The Vale of Cedars Part 21

A cry of mingled disappointment, horror, and execration, burst from all around; and several of the soldiers hastened from the battlements to the base of the rock, determined on fighting the arch-fiend himself, if, as many of them firmly believed, he had rendered Don Luis invulnerable to air, and would wait there to receive him. But even this heroic resolution was disappointed: the height was so tremendous, and the velocity of the fall so frightful, that the action of the air had not only deprived him of life, but actually loosed the limbs from the trunk, and a fearfully mangled corpse was all that remained to glut the vengeance of the infuriated soldiers.

The confusion and excitement attending this important event, spread like wildfire; not only over Albania, but reaching to the Duke's camp without the city. To send off the momentous information to the King, was instantly decided upon; and young Stanley, as the person princ.i.p.ally concerned, selected for the mission.

Ferdinand was astonished and indignant, and greatly disappointed that justice had been so eluded; but that such a monster, whose machinations seemed, in their subtlety and secrecy, to prevent all defeat, no longer c.u.mbered Spain, was in itself a relief so great both to monarch and people, as after the first burst of indignation to cause universal rejoicings.

It so happened that Ferdinand had been desirous of Stanley's presence for some weeks; letters from Isabella, some little time previous, had expressed an earnest desire for the young man's return to Saragossa, if only for a visit of a few days. This was then impossible. Three months had elapsed since Isabella's first communication; within the last two she had not again reverted to Stanley; but the King, thinking she had merely refrained from doing so, because of its present impossibility, gladly seized the opportunity of his appearance at Seville, to dispatch him, as envoy extraordinary, on both public and private business, to the court of Arragon.

Isabella was surrounded by her ministers and n.o.bles when Stanley was conducted to her presence; she received him with cordiality and graciousness, asked many and eager questions concerning her husband and the progress of his arms, entered minutely into the affair of Don Luis, congratulated him on his having been the hand destined to unmask the traitor and bring him low; gave her full attention on the instant to the communications from the King, with which he was charged; occupied some hours in earnest and thoughtful deliberation with her counsel, which, on perusal of the King's papers, she had summoned directly. And yet, through all this, Arthur fancied there was an even unusual degree of sympathy and kindliness in the tone and look with which she addressed him individually; but he felt intuitively it was sympathy with sorrow, not with joy. He was convinced that his unexpected presence had startled and almost grieved her; and why should this be, if she had still the hope with which she had so infused his spirit, when they had parted. His heart, so full of elasticity a few hours previous, sunk chilled and pained within him, and it was with an effort impossible to have been denied, had it not been for the Queen's _unspoken_ but real sympathy; he roused himself sufficiently to execute his mission.

But Isabella was too much the true and feeling woman, to permit the day to close without the private interview she saw Stanley needed; reality, sad as it was, she felt would be better than harrowing suspense; and, in a few kindly words, the tale was told.

"I should have known it!" he exclaimed, when the first shock of bitter disappointment permitted words. "My own true, precious Marie! How dared I dream that for me thou wouldst sacrifice thy faith; all, all else--joy, hope, strength; aye, life itself--but not thy G.o.d! Oh, Madam," he continued, turning pa.s.sionately to the Queen, "thou hast not condemned her to misery for this! Thou hast not revoked thy former heavenly mercy, and delivered her over to the stern fathers of our holy church? No, no! Isabella could not have done this!"

"Nor have we," replied the Queen, so mildly that Arthur flung himself at her feet, conjuring her to pardon his disrespectful words. "Give her to thee, without retracting her fearful misbelief, indeed we dared not, but further misery has not been inflicted. We have indeed done penance for our weakness, severe penance; for Father Tomas a.s.serts that we have most grievously sinned; and more, have pledged ourselves most solemnly, that what he may counsel for the entire uprooting of this horrible heresy, and accursed race, shall be followed, cost what it may, politically or privately; but to refuse the last boon of the unhappy girl, who had so strangely, perchance so bewilderingly, wound herself about my heart--Stanley, I must have changed my nature first!"

"Her last boon! Gracious Sovereign--"

"Nay, her last to her Sovereign, my friend. It may be that even yet her errors may be abjured, and grace be granted in her solitude, to become in this world as the next, what we have prayed for; but we dare not hope it; nor must thou. She besought permission to return to the home of her childhood, pledging herself never to leave it, or mingle with her people or ours more."

"And she is there! G.o.d in Heaven bless, reward your Highness for the mercy!" burst impetuously from Arthur. "I trust she is, nay, I believe it; for Jewess as she is, she would not pledge me false. In the garb of the novice, as she saved thee, Father Denis conducted her to the frontiers of Castile. More we know not, for we asked not the site of her home."

There was a few minutes' pause, and then, with beseeching eloquence, Arthur conjured the Sovereign to let him see her once, but once again.

He asked no more, but he felt as if he could not sustain the agony of eternal separation, without one last, last interview. He pledged his honor, that no temptation of a secret union should interfere with the sentence of the Queen; that both would submit; only to permit them once more to meet again.

Isabella hesitated, but not for long. Perhaps the secret hope arose that Stanley's presence would effect that for which all else had failed; or that she really could not resist his pa.s.sionate pleadings.

"One word of retraction, and even now she is thine.--And I will bless thee that thou gavest her to me again," she said in parting; but her own spirit told her the hope was vain.

Half an hour after this agitating interview Arthur Stanley was again on horseback, a deep hectic on either cheek; his eye bloodshot and strained, traversing with the speed of lightning the open country, in the direction of Castile.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

"Oh! love, love, strong as death--from such an hour Pressing out joy by thine immortal power; Holy and fervent love! Had earth but rest For thee and thine, this world were all too fair: How could we thence be weaned to die without despair!

"But woe for him who felt that heart grow still Which with its weight of agony had lain Breaking on his. Scarce could the mortal chill Of the hushed bosom, ne'er to heave again, And all the curdling silence round the eye, Bring home the stern belief that she could die."

MRS. HEMANS.

The glowing light of a glorious sunset lingered on the Vale of Cedars, displaying that calm and beautiful retreat in all the fair and rich luxuriance of former years. Reuben and Ruth, the aged retainers of the house of Henriquez, had made it their pride and occupation to preserve the cherished retreat, lovely as it had been left. Nor were they its only inmates; their daughter, her husband, and children, after various struggles in the Christian world, had been settled in the Vale by the benevolence of Ferdinand Morales--their sole duty, to preserve it in such order, as to render it a fitting place of refuge for any who should need it. Within the last twelve months, another inmate had been added to them. Weary of his wanderings, and of the constant course of deception which his apparent profession of a monk demanded, Julien Morales had returned to the home of his childhood, there to fix his permanent abode; only to make such excursions from it, as the interests of his niece might demand. Her destiny was his sole anxious thought. Her detention by Isabella convinced him that her disguise had been penetrated, and filled him with solicitude for her spiritual, yet more than her temporal welfare. Royal protection of a Jewess was so unprecedented, that it could only argue the hope--nay, perhaps conviction--of her final conversion. And the old man actually tried to divorce the sweet image of his niece from his affections, so convinced was he that her unhappy love for Arthur, combined with Isabella's authority, and, no doubt, the threat of some terrible alternative should she refuse, would compel her acceptance of the proffered cross, and so sever them for ever. How little can man, even the most gentle and affectionate, read woman!

It was the day completing the eleventh month after Don Ferdinand's murder, when Julien Morales repaired earlier than usual to the little temple, there to read the service for the dead appointed for the day, and thence proceeded to his nephew's grave. An unusual object, which had fallen on, or was kneeling beside the grave, caught his eye, and impelled him to quicken his pace. His heart throbbed as he recognized the garb of a novice, and to such a degree as almost to deprive him of all power, as in the white, chiselled features, resting on the cold, damp sod, he recognized his niece, and believed, for the first agonizing moment, that it was but clay resting against clay; and that the sweet, pure spirit had but guided her to that grave and flown. But death for a brief interval withdrew his grasp; though his shaft had reached her, and no human hand could draw it back. Father Denis had conducted her so carefully and tenderly to the frontiers of Castile, that she had scarcely felt fatigue, and encountered no exposure to the elements; but when he left her, her desire to reach her home became stronger, with the seeming physical incapacity to do so. Her spirit gave way, and mental and bodily exhaustion followed. The season was unusually damp and tempestuous, and, though scarcely felt at the time, sowed the seeds of cold and decline, from which her naturally good const.i.tution might, in the very midst of her trials, otherwise have saved her. Her repugnance to encounter the eyes or speech of her fellows, lest her disguise should be penetrated, caused her to shrink from entering any habitation, except for the single night which intervened, between the period of the father's leaving her and her reaching the secret entrance to the Vale. Her wallet provided her with more food than her parched throat could swallow; and for the consuming thirst, the fresh streams that so often bubbled across her path, gave her all she needed. The fellowship of man, then, was unrequited, and, as the second night fell, so comparatively short a distance lay between her and her home, that buoyed up by the desire to reach it, she was not sensible of her utter exhaustion, till she stood within the little graveyard of the Vale; and the moon shining softly and clearly on the headstones, disclosed to her the grave of her husband.

She was totally ignorant that he had been borne there; and the rush of feeling which came over her, as she read his name--the memories of their happy, innocent, childhood, of all his love for her--that had he been but spared, all the last year's misery might have been averted, for she would have loved him, ay, even as he loved her; and he would have guarded, saved--so overpowered her, that she had sunk down upon the senseless earth which covered him, conscious only of the wild, sickly longing, like him to flee away and be at rest. She had reached her home; exertion no longer needed, the unnatural strength, ebbed fast, and the frail tenement withered, hour by hour, away. And how might Julien mourn! Her work on earth was done. Young, tried, frail as she was, she had been permitted to show forth the glory, the sustaining glory, of her faith, by a sacrifice whose magnitude was indeed apparent, but whose depth and intensity of suffering, none knew but Him for whom it had been made. She had been preserved from the crime--if possible more fearful in the mind of the Hebrew than any other--apostacy: and though the first conviction, that she was indeed "pa.s.sing away" even from his affection, was fraught with absolute anguish, yet her uncle could not, dared not pray for life on earth.

And in the peace, the calm, the depth, of quietude which gradually sunk on her heart, infusing her every word and look and gentle smile, it was as if her spirit had already the foretaste of that blissful heaven for which its wings were plumed. As the frame dwindled, the expression of her sweet face became more and more unearthly in its exquisite beauty, the mind more and more beatified, and the heart more freed from earthly feeling. The reward of her constancy appeared in part bestowed on earth, for death itself was revealed to her--not as the King of Terrors, but as an Angel of Light, at whose touch the lingering raiment of mortality would dissolve, and the freed soul spring up rejoicing to its home.

It was the Feast of the Tabernacle and the Sabbath eve. The tent--formed of branches of thick trees and fragrant shrubs--was erected, as we have seen it in a former page, a short distance from the temple. Marie's taste had once again, been consulted in its decorations; her hand, feeble as it was, had twined the lovely wreaths of luscious flowers and arranged the glowing fruit. With some difficulty she had joined in the devotional service performed by her uncle in the little temple--borne there in the arms of old Reuben, for her weakness now prevented walking--and on the evening of the Sabbath in the Festival, she reclined on one of the luxurious couches within the tent, through the opening of which, she could look forth on the varied beauties of the Vale, and the rich glorious hues dyeing the western skies. The Sabbath lamps were lighted, but their rays were faint and flickering in the still glowing atmosphere. A crimson ray from the departing luminary gleamed through the branches, and a faint glow--either from its reflection, or from that deceiving beauty, which too often gilds the features of the dying--rested on Marie's features, lighting up her large and l.u.s.trous eyes with unnatural brilliance. She had been speaking earnestly of that life beyond the grave, belief in which throughout her trials had been her sole sustainer. Julien had listened, wrapt and almost awe-struck, so completely did it seem as if the spirit, and not the mortal, spoke.

"And thine own trials, my beloved one," he said,--"Has the question never come, why thou shouldst thus have been afflicted?"

"Often, very often, my father, and only within the last few weeks has the full answer come; and I can say from my inmost heart, in the words of Job, 'It is good that I have been afflicted,' and that I believe all is well. While _on_ earth, we must be in some degree _of_ earth, and bear the penalty of our earthly nature. The infirmities and imperfections of that nature in others, as often as in ourselves, occasion human misery, which our G.o.d, in his infinite love, permits, to try our spirit's strength and faith, and so prepare us for that higher state of being, in which the spirit will move and act, when the earthly sh.e.l.l is shivered, and earthly infirmities are for ever stilled. In the time of suffering we cannot think thus; but looking back as I do now--when the near vicinity of another world bids me regard my own past life almost as if it were another's--I feel it in my inmost heart, and bless G.o.d for every suffering which has prepared me thus early for his home. There is but one feeling, one wish of earth, remaining," she continued, after a long pause of utter exhaustion. "It is weak, perhaps, and wrong; but if--if Arthur could but know that fatal secret which made me seem a worse deceiver than I was--I know it cannot be, but it so haunts me. If I wedded one Christian, may he not think there needed not this sacrifice--sacrifice not of myself, but of his happiness. Oh! could I but--Hush! whose step is that?" she suddenly interrupted herself; and with the effort of strong excitement, started up, and laid her hand on her uncle's arm.

"Nay, my child, there is no sound," he replied soothingly, after listening attentively for several moments.

"But there is. Hark, dost thou not hear it now? G.o.d of mercy! thou hast heard my prayer--it is _his_!" she exclaimed, sinking powerlessly back, at the moment that even Julien's duller ear had caught a rapid step; and in another minute the branches were hastily pushed aside, and Stanley indeed stood upon the threshold.

"Marie--and thus!" he pa.s.sionately exclaimed; and flinging himself on his knees beside her, he buried his face on her hand, and wept in agony.

Nearly an hour pa.s.sed ere Marie could rally from the agitation of Arthur's unexpected presence sufficiently to speak. She lay with her hand clasped in his, and his arm around her--realizing, indeed, to the full, the soothing consolation of his presence, but utterly powerless to speak that for which she had so longed to see him once again. The extent of her weakness had been unknown till that moment either to her uncle or herself, and Julien watched over her in terror lest the indefinable change which in that hour of stillness was perceptibly stealing over her features should be indeed the dim shadow of death.

To Arthur speech was equally impossible, save in the scarcely articulate expressions of love and veneration which he lavished on her. What he had hoped in thus seeking her he could not himself have defined. His whole soul was absorbed in the wild wish to see her again, and the thoughts of death for her had never entered his heart.

The shock, then, had been terrible, and to realize the infinite mercy which thus bade sorrow cease, was in such a moment impossible. He could but gaze and clasp her closer and closer, yet, as if even death should be averted by his love.

"Uncle Julien," she murmured, as she faintly extended her hand towards him, "thou wilt not refuse to clasp hands with one who has so loved thy Marie! And thou, Arthur, oh! scorn him not. Without him the invisible dungeons of the Inquisition would have been my grave, and thine that of a dishonored knight and suspected murderer."

The eyes of her companions met, and their hands were grasped in that firm pressure, betraying unity of feeling, and reciprocal esteem, which need no words.

"Raise me a little, dearest Arthur; uncle Julien" put back that spreading bough. I would say something more, and the fresher air may give me strength. Ah! the evening breeze is so fresh and sweet; it always makes me feel as if the spirits of those we loved were hovering near us. We hold much closer and dearer communion with the beloved dead in the calm twilight than in the garish day. Arthur, dearest, thou wilt think of me sometimes in an hour like this."

"When shall I not think of thee?" he pa.s.sionately rejoined. "Oh, Marie, Marie! I thought separation on earth the worst agony that could befall me; but what--what is it compared to the eternal one of death?"

"No, no, not eternal, Arthur. In heaven I feel there is no distinction of creed or faith; we shall all love G.o.d and one another there, and earth's fearful distinctions can never come between us. I know such is not the creed of thy people, nor of some of mine; but when thou standest on the verge of eternity, as I do now, thou wilt feel this too."

"How can I gaze on thee, and not believe it?" he replied. "The loudest thunders of the church could not shake my trust in the purity of heaven, which is thine."

"Because thou lovest, Arthur. Thy love for Marie is stronger than thy hatred of her race; and, oh! if thou lovest thus, I know thou hast forgiven."

"Forgiven!" he pa.s.sionately reiterated.

"Yes, dearest Arthur. Is the past indeed so obliterated that the wrong I did thee is forgotten even as forgiven? But, oh, Arthur! it was not so unjustifiable as it seemed then. I dared not breathe the truth in Isabella's court. I dare not whisper it now save to thee, who would die rather than reveal it. Arthur, dearest Arthur, it was no Christian whom I wedded. We had been betrothed from early childhood, though I knew it not; and when the time came, I could not draw down on me a father's curse, or dash with agony a heart that so cherished, so loved me, by revelation of a truth which could avail me nothing, and would bring him but misery. Ferdinand was my cousin--a child of Israel, as myself."

"Now heaven bless thee for those words, my own, true, precious Marie!"

exclaimed Stanley, in strong emotion, and clasping her still closer, he pressed his quivering lips to her forehead, starting in agony as he marked the cold, damp dews which had gathered upon it, too truly the index of departing life. He besought her to speak no more--the exertion was exhausting her; she smiled faintly, drank of the reviving draught which Julien proffered, and lay for a few minutes calm and still.

"I am better now," she said, after an interval. "It was only the excitement of speaking that truth, which I have so long desired to reveal--to clear my memory from the caprice and inconstancy with which even thy love must have charged me; and now, Arthur, promise me that thou wilt not mourn me too long: that thou wilt strive to conquer the morbid misery, which I know, if encouraged, will cloud thy whole life, and unfit thee for the glorious career which must otherwise be thine.

Do not forget me wholly, love, but deem it not a duty to my memory never to love again. Arthur, dearest, thou canst bestow happiness on another, and one of thine own faith, even such happiness as to have been thy wife would have given me. Do not reject the calm rest and peacefulness, which such love will bring to thee, though now thou feelest as if the very thought were loathing. She will speak to thee of me; for Jewess as she knew me, she has loved and tended me in suffering, and so wept my banishment, that my frozen tears had well nigh flowed in seeing hers. Seek her in Isabella's court, and try to love her, Arthur--if at first merely for my sake, it will soon, soon be for her own."

Impressively and pleadingly, these words fell on Arthur's aching heart, even at that moment when he felt to comply with them was and must ever be impossible. When time had done its work, and softened individual agony, they returned again and yet again; and at each returning, seemed less painful to obey.

"And Isabella, my kind, loving, generous mistress," she continued, after a very long pause, and her voice was so faint as scarcely to make distinguishable the words, save for the still lingering sweetness, and clearness of her articulation--"Oh! what can I say to her? Arthur, dearest Arthur, thou must repay the debt of grat.i.tude I owe her. Her creed condemns, but her heart loves me--aye, still, still! And better (though she cannot think so) than had I for earthly joy turned traitor to my G.o.d. Oh, tell her how with my last breath I loved and blessed her, Arthur; tell her we shall meet again, where Jew and Gentile worship the same G.o.d! Oh that I could but have proved--proved--How suddenly it has grown dark! Uncle Julien, is it not time for the evening prayer?"

And her lips moved in the wordless utterance of the prayer for which she had asked, forgetting it had some time before been said; and then her head sunk lower and lower on Arthur's bosom, and there was no sound. Twilight lingered, as loth to disappear, then deepened into night, and the silver lamps within the tents brighter and more brightly illumined the gloom; but Arthur moved not, suppressing even his breath, lest he should disturb that deep and still repose. It was more than an hour ere Julien Morales could realize the truth, and then he gently endeavored to unclasp Arthur's almost convulsive hold, and with, kindly force to lead him from the couch. The light of the lamp fell full upon that sweet, sweet face; and, oh! never had it seemed so lovely. The awful stillness of sculptured repose was indeed there; the breath of life and its disturbing emotions had pa.s.sed away, and nought but the shrine remained. But like marble sculptured by G.o.d's hand, that sweet face gleamed--seeming, in its perfect tracery, its heavenly repose, to whisper even to the waves of agony, "Be still--my spirit is with G.o.d!"