Tales of the Wonder Club Volume III Part 12

D. PAS. I thank thee, mother, I have soundly slept; My wound's already healed. The gipsy balm Hath wrought a miracle.

GIP. Q. (_Aside._) He calls me mother.

See how the native gipsy blood's instinct Speaks through the lips of half-unconscious sense.

I'll wager he already half divines His occult parentage.

D. PAS. (_Looking around him._) Mother, where's Inez?

GIP. Q. (_Aside._) Mother again; but Inez fills his thoughts.

Hast thou no mem'ry, youth, of last nights fray? [_Aloud._

D. PAS. But little, mother; all is still confused.

GIP. Q. Then be thou patient, for I've much to tell.

But say, how is't, thou ever call'st me mother?

D. PAS. In faith I know not how my careless tongue Could shape a word so tender to thee, Queen, Who art a stranger to me. Yet I feel, And felt from the first moment that I gazed Upon thy dusky brow, a mother's heart Did beat for me within that hardy breast.

Why I know not. I, too, who never knew A mother's love, whose infant steps were led By other than a mother's hand. A good Kind lady, long since dead, adopted me, And dying, left me all her patrimony, Which hitherto has been doled out to me By guardians, until I should come of age.

One Father Miguel, whom I seldom saw, Paid my expenses at the seminary; But when I asked him questions of my birth I never got intelligent response, So that I long have thought some mystery Doth underly the subject of my birth.

GIP Q. I knew the Lady Angela, and loved her.

D. PAS. Good Heavens! What, that name! The lady who----

GIP. Q. Adopted thee and Father Miguel too.

D. PAS. And Father Miguel!

GIP. Q. Does that surprise thee?

I could tell thee more.

D. PAS. More than that! Ay, then Who knows thou may'st not discover The secret of my birth.

GIP. Q. Secrets as strange Have often been discovered by gipsies.

Am I not a gipsy? Can I not read The destinies of all, mapped out for thee By the great heavenly bodies? Think'st thou that Our meeting was not fashioned by the stars And known to me beforehand?

D. PAS. Even that!

GIP. Q. Ay, and your meeting with the Lady Inez.

D. PAS. That, too! Nay, tell me more. I fain would hear.

GIP. Q. Not so fast. Thou'rt o'er excitable.

Calm thyself first an thou wouldst hear more Of that young damsel. But of her anon.

D. PAS. Weird and mysterious being, as I read Thy mystic brow a whisper seems to say I've seen thee once before. Say, art thou not That crone who ever haunts me in my dreams, Known in my youth, who once gave me this ring?

GIP. Q. The same, the same! I've watched thee from a child.

D. PAS. And by that ring thou knowest me.

GIP. Q. 'Tis true.

D. PAS. Ay, now I know thee. Tell me now, O Queen, Why tookest thou an interest in my fate?

GIP. Q. The tale is long and sad, but thou must hear.

Be patient and lend an attentive ear.

Know, then, that in Grenada's lofty range There stands a twin-peaked mountain doubly-crowned, With two grim feudal castles, old, yet strong.

The owners of these fortresses of yore Were aye at feud, until at last the one Subdued the other. Ever since that day The victor's star in the ascendant seemed, For though in later times they turned to friends, Who had been foes, and were allied together In skirmishes with castles neighbouring, In which they came off gainers, still, the one-- The larger and the richer one, I mean, The whilom victor of the other peak-- Did e'er with haughty overbearing sneer Upon his humbler neighbour, and would bind The poorer lord with obligations strong, For favours often granted, till at last The lesser lord became dependent on The greater one, and ever poorer grew And more dependent, and so stands the case.

Things will not long be thus. A change will come.

The Fates predict it, and the proud one's star Already's on the wane.

D. PAS. In sooth, good Queen!

But tell me what has this to do with me?

GIP. Q. Peace! It concerns thee much, as thou shalt hear.

The father of the present owner of The richer castle, Don Fernando height, I do remember well when but a child.

A warrior proud was he, like all his race.

His son, the present lord, is like him. He Whose name I've vowed shall ne'er more pa.s.s my lips.

D. PAS. Ha!

GIP. Q. Interrupt me not. Thou soon shalt hear.

This lord, who shall be nameless, in his youth (He now is old) did love a gipsy maid, Who, in the freshness of her virgin heart, Returned his pa.s.sion, being but a child, Whilst he, the villain, was a full-grown man Of forty years and over. Still he bore His years so lightly that he younger seemed.

With pa.s.sion fierce he wooed the gipsy maid, And pleaded in such moving tropes his love, That the young gipsy's heart--not then of stone, Though long since turned to flint--did melt, and he, Seeing his prey secure, did plot her ruin.

But the child had a father, old and wise, Of royal blood, too, known as King Djabel, And proud, too, of his lineage and his race.

He thought it lowering to true gipsy blood To mate with pale-faced Christians, even though 'Twere to a Christian king and by the church, Drawn up with legal doc.u.ment and signed In all due form, and when he heard that I Did to a Christian's love lend listening ear.

D. PAS. You? _You_, O Queen, then, were the gipsy maid.

You're speaking of yourself. I understand.

GIP. Q. (_Starting_) My tongue has tripped, and traitor turned. Why then Pursue my tale under false colours? Aye, Know that I, Pepa, was the gipsy maid Once beloved of that false Don Diego.

D. PAS. Don Diego.

GIP. Q. Ha! My tongue has tripped again.

I vowed that name should ne'er more pa.s.s my lips.

Well, this false lord, with subtle wiles and arts Did so win my young heart, that King Djabel, Furious at first at what he deemed a stain Upon his lineage, threatened me with death, And would have killed me, had I brought dishonour On his fair name. But deem not that I fell.

I loved him--and how dearly! But he found That the proud gipsy maid, though young, would not Barter her honour. Not for wealth untold.

He then made promises that I should be Mistress of all his castle and his lands After his father's death. Till then, he said, Our match must be clandestine, as his father Would disinherit him were he to know That his son were wedded to a gipsy.

Our plans were well nigh ripe, for oft we met In secret, and had full time to discuss Our future prospects, left quite undisturbed.

But one day King Djabel, suspecting guile, Did lie in wait for us, and with drawn blade From ambush out did spring upon the pair, And straight did fall upon this haughty lord, The would-be dishonourer of his child.

But Pepa threw herself between her lover And angered father, and so stayed the blow And clinging to him, ever called upon Her furious sire to spare the gentle lord, And bid him smite _her_ breast if _one_ must die.

But Djabel loved his daughter, and did pause, Touched for a moment with her pleading prayer.

When, seeing him more calm, the wily don Did straight, in full and flowing courteous speech, Declare his love for me, and how he sought Not to make me his minion, but his wife.

But Djabel, answering with haughty scorn, Said: "Go back to thy castle, Christian lord, And wed some damsel of the pale-faced herd.

No blood of thine must mar our gipsy race."

The don's eye flashed. He would have spoken words Full of wild fury and deep bitterness; But Pepa interposed again, and flung Herself on bended knees before her sire, And begged her knight kneel too, and join her prayer.

The don at first loathing much to grovel Down in the dust before a gipsy chief, Whom he esteemed a savage, yet did yield, And for my sake did bend his haughty knee.