in
raiment of silver mist--come!
"Invisible sylphs, leave the cups of the half-opened lilies and
come in your mother-of-pearl chariots drawn through the air
by harnessed butterflies.
"Nymphs of the fountains, forsake your mossy beds and fall upon
us in little, diamond showers.
"Emerald beetles, fiery glow-worms, sable butterflies, come!
"And come, all ye spirits of night, come humming like a swarm of
lustrous, golden insects.
"Come, for now the moon, protector of mysteries, sparkles in the
fulness of splendor.
"Come, for the moment of marvellous transformation is at hand.
"Come, for those who love you, await you with impatience. "
Garces, who remained motionless, felt on hearing those mysterious songs
the asp of jealousy stinging his heart, and yielding to an impulse
stronger than his will, bent on breaking once for all the spell that was
fascinating his senses, thrust apart with a tremulous, convulsive hand
the boughs which concealed him, and with a single bound gained the
river-bank. The charm was broken, everything vanished like a vapor and,
looking about him, he neither saw nor heard more than the noisy
confusion with which the timid deer, surprised at the height of their
nocturnal gambols, were fleeing in fright from his presence, hither and
thither, one clearing the thickets with a bound, another gaining at full
speed the mountain path.
"Oh, well did I say that all these things were only delusions of the
Devil," exclaimed the hunter, "but this time, by good luck, he
blundered, leaving the chief prize in my hands. "
And so, in fact, it was. The white doe, trying to escape through the
grove, had rushed into the labyrinth of its trees and, entangled in a
network of honeysuckles, was striving in vain to free herself. Garces
aimed his shaft, but at the very instant in which he was going to wound
her, the doe turned toward the hunter and arrested his action with a
cry, saying in a voice clear and sharp: "Garces, what wouldst thou do? "
The young man hesitated and, after a moment's doubt, let his bow fall to
the ground, aghast at the mere idea of having been in danger of harming
his beloved. A loud, mocking laugh roused him finally from his stupor.
The white doe had taken advantage of those brief instants to extricate
herself and to flee swift as a flash of lightning, laughing at the trick
played on the hunter.
"Ah, damned offspring of Satan! " he shouted in a terrible voice,
catching up his bow with unspeakable swiftness, "too soon hast thou sung
thy victory; too soon hast thou thought thyself beyond my reach. " And so
saying, he sped the arrow, that went hissing on its way and was lost in
the darkness of the wood, from whose depths there simultaneously came a
shriek followed by choking groans.
"My God! " exclaimed Garces on hearing those sobs of anguish. "My God! if
it should be true! " And beside himself, hardly aware of what he did, he
ran like a madman in the direction in which he had shot the arrow, the
same direction from which sounded the groans. He reached the place at
last, but on arriving there, his hair stood erect with horror, the words
throbbed vainly in his throat and he had to clutch the trunk of a tree
to save himself from falling to the ground.
Constanza, wounded by his hand, was dying there before his eyes,
writhing in her own blood, among the sharp brambles of the mountain.
THE PASSION ROSE
One summer afternoon, in a garden of Toledo, this curious tale was
related to me by a young girl as good as she was pretty.
While explaining to me the mystery of its especial structure, she kissed
the leaves and pistils which she was plucking one by one from the flower
that gives to this legend its name.
If I could tell it with the gentle charm and the appealing simplicity
which it had upon her lips, the history of the unhappy Sara would move
you as it moved me.
But since this cannot be, I here set down what of the tradition I can at
this instant recall.
I.
In one of the most obscure and crooked lanes of the Imperial City,
wedged in and almost hidden between the high Moorish tower of an old
Visigothic church and the gloomy walls, sculptured with armorial
bearings, of a family mansion, there was many years ago a tumbledown
dwelling-house dark and miserable as its owner, a Jew named Daniel Levi.
This Jew, like all his race, was spiteful and vindictive, but for deceit
and hypocrisy he had no match.
The possessor, according to popular report, of an immense fortune, he
might nevertheless be seen all day long huddled up in the shadowy
doorway of his home, making and repairing chains, old belts and broken
trappings of all sorts, in which he carried on a thriving business with
the riff-raff of
[Illustration: A MOORISH WINDOW]
the Zocodover, the hucksters of the Postigo and the poor squires.
Though an implacable hater of Christians and of everything pertaining to
them, he never passed a cavalier of note or an eminent canon without
doffing, not only once, but ten times over, the dingy little cap which
covered his bald, yellow head, nor did he receive in his wretched shop
one of his regular customers without bending low in the most humble
salutations accompanied by flattering smiles.
The smile of Daniel had come to be proverbial in all Toledo, and his
meekness, proof against the most vexatious pranks, mocks and cat-calls
of his neighbors, knew no limit.
In vain the boys, to tease him, stoned his poor old house; in vain the
little pages and even the men-at-arms of the neighboring castle tried to
provoke him by insulting nicknames, or the devout old women of the
parish crossed themselves when passing his door as if they saw the very
Lucifer in person. Daniel smiled eternally with a strange, indescribable
smile. His thin, sunken lips twitched under the shadow of his nose,
which was enormous and hooked like the beak of an eagle, and although
from his eyes, small, green, round and almost hidden by the heavy brows,
there gleamed a spark of ill-suppressed anger, he went on imperturbably
beating with his little iron hammer upon the anvil where he repaired the
thousand rusty and seemingly useless trifles which constituted his stock
in trade.
Over the door of the Jew's humble dwelling and within a casing of
bright-colored tiles there opened an Arabic window left over from the
original building of the Toledan Moors. Around the fretted frame of the
window and climbing over the slender marble colonettes that divided it
into two equal apertures there arose from the interior of the house one
of those climbing plants which, green and full of sap and of exuberant
growth, spread themselves over the blackened walls of ruins.
In the part of the house that received an uncertain light through the
narrow spaces of the casement, the only opening in the time-stained,
weather-worn wall, lived Sara, the beloved daughter of Daniel.
When the neighbors, passing the shop of the Hebrew, chanced to see Sara
through the lattice of her Moorish window and Daniel crouched over his
anvil, they would exclaim aloud in admiration of the charms of the
beautiful Jewess: "It seems impossible that such an ugly old trunk
should have put forth so beautiful a branch! "
For, in truth, Sara was a miracle of beauty. In the pupils of her great
eyes, shadowed by the cloudy arch of their black lashes, gleamed a point
of light like a star in a darkened sky. Her glowing lips seemed to have
been cut from a carmine weft by the invisible hands of a fairy. Her
complexion was pale and transparent as the alabaster of a sepulchral
statue. She was scarcely sixteen years of age and yet there seemed
engraven on her countenance the sweet seriousness of precocious
intelligence, and there arose from her bosom and escaped from her mouth
those sighs which reveal the vague awakening of passion.
The most prominent Jews of the city, captivated by her marvellous
beauty, had sought her in marriage, but the Hebrew maiden, untouched by
the homage of her admirers and the counsels of her father, who urged her
to choose a companion before she should be left alone in the world, held
herself aloof in a deep reserve, giving no other reason for her strange
conduct than the caprice of wishing to retain her freedom. At last, one
of her adorers, tired of suffering Sara's repulses and suspecting that
her perpetual sadness was a certain sign that her heart hid some
important secret, approached Daniel and said to him:
"Do you know, Daniel, that among our brothers there is complaint of your
daughter? "
The Jew raised his eyes for an instant from his anvil, stopped his
eternal hammering and, without showing the least emotion, asked his
questioner:
"And what do they say of her? "
"They say," continued his interlocutor, "they say--what do I know? --many
things; among them, that your daughter is in love with a Christian. " At
this, the despised suitor waited to see what effect his words had had
upon Daniel.
Daniel raised his eyes once more, looked at him fixedly a moment without
speaking and, lowering his gaze again to resume his interrupted work,
exclaimed:
"And who says this is not slander? "
"One who has seen them more than once in this very street talking
together while you were absent at our Rabbinical service," insisted the
young Hebrew, wondering that his mere suspicions, much more his positive
statements, should have made so little impression on the mind of Daniel.
The Jew, without giving up his work, his gaze fixed upon the anvil where
he was now busying himself, his little hammer laid aside, in brightening
the metal clasp of a sword guard with a small file, began to speak in a
low, broken voice as if his lips were repeating mechanically the
thoughts that struggled through his mind:
"He! He! He! " he chuckled, laughing in a strange, diabolical way. "So a
Christian dog thinks he can snatch from me my Sara, the pride of our
people, the staff on which my old age leans! And do you believe he will
do it? He! He! " he continued, always talking to himself and always
laughing, while his file, biting the metal with its teeth of steel,
grated with an ever-increasing force. "He! He! 'Poor Daniel,' my friends
will say, 'is in his dotage. What right has this decrepit old fellow,
already at death's door, to a daughter so young and so beautiful, if he
doesn't know how to guard her from the covetous eyes of our enemies? '
He! He! He! Do you think perchance that Daniel sleeps? Do you think,
peradventure, that if my daughter has a lover--and that might well
be--and this lover is a Christian and tries to win her heart and wins
it--all which is possible--and plans to flee with her--which also is
easy--and flees, for instance, to-morrow morning,--which falls within
human probability,--do you think that Daniel will suffer his treasure to
be thus snatched away? Do you think he will not know how to avenge
himself? "
"But," exclaimed the youth, interrupting him, "did you then know it
before? "
"I know," said Daniel, rising and giving him a slap on the shoulder, "I
know more than you, who know nothing, and would know nothing had not the
hour come for telling all. Adieu! Bid our brethren assemble as soon as
possible. To-night, in an hour or two, I will be with them. Adieu! "
And saying this, Daniel gently pushed his interlocutor out into the
street, gathered up his tools very slowly, and began to fasten with
double bolts and bars the door of his little shop.
The noise made by the door as it closed on its creaking hinges prevented
the departing youth from hearing the sound of the window lattice, which
at the same time fell suddenly as if the Jewess were just withdrawing
from the embrasure.
II.
It was the night of Good Friday, and the people of Toledo, after having
attended the service of the Tenebrae in their magnificent cathedral, had
just retired to rest, or, gathered at their firesides, were relating
legends like that of the Christ of the Light, a statue which, stolen by
Jews, left a trail of blood causing the discovery of the criminals, or
the story of the Child Martyr, upon whom the implacable enemies of our
faith repeated the cruel Passion of Jesus. In the city there reigned a
profound silence, broken at intervals, now by the distant cries of the
night-watchman, at that epoch accustomed to keep guard about the
Alcazar, and again by the sighing of the wind which was whirling the
weather-cocks of the towers or sighing through the tortuous windings of
the streets. At this dead hour the master of a little boat that, moored
to a post, lay swaying near the mills which seem like natural
incrustations at the foot of the rocks bathed by the Tagus and above
which the city is seated, saw approaching the shore, descending with
difficulty one of the narrow paths which lead down from the height of
the walls to the river, a person whom he seemed to await with
impatience.
"It is she," the boatman muttered between his teeth. "It would seem that
this night all that accursed race of Jews is bent on mischief. Where the
devil will they hold their tryst with Satan that they all come to my
boat when the bridge is so near? No, they are bound on no honest errand
when they take such pains to avoid a sudden meeting with the soldiers of
San Servando,--but, after all, they give me the chance to earn good
money and--every man for himself--it is no business of mine. "
Saying this, the worthy ferryman, seating himself in his boat, adjusted
the oars, and when Sara, for it was no other than she for whom he had
been waiting, had leaped into the little craft, he cast off the rope
that held it and began to row toward the opposite shore.
"How many have crossed to-night? " asked Sara of the boatman, when they
had scarcely pulled away from the mills, as though referring to
something of which they had just been speaking.
"I could not count them," he replied, "a swarm. It looks as though
to-night will be the last of their gatherings. "
"And do you know what they have in mind and for what purpose they leave
the city at this hour? "
"I don't know, but it is likely that they are expecting some one who
ought to arrive to-night. I cannot tell why they are lying in wait for
him, but I suspect for no good end. "
After this brief dialogue Sara remained for some moments plunged in deep
silence as if trying to collect her thoughts. "Beyond a doubt," she
reflected, "my father has discovered our love and is preparing some
terrible vengeance. I must know where they go, what they do, and what
they are plotting. A moment of hesitation might be death to him. "
While Sara sprang to her feet and, as if to thrust away the horrible
doubts that distracted her, passed her hand over her forehead which
anguish had covered with an icy sweat, the boat touched the opposite
shore.
"Friend," exclaimed the beautiful Jewess, tossing some coins to the
ferryman and pointing to a narrow, crooked road that wound up among the
rocks, "is that the way they take? "
"It is, and when they come to the Moor's Head they turn to the left.
Then the Devil and they know where they go next," replied the boatman.
Sara set out in the direction he had indicated. For some moments he saw
her appear and disappear alternately in that dusky labyrinth of dim,
steep rocks. When she had reached the summit called the Moor's Head, her
dark silhouette was outlined for an instant against the azure background
of the sky and then was lost amid the shades of night.
III.
On the path where to-day stands the picturesque hermitage of the Virgin
of the Valley, and about two arrow flights from the summit known by the
Toledan populace as the Moor's Head, there existed at that period the
ruins of a Byzantine church of date anterior to the Arab conquest.
In the porch, outlined by rough blocks of marble scattered over the
ground, were growing brambles and other parasitical plants, among which
lay, half concealed--here, the shattered capital of a column, there, a
square-hewn stone rudely sculptured with interlacing leaves, horrible or
grotesque monsters and formless human figures. Of the temple there
remained standing only the side walls and some broken ivy-grown arches.
Sara, who seemed to be guided by a supernatural instinct, on arriving at
the point the boatman had indicated, hesitated a little, uncertain which
way to take; but, finally, with a firm and resolute step, directed her
course toward the abandoned ruins of the church.
In truth, her instinct had not been at fault; Daniel, who was no longer
smiling, no longer the feeble and humble old man, but rather, fury
flashing from his little round eyes, seemed inspired by the spirit of
Vengeance, was in the midst of a throng of Jews eager, like himself, to
wreak their thirsty hate on one of the enemies of their religion. He
seemed to multiply himself, giving orders to some, urging others forward
in the work, making, with a hideous solicitude, all the necessary
preparations for the accomplishment of the frightful deed which he had
been meditating, day in, day out, while, impassive, he hammered the
anvil in his den at Toledo.
Sara, who, favored by the darkness, had succeeded in reaching the porch
of the church, had to make a supreme effort to suppress a cry of horror
as her glance penetrated its interior. In the ruddy glow of a blaze
which threw the shadow of that infernal group on the walls of the
church, she thought she saw that some were making efforts to raise a
heavy cross, while others wove a crown of briers, or sharpened on a
stone the points of enormous nails. A fearful thought crossed her mind.
She remembered that her race had been accused more than once of
mysterious crimes. She recalled vaguely the terrifying story of the
Crucified Child which she had hitherto believed a gross calumny invented
by the populace for the taunting and reproaching of the Hebrews.
But now there was no longer room for doubt. There, before her eyes, were
those awful instruments of martyrdom, and the ferocious executioners
only awaited their victim.
Sara, filled with holy indignation, overflowing with noble wrath and
inspired by that unquenchable faith in the true God whom her lover had
revealed to her, could not control herself at sight of that spectacle,
and, breaking through the tangled undergrowth that concealed her,
suddenly appeared on the threshold of the temple.
On beholding her the Jews raised a cry of amazement, and Daniel, taking
a step toward his daughter with threatening aspect, hoarsely asked her:
"What seekest thou here, unhappy one? "
"I come to cast in your faces," said Sara, in a clear, unfaltering
voice, "all the shame of your infamous work and I come to tell you that
in vain you await the victim for the sacrifice, unless you mean to
quench in me your thirst for blood, for the Christian you are expecting
will not come, because I have warned him of your plot. "
"Sara! " exclaimed the Jew, roaring with anger, "Sara, this is not true;
thou canst not have been so treacherous to us as to reveal our
mysterious rites. If it is true that thou hast revealed them, thou art
no longer my daughter. "
"No, I am not thy daughter. I have found another Father, a father all
love for his children, a Father whom you Jews nailed to an ignominious
cross and who died upon it to redeem us, opening to us for an eternity
the doors of heaven. No, I am no longer thy daughter, for I am a
Christian, and I am ashamed of my origin. "
On hearing these words, pronounced with that strong fortitude which
heaven puts only into the mouth of martyrs, Daniel, blind with rage,
rushed upon the beautiful Hebrew girl and, throwing her to the ground,
dragged her by the hair, as though he were possessed by an infernal
spirit, to the foot of the cross which seemed to open its bare arms to
receive her.
"Here I deliver her up to you," he exclaimed to those who stood around.
"Deal justice to this shameless one, who has sold her honor, her
religion and her brethren. "
IV.
On the day following, when the cathedral bells were pealing the Gloria
and the worthy citizens of Toledo were amusing themselves by shooting
from crossbows at Judases of straw, just as is done to-day in some of
our villages, Daniel opened the door of his shop, according to his
custom and, with that everlasting smile on his lips, commenced to salute
the passers-by, beating ceaselessly on his anvil with his little iron
hammer; but the lattices of Sara's Moorish window were unopened, nor was
the beautiful Jewess ever seen again reclining at her casement of
colored tiles.
* * * * *
They say that some years afterward a shepherd brought to the archbishop
a flower till then unknown, in which were represented all the
instruments of the Saviour's martyrdom--a flower strange and mysterious,
which had grown, a climbing vine, over the crumbling walls of the ruined
church.
Penetrating into that precinct and seeking to discover the origin of
this marvel, there was found, they add, the skeleton of a woman and,
buried with her, those instruments of the Passion which characterize the
flower.
The skeleton, although no one could ascertain whose it might be, was
preserved many years with special veneration in the hermitage of _San
Pedro el Verde_, and the flower, now common, is called the Passion
Rose.
BELIEVE IN GOD
_A Provencal Ballad. _
"_I was the true Teobaldo de Montagut, Baron of Fortcastell. Lord or
serf, noble or commoner, thou, whosoever thou mayst be, who pausest an
instant beside my sepulchre, believe in God, as I have believed, and
pray for me. _"
Ye gallant Knights Errant, who, lance in rest, vizor closed, mounted on
powerful charger, ride the world over with no more patrimony than your
illustrious name and your good sword, seeking honor and glory in the
profession of arms,--if on crossing the rugged valley of Montagut you
have been overtaken by night and storm and have found a refuge in the
ruins of the monastery still to be seen in its bosom, hearken to me!
Ye Shepherds, who follow with slow step your herds that go grazing far
and wide over the hills and plains, if on leading them to the border of
the transparent rivulet which runs, struggling and leaping, amid the
great rocks of the valley of Montagut in the drought of summer, ye have
found, on a fiery afternoon, shade and slumber beneath the broken
monastery arches, whose mossy pillars kiss the waves, hearken to me!
Little Daughters of the hamlets roundabout, ye wild lilies who bloom
happy in the shelter of your humbleness, if on the morning of the Patron
Saint of this locality, coming down into the valley of Montagut to
gather clovers and daisies to deck his shrine, conquering the fear which
the sombre monastery, rising on its rocks, strikes to your childish
hearts, ye have ventured into its silent and deserted cloister to wander
amid its forsaken tombs, on whose edges grow the fullest-petaled daisies
and the bluest harebells, hearken to me!
Thou, Noble Knight, perchance by the gleam of a lightning flash; thou,
Wandering Shepherd, bronzed by the fierce heat of the sun; thou, Lovely
Child, still besprent with drops of dew like tears, all ye would have
seen in that holy place a tomb, a lowly tomb. Formerly it consisted of
an unhewn stone and a wooden cross; the cross has disappeared and only
the stone remains. In this tomb, whose inscription is the motto of my
song, rests in peace the last baron of Fortcastell, Teobaldo de
Montagut, whose strange history I am about to tell.
I.
While the noble Countess of Montagut was pregnant with her firstborn
son, Teobaldo, she had a strange and terrible dream. Perchance a divine
warning; mayhap a vain fantasy which time made real in later years. She
dreamed that in her womb she had borne a serpent, a monstrous serpent
that, darting out shrill hisses, now gliding through the short grass,
now coiling upon itself for a spring, fled from her sight, hiding at
last in a clump of briers.
"There it is!
resounded night and day with the stirring sound of kettle-drums and
trumpets; and in the Moorish gateway of Visagra, or in that of Cambron,
or in the narrow entrance to the ancient bridge of St. Martin, not an
hour passed without one's hearing the hoarse cry of the sentinels
proclaiming the arrival of some knight who, preceded by his seigniorial
banner and followed by horsemen and foot-soldiers, had come to join the
main body of the Castilian army.
The time which remained before taking the road to the frontier and
completing the order of the royal hosts was spent in public
entertainments, lavish feasts and brilliant tournaments, until at last,
on the evening before the day appointed by His Highness for the setting
out of the army, a grand ball closed the festivities.
On the night of the ball, the royal palace presented a singular
appearance. In the spacious courts might be seen, promiscuously mingled
around huge bonfires, a motley multitude of pages, soldiers, crossbowmen
and hangers-on, who, some grooming their chargers and polishing their
arms preparatory to combat, others bewailing with outcries and
blasphemies the unforeseen turns of Fortune, personified for them in the
cast of the dice, and others chorusing the refrain of a martial ballad
which a minstrel was chanting to the accompaniment of a rude violin;
others still buying of a palmer cockle-shells, crosses and girdles
hallowed by the touch of the sepulchre of Santiago, or greeting with
wild outbursts of laughter the jokes of a clown, or practising on the
trumpets the battle-airs of the several seigniories, or telling old
stories of chivalry and love adventures, or of miracles recently
performed,--all contributed their quota to an infernal,
undistinguishable uproar impossible to describe in words.
Above that tumultuous ocean of war songs, noise of hammers smiting
anvils, creaking of files that bit the steel, stamping of horses,
insolent voices, irrepressible laughter, disorderly shouts and
intemperate reproaches, oaths and all manner of strange, discordant
sounds, there floated at intervals like a breath of harmony the distant
music of the ball.
This, which was taking place in the salons of the second story of the
palace, offered in its turn a picture, if not so fantastic and
capricious, more dazzling and magnificent.
Through galleries of far extent which formed an intricate labyrinth of
slender columns and ogees of fretted stone delicate as lace; through
great halls hung with tapestries on which silk and gold had pictured
with a thousand diverse colors scenes of love, of the chase and of
war,--halls adorned with trophies of arms and escutcheons over which was
shed a sea of sparkling light from innumerable lamps, suspended from the
loftiest vaults, and from candelabras of bronze, silver and gold,
fastened into the massive blocks of the walls; on all sides, wherever
the eyes turned, might be seen floating and drifting hither and thither
a cloud of beautiful ladies in rich, gold-embroidered garments, nets of
pearls imprisoning their tresses, necklaces of rubies blazing upon their
breasts, feather fans with ivory handles hanging from their wrists,
veils of white laces caressing their cheeks; and joyous throngs of
gallants with velvet sword-belts, brocaded jackets and silken trousers,
morocco buskins, full-sleeved mantelets with pointed
[Illustration: THE VISAGRA GATE]
hoods, poniards with ornamental hilts, and rapiers polished, thin and
light.
But in that bright and shining assemblage of youthful cavaliers and
ladies, whom their elders, seated in the high larch chairs which
encircled the royal dais, with smiles of joy saw defiling by, there was
one woman who attracted attention for her incomparable loveliness, one
who had been hailed Queen of Beauty in all the tournaments and courts of
love of the period, one whose colors the most valiant knights had
adopted as their emblem, one whose charms were the theme of the songs of
the troubadours most proficient in the _gay science_, one toward whom
all eyes turned with wonder, for whom all hearts sighed in secret,
around whom might be seen gathering with eagerness, like humble vassals
in the train of their mistress, the most illustrious scions of the
Toledan nobility assembled at the ball that night.
Those presumptive gallants who were continually in the retinue of the
Dona Ines de Tordesillas, for such was the name of this celebrated
beauty, were never discouraged in their suit despite her haughty and
disdainful character. One was emboldened by a smile which he thought he
detected on her lips; another, by a gracious look which he deemed he had
surprised in her eyes; another, by a flattering word, the slightest sign
of preference, or a vague promise. Each in silence cherished the hope
that he would be her choice. Yet among them all there were two
particularly prominent for their assiduity and devotion, two who to all
appearance, if not the acknowledged favorites of the beauty, might claim
to be the farthest advanced upon the path to her heart. These two
knights, equals in birth, valor and chivalric accomplishments, subjects
of the same king and aspirants for the same lady, were Alonso de
Carrillo and Lope de Sandoval.
Both were natives of Toledo; together they had first borne arms; and on
one and the same day, their eyes meeting those of Dona Ines, both had
conceived a hidden and ardent love for her, a love that for some time
grew in secrecy and silence, but at length came to an involuntary
betrayal of itself in their actions and conversation.
At the tournaments in the Zocodover, at the floral games of the court,
whenever opportunity was presented for rivalry in gallantry or wit, both
knights had availed themselves of it with eagerness, desirous to win
distinction under the eyes of their lady; and that night, impelled
doubtless by the same passion, changing their helmets for plumes and
their mail for brocade and silk, standing together by the seat where she
rested a moment after a turn through the salons, they began to engage in
a brilliant contest of exquisite and ingenious phrases or keen and
covert epigrams.
The lesser stars of that sparkling constellation, forming a gilded
semicircle around the two gallants, laughed and cheered on the delicate
strife; and the fair lady, the prize of that word-tournament, approved
with a scarcely perceptible smile the flashes of wit, elegantly phrased
or full of hidden meaning, whether they fell from the lips of her
adorers like a light wave of perfume flattering to her vanity, or leapt
forth like a sharp arrow seeking to pierce the opponent in his most
vulnerable point, his self-love.
Already with each sally the courtly combat of wit and gallantry was
growing fiercer; the phrases were still civil in form, but terse and
dry, and in the speaking, accompanied though it was by a slight curving
of the lips in semblance of a smile, unconcealable lightnings of the
eyes betrayed that repressed anger which raged in the breasts of the
rivals.
It was a situation that could not be sustained. The lady, so perceiving,
had risen to make another tour of the salons, when an incident occurred
that broke down the barrier of formal courtesy which had hitherto
restrained the two enamoured youths. Perchance intentionally, perchance
through carelessness, Dona Ines had let fall upon her lap one of her
perfumed gloves whose golden buttons she had amused herself in pulling
off one by one during the conversation. As she rose, the glove slipped
between the wide silken plaits of her dress and fell upon the carpet.
Seeing it drop, all the knights who formed her brilliant retinue bent
eagerly to recover it, disputing with one another the honor of a slight
inclination of her head as a reward of their gallantry.
Noting the precipitation with which all stooped to pick up her glove, a
half smile of satisfied vanity appeared on the lips of the haughty Dona
Ines. With a gesture of general acknowledgment to the cavaliers who had
shown such eagerness to serve her, the lady, with a lofty, arrogant mien
and scarcely glancing in that direction, reached out her hand for the
glove toward Lope and Alonso, the first to reach it. In fact, both
youths had seen the glove fall close to their feet, both had stooped
with equal haste to pick it up and, on rising, each held it seized by
one end. On seeing them immovable, looking silent defiance each upon the
other, and both determined not to give up the glove which they had just
raised from the floor, the lady uttered a light, involuntary cry,
stifled by the murmur of the astonished spectators. The whole presented
a threatening scene, that there in the royal castle and in the presence
of the king might be designated as a serious breach of courtesy.
Lope and Alonso, notwithstanding, remained motionless, mute, scanning
each other from head to foot, showing no sign of the tempest in their
souls save by a slight nervous tremor which shivered through their limbs
as if they had been attacked by a sudden fever.
The murmurs and exclamations were reaching a climax. The people began to
group themselves around the principal actors in the scene. Dona Ines,
either bewildered or taking delight in prolonging the situation, was
moving to and fro as if seeking refuge or escape from the eyes of the
throng whose numbers were continually augmented. Catastrophe now seemed
inevitable. The two young men had already exchanged a few words in an
undertone, and each, while still with one hand holding the glove in a
convulsive grip, seemed instinctively to be seeking with the other the
golden hilt of his poniard, when the crowd of spectators respectfully
opened and there appeared the king.
His brow was tranquil. There was neither indignation in his countenance
nor anger in his bearing.
He surveyed the scene; one glance was sufficient to put him in command
of the situation. With all the grace of the most accomplished page, he
drew the glove from the young knights' hands which, as though moved by a
spring, opened without difficulty at the touch of their sovereign, and
turning to Dona Ines de Tordesillas, who, leaning on the arm of a
duenna, seemed about to faint, said with a firm though controlled voice,
as he presented the glove:
"Take it, _senora_, and be careful not to let it fall again, lest when
you recover it, you find it stained with blood. "
By the time the king had finished speaking, Dona Ines, we will not
undertake to say whether overcome by emotion, or in order to retreat
more gracefully from the situation, had swooned in the arms of those
about her.
Alonso and Lope, the former crushing in silence between his hands his
velvet cap whose plume trailed along the carpet, and the latter biting
his lips till the blood came, fixed each other with a stubborn, intense
stare.
A stare at that crisis was equivalent to a blow, a glove thrown in the
face, a challenge to mortal combat.
II.
At midnight, the king and queen retired to their chamber. The ball was
at an end, and the inquisitive folk outside, who, forming groups and
circles in the vicinity of the palace, had been impatiently awaiting
this moment, ran to station themselves beside the steep road, up in the
balconies along the route, and in the central square of the city, known
as the Zocodover.
For an hour or two there reigned, at these points and in the adjacent
streets, clamor, bustle, activity indescribable. Everywhere might be
seen squires caracoling on their richly caparisoned steeds,
masters-at-arms with showy vestments full of shields and heraldic
devices, drummers dressed in gay colors, soldiers in shining armor,
pages in velvet cloaks and plumed hats, footmen who preceded luxurious
chairs and litters covered with rich cloth. The great, blazing torches
borne by the footmen cast a rosy glow upon the multitude, who, with
wondering faces, open mouths and frightened eyes, saw with amazement all
the chief nobility of Castile passing by, surrounded on that occasion by
fabulous splendor and pomp.
Then, by degrees, the noise and excitement subsided, the stained glass
in the lofty ogive windows of the palace ceased to shine, the last
cavalcade passed through the close-packed throngs, the rabble in their
turn began to disperse in all directions, disappearing among the shadows
of the puzzling labyrinth formed by those dark, narrow, tortuous
streets, and now the deep silence of the night was broken only by the
far-off call of some sentinel, the footsteps of some lingerer whose
curiosity had left him to the last, the clang of bolts and bars in
closing gates, when on the summit of the stone stairway which leads to
the platform of the palace, there appeared a knight, who, after looking
on all sides as if seeking some one who should have been expecting him,
slowly descended to the Cuesta del Alcazar, by which he took his way
toward the Zocodover.
On arriving at the square, he halted a moment and cast a searching
glance around. The night was dark, not a star glistened in the sky, nor
in all the square could a single light be seen; yet afar off, and in the
same direction in which he began to perceive a slight sound as of
approaching footsteps, he believed he saw the figure of a man, without
doubt the same whom he had seemed to await with such impatience.
The knight who had just quitted the castle for the Zocodover was Alonso
Carrillo, who, on account of the post of honor which he held near the
person of the king, had been kept on attendance in the royal chamber
until that hour. The man coming to meet him out of the shadows of the
arcades which surround the square was Lope de Sandoval. When the two
knights were face to face, they exchanged a few sentences in suppressed
voices.
"I thought you would be expecting me," said the one.
"I hoped that you would surmise as much," answered the other.
"Where shall we go? "
"Wherever there can be found four handsbreadth of ground to turn around
in and a ray to give us light. "
This briefest of dialogues ended, the two young men plunged into one of
the narrow streets leading out from the Zocodover and vanished in the
darkness like those phantoms of the night, which, after terrifying for
an instant the beholder, dissolve into atoms of mist and are lost in the
depth of the shadows.
A long time they went on, traversing the streets of Toledo, seeking a
suitable place to end their quarrel, but the darkness of the night was
so dense that the duel seemed impossible. Yet both wished to fight and
to fight before the whitening of the east; for at dawn the royal hosts
were to go forth, and Alonso with them.
So they pressed on, threading at random deserted squares, dusky alleys,
long and gloomy passages, till at last they saw shining in the distance
a light, a light small and waning, about which the mist formed a circle
of ghostly, glimmering lustre.
They had reached the Street of the Christ, and the radiance discernible
at one end seemed to come from the small lantern which illuminated then
and illuminates still the image that gives the street its name.
On seeing it, both let escape an exclamation of joy and, quickening
their steps toward it, were not long in finding themselves near the
shrine in which it burned.
An arched recess in the wall, in the depths of which might be seen the
image of the Redeemer, nailed to the cross, with a skull at his feet, a
rude board covering for protection from the weather, and a small lantern
hung by a cord, swaying with the wind and shedding a faint effulgence,
constituted the entire shrine. About it clung festoons of ivy which had
sprung up among the dark and broken stones forming, as it were, a
curtain of verdure.
The cavaliers, after reverently saluting the image of Christ by removing
their military caps and murmuring a short prayer, glanced over the
ground, threw off their mantles and, each perceiving the other to be
ready for the combat and both giving the signal by a slight motion of
the head, crossed swords. But scarcely had the blades touched when,
before either of the combatants had been able to take a single step or
strike a blow, the light suddenly went out, leaving the street plunged
in utter darkness. As if moved by the same thought, the two antagonists,
on finding themselves surrounded by that instantaneous gloom, took a
step backward, lowered the points of their swords to the ground and
raised their eyes to the lantern, whose light, a moment before
extinguished, began to shine anew at the very instant the duel was
suspended.
"It must have been some passing gust that lowered the flame," exclaimed
Carrillo, placing himself again on guard, and giving warning to Lope,
who seemed preoccupied.
Lope took a step forward to recover the lost ground, extended his arm
and the blades touched once more, but at their touching the light again
went out of itself, remaining thus until the swords separated.
"In truth, but this is strange! " murmured Lope, gazing at the lantern
which had begun spontaneously to burn again. The gleam, slowly wavering
with the wind, spread a tremulous, wonderful radiance over the yellow
skull placed at the feet of Christ.
"Bah! " said Alonso, "it must be because the holy woman who has charge of
the lamp cheats the devotees and scants the oil, so that the light,
almost out, brightens and then darkens again in its dying agony. "
Thus speaking, the impetuous youth placed himself once more in attitude
of defence. His opponent did the same; but this time, not only were they
enveloped in a thick and impenetrable gloom, but simultaneously there
fell upon their ears the deep echo of a mysterious voice like those long
sighs of the south-west wind which seems to complain and articulate
words as it wanders imprisoned in the crooked, narrow and dim streets of
Toledo.
What was uttered by that fearful and superhuman voice never could be
learned; but on hearing it, both youths were seized with such profound
terror that their swords dropped from their hands, their hair stood on
end, and over their bodies, shaken by an involuntary tremor, and down
their pallid and distorted brows a cold sweat like that of death began
to flow.
The light, for the third time quenched, for the third time shone again
and dispelled the dark.
"Ah! " exclaimed Lope, beholding him who was now his opponent, in other
days his best friend, astounded like himself, like himself pale and
motionless, "God does not mean to permit this combat, for it is a
fratricidal contest; because a duel between us is an offence to heaven
in whose sight we have sworn a hundred times eternal friendship. " And
saying this he threw himself into the arms of Alonso, who clasped him in
his own with unspeakable strength and fervor.
III.
Some moments passed during which both youths indulged in every
endearment of friendship and love. Alonso spoke first and, in accents
touched by the scene which we have just related, exclaimed, addressing
his comrade:
"Lope, I know that you love Dona Ines; perhaps not as much as I, but you
love her. Since a duel between us is impossible, let us agree to place
our fate in her hands. Let us go and seek her, let her decide with free
choice which of us shall be the happy one, which the wretched. Her
decision shall be respected by both, and he who does not gain her favor
shall to-morrow go forth with the King of Toledo and shall seek the
comfort of forgetfulness in the excitement of war. "
"Since you wish it, so let it be," replied Lope.
And arm in arm the two friends took their way toward the cathedral
beneath whose shadow, in a palace of which there are now no remains,
dwelt Dona Ines de Tordesillas.
It was early dawn, and as some of the kindred of Dona Ines, among them
her brothers, were to march the coming day with the royal army, it was
not impossible that early in the morning they could gain admittance to
her palace.
Inspired by this hope they arrived, at last, at the base of the Gothic
tower of the church, but on reaching that point a peculiar noise
attracted their attention and, stopping in one of the angles, concealed
among the shadows of the lofty buttresses that support the walls, they
saw, to their amazement, a man emerging from a window upon the balcony
of their lady's apartments in the palace. He lightly descended to the
ground by the help of a rope and, finally, a white figure, Dona Ines
undoubtedly, appeared upon the balcony and, leaning over the fretted
parapet, exchanged tender phrases of farewell with her mysterious lover.
The first motion of the two youths was to place their hands on their
sword-hilts, but checking themselves, as though struck by a common
thought, they turned to look on one another, each discerning on the
other's face a look of astonishment so ludicrous that both broke forth
into loud laughter, laughter which, rolling on from echo to echo in the
silence of the night, resounded through the square even to the palace.
Hearing it, the white figure vanished from the balcony, a noise of
slamming doors was heard, and then silence resumed her reign.
On the following day, the queen, seated on a most sumptuous dais, saw
defile past her the hosts who were marching to the war against the
Moors. At her side were the principal ladies of Toledo. Among them was
Dona Ines de Tordesillas on whom this day, as ever, all eyes were bent.
But it seemed to her that they wore a different expression from that to
which she was accustomed. She would have said that in all the curious
looks cast upon her lurked a mocking smile.
This discovery could not but disquiet her, remembering, as she did, the
noisy laughter which, the night before, she had thought she heard at a
distance in one of the angles of the square, while she was closing her
balcony and bidding adieu to her lover; but when she saw among the ranks
of the army marching below the dais, sparks of fire glancing from their
brilliant armor, and a cloud of dust enveloping them, the two reunited
banners of the houses of Carrillo and Sandoval; when she saw the
significant smile which the two former rivals, on saluting the queen,
directed toward herself, she comprehended all. The blush of shame
reddened her face and tears of chagrin glistened in her eyes.
THE WHITE DOE
In a small town of Aragon, about the end of the thirteenth century or a
little later, there lived retired in his seigniorial castle a renowned
knight named Don Dionis, who, having served his king in the war against
the infidels, was then taking his ease, giving himself up to the merry
exercise of hunting, after the wearisome hardships of war.
It chanced once to this cavalier, engaged in his favorite diversion,
accompanied by his daughter whose singular beauty, of the blond type
extraordinary in Spain, had won her the name of White Lily, that as the
increasing heat of the day began to tell upon them, absorbed in pursuing
a quarry in the mountainous part of his estate, he took for his
resting-place during the hours of the siesta a glen through which ran a
rivulet leaping from rock to rock with a soft and pleasant sound.
It might have been a matter of some two hours that Don Dionis had
lingered in that delectable retreat, reclining on the delicate grass in
the shade of a black-poplar grove, talking affably with his huntsmen
about the incidents of the day, while they related one to another more
or less curious adventures that had befallen them in their hunting
experiences, when along the top of the highest ridge and between
alternating murmurs of the wind which stirred the leaves on the trees,
he began to perceive, each time more near, the sound of a little bell
like that of the leader of a flock.
In truth, it was really that, for very soon after the first hearing of
the bell, there came leaping over the thick undergrowth of lavender and
thyme, descending to the opposite bank of the rivulet, nearly a hundred
lambs white as snow, and behind them appeared their shepherd with his
pointed hood drawn over his brows to protect him from the vertical rays
of the sun and with his shoulder-bag swung from the end of a stick.
"Speaking of remarkable adventures," exclaimed on seeing him one of the
huntsmen of Don Dionis, addressing his lord, "here is Esteban, the
shepherd-lad, who has been now for some time more of a fool than God
made him, which was fool enough. He can give us an amusing half-hour by
relating the cause of his continual frights. "
"But what is it that happens to this poor devil? " exclaimed Don Dionis
with an air of piqued curiosity.
"A mere trifle," continued the huntsman in a jesting tone. "The case is
this--that without having been born on Good Friday, or bearing a
birthmark of the cross, or, so far as one can infer from his regular
Christian habits, binding himself to the Devil, he finds himself, not
knowing why or whence, endowed with the most marvellous faculty that any
man ever possessed, unless it be Solomon, who, they say, understood even
the language of birds. "
"And with what does this remarkable faculty have to do? "
"It has to do," pursued the huntsman, "as he affirms, and he swears and
forswears it by all that is most sacred, with a conspiracy among the
deer which course through these mountains not to leave him in peace, the
drollest thing about it being that on more than one occasion he has
surprised them in the act of contriving the pranks they were going to
play on him and after those tricks had been carried through he has
overheard the noisy bursts of laughter with which they applaud them. "
While the huntsman was thus speaking, Constanza, as the beautiful
daughter of Don Dionis was named, had drawn near the group of sportsmen
and, as she appeared curious to hear the strange experience of Esteban,
one of them ran on to the place where the young shepherd was watering
his flock and brought him into the presence of his lord, who, to dispel
the perturbation and evident embarrassment of the poor peasant, hastened
to greet him by name, accompanying the salutation with a benevolent
smile.
Esteban was a boy of nineteen or twenty years, robust in build, with a
small head sunken between his shoulders, little blue eyes, a wavering,
stupid glance like that of albinos, a flat nose, thick, half open lips,
low forehead, complexion fair but tanned by the sun, and hair which fell
partly over his eyes and partly around his face, in rough red locks like
the mane of a sorrel nag.
Such, more or less exactly, was Esteban in point of physique. In respect
to his character, it could be asserted without fear of denial on his own
part or on that of any one who knew him, that he was an entirely honest,
simple-hearted lad, though, like a true peasant, a little suspicious and
malicious.
As soon as the shepherd had recovered from his confusion, Don Dionis
again addressed him and, in the most serious tone in the world, feigning
an extraordinary interest in learning the details of the event to which
his huntsman had referred, put to him a multitude of questions to which
Esteban began to reply evasively, as if desirous of escaping any
discussion of the subject.
Constrained, nevertheless, by the demands of his lord and the entreaties
of Constanza, who seemed most curious and eager that the shepherd should
relate his astounding adventures, he decided to talk freely, but not
without casting a distrustful glance about him as though fearing to be
overheard by others than those present, and scratching his head three
or four times in the effort to connect his recollections or find the
thread of his narrative, before at last he thus began:
"The fact is, my lord, that as a priest of Tarazona to whom, not long
ago, I went for help in my troubles, told me, wits don't serve against
the Devil, but mum! finger on lip, many good prayers to Saint
Bartholomew--who, none better, knows his knaveries--and let him have his
sport; for God, who is just, and sits up thereon high, will see that all
comes right in the end.
"Resolved on this course I had decided never again to say a word to any
one about it,--no, not for anything; but I will do it to-day to satisfy
your curiosity, and in good sooth, if, after all, the Devil calls me to
account and goes to troubling me in punishment for my indiscretion, I
carry the Holy Gospels sewed inside my sheepskin coat, and with their
help, I think that, as at other times, I may make telling use of a
cudgel. "
"But, come! " exclaimed Don Dionis, out of patience with the digressions
of the shepherd, which it seemed would never end, "let the whys and
wherefores go, and come directly to the subject. "
"I am coming to it," calmly replied Esteban, and after calling together,
by dint of a shout and a whistle, the lambs of which he had not lost
sight and which were now beginning to scatter over the mountain-side, he
scratched his head again and proceeded thus:
"On the one hand, your own continual hunting trips, and on the other,
the persistency of those trespassers who, what with snare and what with
crossbow, hardly leave a deer alive in twenty days' journey round about,
had, a little time ago, so thinned out the game in these mountains that
you could not find a stag in them, not though you would give one of your
eyes.
"I was speaking of this in the town, seated in the porch of the church,
where after mass on Sunday I was in the habit of joining some laborers
who till the soil in Veraton, when some of them said to me:
"'Well, man, I don't know why it is you fail to run across them, since,
as for us, we can give you our word that we don't once go down to the
ploughed land without coming upon their tracks, and it is only three or
four days since, without going further back, a herd, which, to judge by
their hoof-prints, must have numbered more than twenty, cut down before
its time a crop of wheat belonging to the care-taker of the Virgen del
Romeral. '
"'And in what direction did the track lead? ' I asked the laborers, with
a mind to see if I could fall in with the herd.
"'Toward the Lavender Glen,' they replied.
"This information did not enter one ear to go out at the other; that
very night I posted myself among the poplars. During all its hours I
kept hearing here and there, far off as well as near by, the trumpeting
of the deer as they called one to another, and from time to time I felt
the boughs stirring behind me; but however sharply I looked, the truth
is, I could distinguish nothing.
"Nevertheless, at break of day, when I took the lambs to water, at the
bank of the stream, about two throws of the sling from the place where
we now are, and in so dense a shade of poplars that not even at mid-day
is it pierced by a ray of sunshine, I found fresh deer-tracks, broken
branches, the stream a little roiled and, what is more peculiar, among
the deer-tracks the short prints of tiny feet no larger than the half of
the palm of my hand, without any exaggeration. "
On saying this, the boy, instinctively seeming to seek a point of
comparison, directed his glance to the foot of Constanza, which peeped
from beneath her petticoat shod in a dainty sandal of yellow morocco,
but as the eyes of Don Dionis and of some of the huntsmen who were
about him followed Esteban's, the beautiful girl hastened to conceal it,
exclaiming in the most natural voice in the world:
"Oh, no! unluckily mine are not so tiny, for feet of this size are found
only among the fairies of whom the troubadours sing. "
"But I did not give up with this," continued the shepherd, when
Constanza had finished. "Another time, having concealed myself in
another hiding-place by which, undoubtedly, the deer would have to pass
in going to the glen, at just about midnight sleep overcame me for a
little, although not so much but that I opened my eyes at the very
moment when I perceived the branches were stirring around me. I opened
my eyes, as I have said; I rose with the utmost caution and, listening
intently to the confused murmur, which every moment sounded nearer, I
heard in the gusts of wind something like cries and strange songs,
bursts of laughter, and three or four distinct voices which talked
together with a chatter and gay confusion like that of the young girls
at the village when, laughing and jesting on the way, they return in
groups from the fountain with their water-jars on their heads.
"As I gathered from the nearness of the voices and close-by crackle of
twigs which broke noisily in giving way to that throng of merry maids,
they were just about to come out of the thicket on to a little platform
formed by a jut of the mountain there where I was hid when, right at my
back, as near or nearer than I am to you, I heard a new voice, fresh,
fine and vibrant, which said--believe it, _senores_, it is as true as
that I have to die--it said, clearly and distinctly, these very words:
"'Hither, hither, comrades dear!
That dolt of an Esteban is here! '"
On reaching this point in the shepherd's story, the bystanders could no
longer repress the merriment which for many minutes had been dancing in
their eyes and, giving free rein to their mirth, they broke into
clamorous laughter. Among the first to begin to laugh, and the last to
leave off, were Don Dionis, who, notwithstanding his air of dignity,
could not but take part in the general hilarity, and his daughter
Constanza, who, every time she looked at Esteban, all in suspense and
embarrassment as he was, fell to laughing again like mad till the tears
sprang from her eyes.
The shepherd-lad, for his part, although without heeding the effect his
story had produced, seemed disturbed and restless, and while the great
folk laughed to their hearts' content at his simple tale, he turned his
face from one side to the other with visible signs of fear and as if
trying to descry something beyond the intertwined trunks of the trees.
"What is it, Esteban, what is the matter? " asked one of the huntsmen,
noting the growing disquietude of the poor boy, who now was fixing his
frightened eyes on the laughing daughter of Don Dionis, and again gazing
all around him with an expression of astonishment and dull dismay:
"A very strange thing is happening to me," exclaimed Esteban. "When,
after hearing the words which I have just repeated, I quickly sat
upright to surprise the person who had spoken them, a doe white as snow
leaped from the very copse in which I was hidden and, taking a few
prodigious bounds over the tops of the evergreen oaks and mastic trees,
sped away, followed by a herd of deer of the natural color; and these,
like the white one who was guiding them, did not utter the cries of deer
in flight, but laughed with great peals of laughter, whose echo, I could
swear, is sounding in my ears at this moment. "
"Bah, bah, Esteban! " exclaimed Don Dionis, with a jesting air, "follow
the counsels of the priest of Tarazona; do not talk of your adventures
with the joke-loving deer, lest the Devil bring it to pass that in the
end you lose the little sense you have, and since now you are provided
with the gospels and know the prayer of Saint Bartholomew, return to
your lambs which are beginning to scatter through the glen. If the evil
spirits tease you again, you know the remedy--_Pater Noster_ and a big
stick. "
The shepherd, after putting away in his pouch a half loaf of white bread
and a piece of boar's meat, and in his stomach a mighty draught of wine,
which, by order of his lord, one of the grooms gave him, took leave of
Don Dionis and his daughter and had scarcely gone four steps when he
began whirling his sling, casting stones from it to gather the lambs
together.
As, by this time, Don Dionis observed that, what with one diversion and
another, the hours of heat were now passed and the light afternoon
breeze was beginning to stir the leaves of the poplars and to freshen
the fields, he gave orders to his retinue to make ready the horses which
were grazing loose in the grove hard by; and when everything was
prepared, he signalled to some to slip the leashes, and to others to
blow the horns and, sallying forth in a troop from the poplar-grove,
took up the interrupted chase.
II.
Among the huntsmen of Don Dionis was one named Garces, the son of an old
servitor of the house and therefore held in high regard by the family.
Garces was of about the age of Constanza, and from early boyhood had
been accustomed to anticipate the least of her wishes and to divine and
gratify the lightest of her whims.
He amused himself in his moments of leisure in sharpening with his own
hand the pointed arrows of her ivory crossbow; he broke in the colts for
her mounts; he trained her favorite hounds in the arts of the chase and
tamed her falcons for which he bought at the fairs of Castile red hoods
embroidered with gold.
But as for the other huntsmen, the pages and the common folk in the
service of Don Dionis, the delicate attentions of Garces and the marks
of esteem with which his superiors distinguished him had caused them to
hold him in a sort of general dislike, even to the point of saying, in
their envy, that all his assiduous efforts to anticipate the caprices of
his mistress revealed the character of a flatterer and a sycophant. Yet
there were not wanting those who, more keen-sighted or malicious than
the rest, believed that they detected in the young retainer's devotion
signs of an ill-dissembled passion.
If this were really so, the secret love of Garces had more than abundant
excuse in the incomparable charms of Constanza. He must needs have had a
breast of stone, and a heart of ice, who could remain unmoved day after
day at the side of that woman, peerless in her beauty and her bewitching
graces.
The Lily of the Moncayo they called her for twenty leagues around, and
well she merited this soubriquet, for she was so exquisite, so white and
so delicately flushed that it would seem that God had made her, like the
lilies, of snow and gold.
Nevertheless, among the neighboring gentry it was whispered that the
beautiful Lady of Veraton was not so pure of blood as she was fair, and
that despite her bright tresses and her alabaster complexion, she had
had a gipsy mother. How much truth there was in these rumors no one
could say, for, in fact, Don Dionis had in his youth led an adventurous
life, and after fighting long under the banner of the King of Aragon,
from whom he received among other rewards the fief of the Moncayo, had
gone to Palestine, where he wandered for some years, finally returning
to establish himself in his castle of Veraton with a little daughter
born, doubtless, on foreign soil. The only person who could have told
anything about the mysterious origin of Constanza, having attended Don
Dionis in his travels abroad, was the father of Garces, and he had died
some time since without saying a single word on the subject, not even to
his own son who, at various times and with manifestations of great
interest, had questioned him.
The temperament of Constanza, with its swift alternations from reserve
and melancholy to mirth and glee; the singular vividness of her
imagination; her wild moods; her extraordinary ways; even the
peculiarity of having eyes and eyebrows black as night while her
complexion was white and rosy and her hair as bright as gold, had
contributed to furnish food for the gossip of the countryside; and even
Garces himself, who knew her so intimately, had come to the conclusion
that his liege lady was something apart and did not resemble the rest of
womankind.
Present, as the other huntsmen were, at the narration of Esteban, Garces
was perhaps the only one who listened with genuine curiosity to the
details of the shepherd's incredible adventure; and though he could not
help smiling when the lad repeated the words of the white doe, no sooner
had he left the grove in which they had taken their siesta, than he
began to revolve in his mind the most ridiculous fancies.
"Without doubt this tale of the talking of the deer is a sheer delusion
of Esteban's, who is a perfect simpleton," the young huntsman said to
himself as, mounted on a powerful sorrel, he followed step by step the
palfrey of Constanza, who seemed also somewhat preoccupied and was so
silent and so withdrawn from the group of hunters as scarcely to take
any part in the sport. "Yet who can say that in the story which this
poor fool tells there may not be a grain of truth? " thought on the young
retainer. "We have seen stranger things in the world, and a white doe
may indeed exist, since if we can credit the folk-songs, Saint Hubert,
the patron of huntsmen, had one. Oh, if I could take a white doe alive
for an offering to my lady! "
Thus thinking and dreaming, Garces passed the afternoon; and when the
sun began to descend behind the neighboring hills, and Don Dionis gave
the order to his retinue for the return to the castle, he slipped away
from the company unnoticed and went in search of the shepherd through
the densest and most entangled coverts of the mountain.
Night had almost completely closed in when Don Dionis arrived at the
gates of his castle. Immediately there was placed before him a frugal
collation and he sat down with his daughter at the table.
"And Garces, where is he? " asked Constanza, noticing that her huntsman
was not there to serve her as usual.
"We do not know," the other attendants hastened to reply. "He
disappeared from among us near the glen and we have not seen him since. "
At that instant Garces arrived, all breathless, his forehead still
covered with perspiration, but with the most happy and satisfied
expression imaginable.
"Pardon me, my lady," he exclaimed, addressing Constanza, "pardon me if
I have been wanting a moment in my duty, but there whence I came at my
horse's best speed, there, as here, I was busied only in your service. "
"In my service? " repeated Constanza. "I do not understand what you
mean. "
"Yes, my lady, in your service," repeated the youth, "for I have
ascertained that the white doe really does exist. Besides Esteban, it is
vouched for by various other shepherds, who swear they have seen it more
than once; and with their aid I hope in God and in my patron Saint
Hubert to bring it, living or dead, within three days to you at the
castle. "
"Bah! Bah! " exclaimed Constanza with a jesting air, while the derisive
laughter, more or less dissimulated, of the bystanders chorused her
words. "Have done with midnight hunts and with white does. Bear in mind
that the Devil loves to tempt the simple; and if you persist in
following at his heels, he will make you a laughing-stock like poor
Esteban. "
"My lady," interrupted Garces with a broken voice, concealing as far as
possible the anger which the merry scoffs of his companions stirred in
him, "I have never yet had to do with the Devil and consequently I am
not acquainted with his practices; but, for myself, I swear to you that,
do all he can, he will not make me an object of laughter, for that is a
privilege I know how to tolerate in yourself alone. "
Constanza saw the effect which her mocking had produced on the enamoured
youth, but desiring to test his patience to the uttermost, she continued
in the same tone:
"And what if, on aiming at the doe, she salutes you with another laugh
like that which Esteban heard, or flings it into your very face, and
you, hearing those supernatural peals of merriment, let fall your bow
from your hands, and before you recover from the fright, the white doe
has vanished swifter than lightning--what then? "
"Oh, as for that! " exclaimed Garces, "be sure that if I can speed a
shaft before she is out of bowshot, although she play me more tricks
than a juggler; although she speak to me, not in the language of the
country, but in Latin like the Abbot of Munilla, she will not get off
without an arrow-head in her body. "
At this stage in the conversation, Don Dionis joined in with a forced
gravity through which might be detected the entire irony of his words,
and began to give the now persecuted boy the most original counsels in
the world, in case he should suddenly meet with the demon changed into
a white doe.
At each new suggestion of her father, Constanza fixed her eyes on the
distressed Garces, and broke into extravagant laughter, while his
fellow-servitors encouraged the jesting with glances of intelligence and
ill-disguised delight.
Only with the close of the supper ceased this scene, in which the
credulity of the young hunter was, so to speak, the theme on which the
general mirth played variations, so that when the cloth was removed and
Don Dionis and Constanza had withdrawn to their apartments, and all the
inmates of the castle had gone to rest, Garces remained for a long time
irresolute, debating whether, notwithstanding the jeers of his liege
lord and lady, he would stand firm to his purpose, or absolutely abandon
the enterprise.
"What the devil," he exclaimed, rousing himself from the state of
uncertainty into which he had fallen. "Greater harm than that which has
overtaken me cannot come to pass and if, on the other hand, what Esteban
has told us is true, oh, then, how sweet will be the taste of my
triumph! "
Thus speaking, he fitted a shaft to his crossbow--not without having
made the sign of the cross on the point of the arrow--and swinging it
over his shoulder, he directed his steps toward the postern gate of the
castle to take the mountain path.
When Garces reached the glen and the point where, according to the
instructions of Esteban, he was to lie in wait for the appearance of the
deer, the moon was slowly rising behind the neighboring mountains.
Like a good hunter, well-practised in his craft, he spent a considerable
time, before selecting a suitable place for an ambush, in going to and
fro, scanning the byways and paths thereabouts, the grouping of the
trees, the irregularities of the ground, the curves of the river and the
depth of its waters.
At last, after completing this minute examination of the locality, he
hid himself upon a sloping bank near some black poplars whose high and
interlacing tops cast a dark shadow, and at whose feet grew a clump of
mastic shrubs high enough to conceal a man lying prone on the ground.
The river, which, from the mossy rocks where it rose, came following the
windings of the rugged fief of the Moncayo to enter the glen by a
cascade, thence went gliding on, bathing the roots of the willows that
shaded its bank, or playing with a murmurous ripple among the stones
rolled down from the mountain, until it fell into a pool very near the
point which served the hunter for a hiding-place.
The poplars, whose silvered leaves the wind stirred with the sweetest
rustle, the willows which, leaning over the limpid current, bedewed in
it the tips of their pale branches, and the crowded groups of evergreen
oaks about whose trunks honeysuckles and blue morning-glories clambered
and twined, formed a thick wall of foliage around this quiet river-pool.
The wind, stirring the leafy curtains of living green which spread round
about their floating shadow, let penetrate at intervals a stealthy ray
of light that gleamed like a flash of silver over the surface of the
motionless, deep waters.
Hidden among the bushes, his ear attent to the slightest sound, and his
gaze fixed upon the spot where, according to his calculations, the deer
should come, Garces waited a long time in vain.
Everything about him remained buried in a deep calm.
Little by little, and it might well be that the lateness of the
hour--for it was past midnight--began to weigh upon his lids--might well
be that far-off murmurs of the water, the penetrating scent of the wild
flowers and the caresses of the wind affected his senses with the soft
drowsiness in which all nature seemed to be steeped--the enamoured boy,
who until now had been occupied in revolving in his mind the most
alluring fancies, began to find that his ideas took shape more slowly
and his thoughts drifted into vague and indecisive forms.
After lingering a little in this dim border-land between waking and
sleeping, at last he closed his eyes, let his crossbow slip from his
hands, and sank into a profound slumber.
* * * * *
It must have been for two or three hours now that the young hunter had
been snoring at his ease, enjoying to the full one of the serenest
dreams of his life, when suddenly he opened his eyes, with a stare, and
half raised himself to a sitting posture, full yet of that stupor with
which one wakes suddenly from profound sleep.
In the breathings of the wind and blended with the light noises of the
night, he thought he detected a strange hum of delicate voices, sweet
and mysterious, which were talking with one another, laughing or
singing, each in its own individual strain, making a twitter as
clamorous and confused as that of the birds awakening at the first ray
of the sun amid the leaves of a poplar grove.
This extraordinary sound was heard for an instant only, and then all was
still again.
"Without doubt, I was dreaming of the absurdities of which the shepherd
told us," exclaimed Garces, rubbing his eyes in all tranquillity, and
firmly persuaded that what he had thought he heard was no more than that
vague impression of slumber which, on awaking, lingers in the
imagination, as the closing cadence of a melody dwells in the ear after
the last trembling note has ceased. And overcome by the unconquerable
languor weighing down his limbs, he was about to lay his head again upon
the turf, when he heard anew the distant echo of those mystic voices,
which to the accompaniment of the soft stir of the air, the water and
the leaves were singing thus:
CHORUS.
"The archer who watched on the top of the tower has laid his heavy
head down on the wall.
The stealthy hunter who was expecting to surprise the deer has been
surprised by sleep.
The shepherd who awaited the day, consulting the stars, sleeps now,
and will sleep till dawn.
Queen of the water-sprites, follow our steps.
Come to swing in the branches of the willows over the surface of
the water.
"Come to intoxicate thyself with the perfume of the violets which
open at dusk.
"Come to enjoy the night, which is the day of the spirits. "
While the sweet notes of that delicious music floated on the air, Garces
remained motionless. After it had melted away, with much caution he
slightly parted the branches and, not without experiencing a certain
shock, saw come into sight the deer, which, moving in a confused group
and sometimes bounding over the bushes with incredible lightness,
stopping as though listening for others, frolicking together, now hiding
in the thicket, now sallying out again into the path, were descending
the mountain in the direction of the river-pool.
In advance of her companions, more agile, more graceful, more sportive,
more joyous than all of them, leaping, running, pausing and running
again so lightly that she seemed not to touch the ground with her feet,
went the white doe, whose wonderful color stood out like a fantastic
light against the dark background of the trees.
Although the young man was inclined to see in his surroundings something
of the supernatural and miraculous, the fact of the case was that, apart
from the momentary hallucination which disturbed his senses for an
instant, suggesting to him music, murmurs and words, there was nothing
either in the form of the deer, nor in their movements, nor in their
short cries with which they seemed to call one to another, that ought
not to be entirely familiar to a huntsman experienced in this sort of
night expeditions.
In proportion as he put away the first impression, Garces began to take
the practical view of the situation and, smiling inwardly at his
credulity and fright, from that instant was intent only on determining,
in view of the route they were following, the point where the deer would
take the water.
Having made his calculation, he gripped his crossbow between his teeth
and, twisting along like a snake behind the mastic shrubs, located
himself about forty paces from his former situation. Once ensconced in
his new ambush, he waited long enough for the deer to be within the
river, that his aim might be the surer. Scarcely had he begun to hear
that peculiar sound which is produced by the violent disturbance of
water, when Garces commenced to lift himself little by little, with the
greatest precaution, resting first on the tips of his fingers, and
afterwards on one knee.
Erect at last, and assuring himself by touch that his weapon was ready,
he took a step forward, craned his neck above the shrubs to command a
view of the pool and aimed the shaft, but at the very moment when he
strained his eyes, together with the cord, in search of the victim whom
he must wound, there escaped from his lips a faint, involuntary cry of
amazement.
The moon, which had been slowly climbing up the broad horizon, was
motionless, and hung as if suspended in the height of heaven. Her clear
radiance flooded the forest, shimmered on the unquiet surface of the
river, and caused objects to be seen as through an azure gauze.
The deer had disappeared.
In their place, Garces, filled with consternation and almost with
terror, saw a throng of most beautiful women, some of whom were
sportively entering the water, while others were just freeing themselves
from the light garments which as yet concealed from the covetous view
the treasure of their forms.
In those thin, brief dreams of dawn, rich in joyous and luxurious
images,--dreams as diaphanous and celestial as the light which then
begins to shine through the white bed-curtains, never had the
imagination of twenty years sketched with fanciful coloring a scene
equal to that which now presented itself to the eyes of the astonished
Garces.
Having now cast off their robes and their veils of a thousand colors
which, suspended from the trees or thrown carelessly down on the carpet
of turf, stood out against the dim background, the maidens ran hither
and thither through the grove, forming picturesque groups, going in and
out of the water and splashing it in glistening sparks over the flowers
of the margin, like a little shower of dewdrops.
Here, one of them, white as the fleece of a lamb, lifted her fair head
among the green floating leaves of an aquatic plant of which she seemed
the half-opened blossom whose flexible stem, one might imagine, could be
seen to tremble beneath the endless gleaming circles of the waves.
Another, with her hair loose on her shoulders, swung from the branch of
a willow over the river, and her little rose-colored feet made a ray of
silvery light as they grazed the smooth surface. While some remained
couched on the bank, with their blue eyes drowsy, breathing voluptuously
the perfume of the flowers and shivering slightly at the touch of the
fresh breeze, others were dancing in a giddy round, interlacing their
hands capriciously, letting their heads droop back with delicious
abandon, and striking the ground with their feet in harmonious cadence.
It was impossible to follow them in their agile movements, impossible to
take in with a glance the infinite details of the picture they formed,
some running, some gambolling and chasing one another with merry
laughter in and out the labyrinth of trees; others skimming the water
swanlike and cutting the current with uplifted breast; others, diving
into the depths where they remained long before rising to the surface,
bringing one of those wonderful flowers that spring unseen in the bed of
the deep waters.
The gaze of the astonished hunter wandered spellbound from one side to
another, without knowing where to fix itself, until he believed he saw,
seated under swaying boughs which seemed to serve her as a canopy and
surrounded by a group of women, each more beautiful than the rest, who
were aiding her in freeing herself from her delicate vestments, the
object of his secret worship, the daughter of the noble Don Dionis, the
incomparable Constanza.
Passing from one surprise to another, the enamoured youth dared not
credit the testimony of his senses, and thought he was under the
influence of a fascinating, delusive dream.
Still, he struggled in vain to convince himself that all he had seen was
the effect of disordered imagination, for the longer and more
attentively he looked, the more convinced he became that this woman was
Constanza.
He could not doubt; hers were those dusky eyes shaded by the long lashes
that scarcely sufficed to soften the brilliancy of their glance; hers
that wealth of shining hair, which, after crowning her brow, fell over
her white bosom and soft shoulders like a cascade of gold; hers, too,
that graceful neck which supported her languid head, lightly drooping
like a flower weary with its weight of dewdrops; and that fair figure of
which, perchance, he had dreamed, and those hands like clusters of
jasmine, and those tiny feet, comparable only to two morsels of snow
which the sun has not been able to melt and which in the morning lie
white on the greensward.
At the moment when Constanza emerged from the little thicket, all her
beauty unveiled to her lover's eyes, her companions, beginning anew to
sing, carolled these words to the sweetest of melodies.
CHORUS.
"Genii of the air, dwelling in the luminous ether, enveloped in
raiment of silver mist--come!
"Invisible sylphs, leave the cups of the half-opened lilies and
come in your mother-of-pearl chariots drawn through the air
by harnessed butterflies.
"Nymphs of the fountains, forsake your mossy beds and fall upon
us in little, diamond showers.
"Emerald beetles, fiery glow-worms, sable butterflies, come!
"And come, all ye spirits of night, come humming like a swarm of
lustrous, golden insects.
"Come, for now the moon, protector of mysteries, sparkles in the
fulness of splendor.
"Come, for the moment of marvellous transformation is at hand.
"Come, for those who love you, await you with impatience. "
Garces, who remained motionless, felt on hearing those mysterious songs
the asp of jealousy stinging his heart, and yielding to an impulse
stronger than his will, bent on breaking once for all the spell that was
fascinating his senses, thrust apart with a tremulous, convulsive hand
the boughs which concealed him, and with a single bound gained the
river-bank. The charm was broken, everything vanished like a vapor and,
looking about him, he neither saw nor heard more than the noisy
confusion with which the timid deer, surprised at the height of their
nocturnal gambols, were fleeing in fright from his presence, hither and
thither, one clearing the thickets with a bound, another gaining at full
speed the mountain path.
"Oh, well did I say that all these things were only delusions of the
Devil," exclaimed the hunter, "but this time, by good luck, he
blundered, leaving the chief prize in my hands. "
And so, in fact, it was. The white doe, trying to escape through the
grove, had rushed into the labyrinth of its trees and, entangled in a
network of honeysuckles, was striving in vain to free herself. Garces
aimed his shaft, but at the very instant in which he was going to wound
her, the doe turned toward the hunter and arrested his action with a
cry, saying in a voice clear and sharp: "Garces, what wouldst thou do? "
The young man hesitated and, after a moment's doubt, let his bow fall to
the ground, aghast at the mere idea of having been in danger of harming
his beloved. A loud, mocking laugh roused him finally from his stupor.
The white doe had taken advantage of those brief instants to extricate
herself and to flee swift as a flash of lightning, laughing at the trick
played on the hunter.
"Ah, damned offspring of Satan! " he shouted in a terrible voice,
catching up his bow with unspeakable swiftness, "too soon hast thou sung
thy victory; too soon hast thou thought thyself beyond my reach. " And so
saying, he sped the arrow, that went hissing on its way and was lost in
the darkness of the wood, from whose depths there simultaneously came a
shriek followed by choking groans.
"My God! " exclaimed Garces on hearing those sobs of anguish. "My God! if
it should be true! " And beside himself, hardly aware of what he did, he
ran like a madman in the direction in which he had shot the arrow, the
same direction from which sounded the groans. He reached the place at
last, but on arriving there, his hair stood erect with horror, the words
throbbed vainly in his throat and he had to clutch the trunk of a tree
to save himself from falling to the ground.
Constanza, wounded by his hand, was dying there before his eyes,
writhing in her own blood, among the sharp brambles of the mountain.
THE PASSION ROSE
One summer afternoon, in a garden of Toledo, this curious tale was
related to me by a young girl as good as she was pretty.
While explaining to me the mystery of its especial structure, she kissed
the leaves and pistils which she was plucking one by one from the flower
that gives to this legend its name.
If I could tell it with the gentle charm and the appealing simplicity
which it had upon her lips, the history of the unhappy Sara would move
you as it moved me.
But since this cannot be, I here set down what of the tradition I can at
this instant recall.
I.
In one of the most obscure and crooked lanes of the Imperial City,
wedged in and almost hidden between the high Moorish tower of an old
Visigothic church and the gloomy walls, sculptured with armorial
bearings, of a family mansion, there was many years ago a tumbledown
dwelling-house dark and miserable as its owner, a Jew named Daniel Levi.
This Jew, like all his race, was spiteful and vindictive, but for deceit
and hypocrisy he had no match.
The possessor, according to popular report, of an immense fortune, he
might nevertheless be seen all day long huddled up in the shadowy
doorway of his home, making and repairing chains, old belts and broken
trappings of all sorts, in which he carried on a thriving business with
the riff-raff of
[Illustration: A MOORISH WINDOW]
the Zocodover, the hucksters of the Postigo and the poor squires.
Though an implacable hater of Christians and of everything pertaining to
them, he never passed a cavalier of note or an eminent canon without
doffing, not only once, but ten times over, the dingy little cap which
covered his bald, yellow head, nor did he receive in his wretched shop
one of his regular customers without bending low in the most humble
salutations accompanied by flattering smiles.
The smile of Daniel had come to be proverbial in all Toledo, and his
meekness, proof against the most vexatious pranks, mocks and cat-calls
of his neighbors, knew no limit.
In vain the boys, to tease him, stoned his poor old house; in vain the
little pages and even the men-at-arms of the neighboring castle tried to
provoke him by insulting nicknames, or the devout old women of the
parish crossed themselves when passing his door as if they saw the very
Lucifer in person. Daniel smiled eternally with a strange, indescribable
smile. His thin, sunken lips twitched under the shadow of his nose,
which was enormous and hooked like the beak of an eagle, and although
from his eyes, small, green, round and almost hidden by the heavy brows,
there gleamed a spark of ill-suppressed anger, he went on imperturbably
beating with his little iron hammer upon the anvil where he repaired the
thousand rusty and seemingly useless trifles which constituted his stock
in trade.
Over the door of the Jew's humble dwelling and within a casing of
bright-colored tiles there opened an Arabic window left over from the
original building of the Toledan Moors. Around the fretted frame of the
window and climbing over the slender marble colonettes that divided it
into two equal apertures there arose from the interior of the house one
of those climbing plants which, green and full of sap and of exuberant
growth, spread themselves over the blackened walls of ruins.
In the part of the house that received an uncertain light through the
narrow spaces of the casement, the only opening in the time-stained,
weather-worn wall, lived Sara, the beloved daughter of Daniel.
When the neighbors, passing the shop of the Hebrew, chanced to see Sara
through the lattice of her Moorish window and Daniel crouched over his
anvil, they would exclaim aloud in admiration of the charms of the
beautiful Jewess: "It seems impossible that such an ugly old trunk
should have put forth so beautiful a branch! "
For, in truth, Sara was a miracle of beauty. In the pupils of her great
eyes, shadowed by the cloudy arch of their black lashes, gleamed a point
of light like a star in a darkened sky. Her glowing lips seemed to have
been cut from a carmine weft by the invisible hands of a fairy. Her
complexion was pale and transparent as the alabaster of a sepulchral
statue. She was scarcely sixteen years of age and yet there seemed
engraven on her countenance the sweet seriousness of precocious
intelligence, and there arose from her bosom and escaped from her mouth
those sighs which reveal the vague awakening of passion.
The most prominent Jews of the city, captivated by her marvellous
beauty, had sought her in marriage, but the Hebrew maiden, untouched by
the homage of her admirers and the counsels of her father, who urged her
to choose a companion before she should be left alone in the world, held
herself aloof in a deep reserve, giving no other reason for her strange
conduct than the caprice of wishing to retain her freedom. At last, one
of her adorers, tired of suffering Sara's repulses and suspecting that
her perpetual sadness was a certain sign that her heart hid some
important secret, approached Daniel and said to him:
"Do you know, Daniel, that among our brothers there is complaint of your
daughter? "
The Jew raised his eyes for an instant from his anvil, stopped his
eternal hammering and, without showing the least emotion, asked his
questioner:
"And what do they say of her? "
"They say," continued his interlocutor, "they say--what do I know? --many
things; among them, that your daughter is in love with a Christian. " At
this, the despised suitor waited to see what effect his words had had
upon Daniel.
Daniel raised his eyes once more, looked at him fixedly a moment without
speaking and, lowering his gaze again to resume his interrupted work,
exclaimed:
"And who says this is not slander? "
"One who has seen them more than once in this very street talking
together while you were absent at our Rabbinical service," insisted the
young Hebrew, wondering that his mere suspicions, much more his positive
statements, should have made so little impression on the mind of Daniel.
The Jew, without giving up his work, his gaze fixed upon the anvil where
he was now busying himself, his little hammer laid aside, in brightening
the metal clasp of a sword guard with a small file, began to speak in a
low, broken voice as if his lips were repeating mechanically the
thoughts that struggled through his mind:
"He! He! He! " he chuckled, laughing in a strange, diabolical way. "So a
Christian dog thinks he can snatch from me my Sara, the pride of our
people, the staff on which my old age leans! And do you believe he will
do it? He! He! " he continued, always talking to himself and always
laughing, while his file, biting the metal with its teeth of steel,
grated with an ever-increasing force. "He! He! 'Poor Daniel,' my friends
will say, 'is in his dotage. What right has this decrepit old fellow,
already at death's door, to a daughter so young and so beautiful, if he
doesn't know how to guard her from the covetous eyes of our enemies? '
He! He! He! Do you think perchance that Daniel sleeps? Do you think,
peradventure, that if my daughter has a lover--and that might well
be--and this lover is a Christian and tries to win her heart and wins
it--all which is possible--and plans to flee with her--which also is
easy--and flees, for instance, to-morrow morning,--which falls within
human probability,--do you think that Daniel will suffer his treasure to
be thus snatched away? Do you think he will not know how to avenge
himself? "
"But," exclaimed the youth, interrupting him, "did you then know it
before? "
"I know," said Daniel, rising and giving him a slap on the shoulder, "I
know more than you, who know nothing, and would know nothing had not the
hour come for telling all. Adieu! Bid our brethren assemble as soon as
possible. To-night, in an hour or two, I will be with them. Adieu! "
And saying this, Daniel gently pushed his interlocutor out into the
street, gathered up his tools very slowly, and began to fasten with
double bolts and bars the door of his little shop.
The noise made by the door as it closed on its creaking hinges prevented
the departing youth from hearing the sound of the window lattice, which
at the same time fell suddenly as if the Jewess were just withdrawing
from the embrasure.
II.
It was the night of Good Friday, and the people of Toledo, after having
attended the service of the Tenebrae in their magnificent cathedral, had
just retired to rest, or, gathered at their firesides, were relating
legends like that of the Christ of the Light, a statue which, stolen by
Jews, left a trail of blood causing the discovery of the criminals, or
the story of the Child Martyr, upon whom the implacable enemies of our
faith repeated the cruel Passion of Jesus. In the city there reigned a
profound silence, broken at intervals, now by the distant cries of the
night-watchman, at that epoch accustomed to keep guard about the
Alcazar, and again by the sighing of the wind which was whirling the
weather-cocks of the towers or sighing through the tortuous windings of
the streets. At this dead hour the master of a little boat that, moored
to a post, lay swaying near the mills which seem like natural
incrustations at the foot of the rocks bathed by the Tagus and above
which the city is seated, saw approaching the shore, descending with
difficulty one of the narrow paths which lead down from the height of
the walls to the river, a person whom he seemed to await with
impatience.
"It is she," the boatman muttered between his teeth. "It would seem that
this night all that accursed race of Jews is bent on mischief. Where the
devil will they hold their tryst with Satan that they all come to my
boat when the bridge is so near? No, they are bound on no honest errand
when they take such pains to avoid a sudden meeting with the soldiers of
San Servando,--but, after all, they give me the chance to earn good
money and--every man for himself--it is no business of mine. "
Saying this, the worthy ferryman, seating himself in his boat, adjusted
the oars, and when Sara, for it was no other than she for whom he had
been waiting, had leaped into the little craft, he cast off the rope
that held it and began to row toward the opposite shore.
"How many have crossed to-night? " asked Sara of the boatman, when they
had scarcely pulled away from the mills, as though referring to
something of which they had just been speaking.
"I could not count them," he replied, "a swarm. It looks as though
to-night will be the last of their gatherings. "
"And do you know what they have in mind and for what purpose they leave
the city at this hour? "
"I don't know, but it is likely that they are expecting some one who
ought to arrive to-night. I cannot tell why they are lying in wait for
him, but I suspect for no good end. "
After this brief dialogue Sara remained for some moments plunged in deep
silence as if trying to collect her thoughts. "Beyond a doubt," she
reflected, "my father has discovered our love and is preparing some
terrible vengeance. I must know where they go, what they do, and what
they are plotting. A moment of hesitation might be death to him. "
While Sara sprang to her feet and, as if to thrust away the horrible
doubts that distracted her, passed her hand over her forehead which
anguish had covered with an icy sweat, the boat touched the opposite
shore.
"Friend," exclaimed the beautiful Jewess, tossing some coins to the
ferryman and pointing to a narrow, crooked road that wound up among the
rocks, "is that the way they take? "
"It is, and when they come to the Moor's Head they turn to the left.
Then the Devil and they know where they go next," replied the boatman.
Sara set out in the direction he had indicated. For some moments he saw
her appear and disappear alternately in that dusky labyrinth of dim,
steep rocks. When she had reached the summit called the Moor's Head, her
dark silhouette was outlined for an instant against the azure background
of the sky and then was lost amid the shades of night.
III.
On the path where to-day stands the picturesque hermitage of the Virgin
of the Valley, and about two arrow flights from the summit known by the
Toledan populace as the Moor's Head, there existed at that period the
ruins of a Byzantine church of date anterior to the Arab conquest.
In the porch, outlined by rough blocks of marble scattered over the
ground, were growing brambles and other parasitical plants, among which
lay, half concealed--here, the shattered capital of a column, there, a
square-hewn stone rudely sculptured with interlacing leaves, horrible or
grotesque monsters and formless human figures. Of the temple there
remained standing only the side walls and some broken ivy-grown arches.
Sara, who seemed to be guided by a supernatural instinct, on arriving at
the point the boatman had indicated, hesitated a little, uncertain which
way to take; but, finally, with a firm and resolute step, directed her
course toward the abandoned ruins of the church.
In truth, her instinct had not been at fault; Daniel, who was no longer
smiling, no longer the feeble and humble old man, but rather, fury
flashing from his little round eyes, seemed inspired by the spirit of
Vengeance, was in the midst of a throng of Jews eager, like himself, to
wreak their thirsty hate on one of the enemies of their religion. He
seemed to multiply himself, giving orders to some, urging others forward
in the work, making, with a hideous solicitude, all the necessary
preparations for the accomplishment of the frightful deed which he had
been meditating, day in, day out, while, impassive, he hammered the
anvil in his den at Toledo.
Sara, who, favored by the darkness, had succeeded in reaching the porch
of the church, had to make a supreme effort to suppress a cry of horror
as her glance penetrated its interior. In the ruddy glow of a blaze
which threw the shadow of that infernal group on the walls of the
church, she thought she saw that some were making efforts to raise a
heavy cross, while others wove a crown of briers, or sharpened on a
stone the points of enormous nails. A fearful thought crossed her mind.
She remembered that her race had been accused more than once of
mysterious crimes. She recalled vaguely the terrifying story of the
Crucified Child which she had hitherto believed a gross calumny invented
by the populace for the taunting and reproaching of the Hebrews.
But now there was no longer room for doubt. There, before her eyes, were
those awful instruments of martyrdom, and the ferocious executioners
only awaited their victim.
Sara, filled with holy indignation, overflowing with noble wrath and
inspired by that unquenchable faith in the true God whom her lover had
revealed to her, could not control herself at sight of that spectacle,
and, breaking through the tangled undergrowth that concealed her,
suddenly appeared on the threshold of the temple.
On beholding her the Jews raised a cry of amazement, and Daniel, taking
a step toward his daughter with threatening aspect, hoarsely asked her:
"What seekest thou here, unhappy one? "
"I come to cast in your faces," said Sara, in a clear, unfaltering
voice, "all the shame of your infamous work and I come to tell you that
in vain you await the victim for the sacrifice, unless you mean to
quench in me your thirst for blood, for the Christian you are expecting
will not come, because I have warned him of your plot. "
"Sara! " exclaimed the Jew, roaring with anger, "Sara, this is not true;
thou canst not have been so treacherous to us as to reveal our
mysterious rites. If it is true that thou hast revealed them, thou art
no longer my daughter. "
"No, I am not thy daughter. I have found another Father, a father all
love for his children, a Father whom you Jews nailed to an ignominious
cross and who died upon it to redeem us, opening to us for an eternity
the doors of heaven. No, I am no longer thy daughter, for I am a
Christian, and I am ashamed of my origin. "
On hearing these words, pronounced with that strong fortitude which
heaven puts only into the mouth of martyrs, Daniel, blind with rage,
rushed upon the beautiful Hebrew girl and, throwing her to the ground,
dragged her by the hair, as though he were possessed by an infernal
spirit, to the foot of the cross which seemed to open its bare arms to
receive her.
"Here I deliver her up to you," he exclaimed to those who stood around.
"Deal justice to this shameless one, who has sold her honor, her
religion and her brethren. "
IV.
On the day following, when the cathedral bells were pealing the Gloria
and the worthy citizens of Toledo were amusing themselves by shooting
from crossbows at Judases of straw, just as is done to-day in some of
our villages, Daniel opened the door of his shop, according to his
custom and, with that everlasting smile on his lips, commenced to salute
the passers-by, beating ceaselessly on his anvil with his little iron
hammer; but the lattices of Sara's Moorish window were unopened, nor was
the beautiful Jewess ever seen again reclining at her casement of
colored tiles.
* * * * *
They say that some years afterward a shepherd brought to the archbishop
a flower till then unknown, in which were represented all the
instruments of the Saviour's martyrdom--a flower strange and mysterious,
which had grown, a climbing vine, over the crumbling walls of the ruined
church.
Penetrating into that precinct and seeking to discover the origin of
this marvel, there was found, they add, the skeleton of a woman and,
buried with her, those instruments of the Passion which characterize the
flower.
The skeleton, although no one could ascertain whose it might be, was
preserved many years with special veneration in the hermitage of _San
Pedro el Verde_, and the flower, now common, is called the Passion
Rose.
BELIEVE IN GOD
_A Provencal Ballad. _
"_I was the true Teobaldo de Montagut, Baron of Fortcastell. Lord or
serf, noble or commoner, thou, whosoever thou mayst be, who pausest an
instant beside my sepulchre, believe in God, as I have believed, and
pray for me. _"
Ye gallant Knights Errant, who, lance in rest, vizor closed, mounted on
powerful charger, ride the world over with no more patrimony than your
illustrious name and your good sword, seeking honor and glory in the
profession of arms,--if on crossing the rugged valley of Montagut you
have been overtaken by night and storm and have found a refuge in the
ruins of the monastery still to be seen in its bosom, hearken to me!
Ye Shepherds, who follow with slow step your herds that go grazing far
and wide over the hills and plains, if on leading them to the border of
the transparent rivulet which runs, struggling and leaping, amid the
great rocks of the valley of Montagut in the drought of summer, ye have
found, on a fiery afternoon, shade and slumber beneath the broken
monastery arches, whose mossy pillars kiss the waves, hearken to me!
Little Daughters of the hamlets roundabout, ye wild lilies who bloom
happy in the shelter of your humbleness, if on the morning of the Patron
Saint of this locality, coming down into the valley of Montagut to
gather clovers and daisies to deck his shrine, conquering the fear which
the sombre monastery, rising on its rocks, strikes to your childish
hearts, ye have ventured into its silent and deserted cloister to wander
amid its forsaken tombs, on whose edges grow the fullest-petaled daisies
and the bluest harebells, hearken to me!
Thou, Noble Knight, perchance by the gleam of a lightning flash; thou,
Wandering Shepherd, bronzed by the fierce heat of the sun; thou, Lovely
Child, still besprent with drops of dew like tears, all ye would have
seen in that holy place a tomb, a lowly tomb. Formerly it consisted of
an unhewn stone and a wooden cross; the cross has disappeared and only
the stone remains. In this tomb, whose inscription is the motto of my
song, rests in peace the last baron of Fortcastell, Teobaldo de
Montagut, whose strange history I am about to tell.
I.
While the noble Countess of Montagut was pregnant with her firstborn
son, Teobaldo, she had a strange and terrible dream. Perchance a divine
warning; mayhap a vain fantasy which time made real in later years. She
dreamed that in her womb she had borne a serpent, a monstrous serpent
that, darting out shrill hisses, now gliding through the short grass,
now coiling upon itself for a spring, fled from her sight, hiding at
last in a clump of briers.
"There it is!
