The river of Tetuan meets the sea, little more than a league from the
town. All was quiet on its banks; and the boat which conveyed Louis to
the Christian convent on the city walls, threw out its grappling irons
under the deep excavation of a rock, at the base of an old tower.
Through a kind of lantern staircase in the hollow of the wall, Louis
was conducted to an iron grating. The man who had been his pilot in
this midnight voyage, pulled a bell which hung within the grating;
and crossing himself at the same instant, muttered the Moorish
benedicite, "Sta fer Lah!" and hastened to his comrades in the
boat. Louis had been warned by the brethren at Ceuta, not to ask
his navigators any question; and when he witnessed this monstrous
association of Mussulmen, with Christian devotion, he did not doubt
that he had been rowed to Tetuan by characters of as little principle,
as those which at first brought him from Spain to the Ottoman shore.
Before any person answered to the pull of the bell, which had ceased
ringing, he heard the boat splashing away with its crew from under the
caverned passage; and shortly after, the dead silence assured him he
was left quite alone.
The mariner had given him a dark lantern, which shewed him the gloom of
his situation. A short flight of steps; a fathomless abyss of waters at
his feet. Before him a strong grated door, through which no human nerve
could force an entrance; and immediately beyond it, a rough dark wall,
which did not appear more than a foot distant from its impassable
portcullis.
Louis had just raised his arm to the bell, to make it sound a second
time, when a figure appeared at the grate with the suddenness of an
apparition. Without a word being uttered on either side, the massy bars
were drawn; and Louis found himself following this silent conductor,
through a long narrow stone passage, to another iron door. The mute
friar made its bolts yield before him; and the chamber, to which
its porch was a vestibule, presented to the eye of de Montemar, the
assembled body of the holy brotherhood at Tetuan.
This little synod did not exceed ten; the person who conducted him
completing that number. The prior rose on the entrance of a stranger
brother of their order, which the ringing of that secret bell
announced. It being a mode of egress to their cell, by which none but
the respective fraternities of Saint Philip of Mercy were ever
allowed to enter.
A peculiar badge on the cowl of Louis announced that he came from the
Abbey of Ceuta; and the credentials he immediately delivered to the
prior confirmed its evidence. He was introduced to the brethren at
Tetuan, as one who had a message of conscience to the dying Basha; and
they were exhorted, by every argument from the Christian faith, to
further the visit of the sacred embassador.
"I must see him this night."
"That is impossible," replied the prior, "but within an hour,"
continued he, "I expect a visit from Martini d'Urbino, the alcaide
of his Christian slaves. He will judge of the practicability of your
demand."
Louis inquired how the alcaide reported the state of the Basha; and
asked the purport of his visit to the cell.
The prior hesitated to give a candid answer. But he recollected the
style of his superior's letter; and Louis repeated his questions,
though mildly, with so unappealable an air of authority, he could no
longer refuse a true and respectful reply.
"The Basha cannot live many days; and his Christian servant visits this
cell by stealth, to witness the masses which we say for his master's
soul."
"At his master's requisition?" demanded Louis.
"At his servant's," replied the prior; "the Duke himself is yet lost to
redemption."
Louis sighed heavily. He wrapped himself in his mantle, as he took
his station by the low embers of the hearth; and spoke no more, till
a hasty step in a distant passage announced the approach of Martini.
The friars had respected the abstracted taciturnity of their stranger
brother; and did not even obtrude on him by an observation, when they
saw him start from his seat at the well-known tread of his father's
faithful follower.
Louis's cowl hung over his face when Martini entered. Indeed, it had
never been raised.
The alcaide's appearance was strange to the eyes of him, who had last
seen him in the light European garb of his country. He was now covered
with the gorgeous draperies of an Asiatic officer; and the load of his
magnificence seemed to weigh as heavily on his frame, as the fetters of
his office oppressed the careless gaiety of his naturally free spirit.
He did not remark an accession to the number of the brotherhood,
but immediately announced the Duke's augmented bodily danger. The
anguish of his wounds had that day been more intolerable than he could
bear; low groans burst from his lips, during their most insufferable
extremity; and when the hours of cessation from pain recurred, he
lay in sullen despair, only breaking the fearful stillness, by
occasionally murmuring the words, "lost! lost!"
"'Tis the evidence of his spirit against him!" exclaimed the prior.
"But here is a brother," pointing to Louis, "whose holy zeal would try
to lead him into some view of comfort."
"That is not to be done in this world," returned Martini, "he has lost
too much, for any mortal aid to give him consolation."
"Then," cried the priest, "his doom must be eternal death!"
"Teach him to think that! that the doom of an unpardoned transgressor,
is utter extinction;" replied Martini, "and you complete his perdition.
He would find a treacherous peace, in anticipating the oblivion of the
grave. But now—let us to prayers, my holy fathers; that is the only
way by which we can bring him comfort."
The prior began the mass. Louis was on his knees, as well as the
brothers. His prayers were not in their words, nor uttered in any
sounds: but the inward groanings of his earnest spirit, like those
of him who smote his breast in the temple, and exclaimed, "Lord, be
merciful unto me a sinner!" were heard, and answered from above.
At the end of the service, Martini laid his oblation on the altar, and
was turning away to withdraw, when Louis put his hand on his arm. He
durst not speak to him before the brethren; for the abbot at Ceuta had
warned him not to discover himself in the priory at Tetuan, until his
success with the Basha should supersede any cause of fear at such an
enterprize.
"Signor alcaide," said the prior, "if it be possible, you must
introduce that brother to your dying master. He comes from Ceuta, and
his mission is of importance."
"Nothing from Ceuta can be of importance to my master now," replied
Martini, "its very name would re-awaken him from the melancholy stupor
in which I left him, to all the horrors of his most terrific agonies."
Martini paused an instant; then in a suppressed tone he addressed the
stranger friar.
"The Marquis de Montemar, his only son, fell on the walls of Ceuta in
his sight. and in his defence. And when any circumstances recall the
scene, then it is I see the palsied quivering of his lip, and hear the
often repeated lost, lost! till the low, half uttered sound almost
drives me mad. I too, loved him. But all is now gone for ever!"
Louis grasped his arm, and made a sign to the brethren to withdraw.
There was that in the credentials he brought, that told them to respect
all his wishes; and without a word they obeyed the motion of his hand.
Assured from what he now heard, that his father had restored him to his
heart; the hope he derived from this happy change, nerved him with
perfect self-possession; and drawing Martini towards the lamp that hung
over the altar, he raised his cowl from his face.
"Martini," said he, "you will not deny me the sight of my father!"
It was flesh and blood that clasped his arm: but it seemed the voice
and countenance of the slain de Montemar! The latter was wan and pale,
and in the scared apprehension of the beholder, ghastly, as if just
risen from his bloody grave. He did not speak; but with his eyes fixed
on what he believed a terrible fore-warning of his master's death,
shook almost to fainting, on the breast of the supposed phantom.
Louis comprehended his fear, and instantly relieved it, by saying, "I
was wounded when my father saw me fall. But heaven has spared me to
this hour; and you must do the last service to the Duke de Ripperda and
his son." Though Martini was now convinced, it was no spectre that
stood before him, he sunk upon the steps of the altar, and remained for
some time in much emotion before he could reply. At last he spoke; and
in his rapid and agitated recapitulation of the events which succeeded
the repulse at the storming of Ceuta, he mentioned, that Ripperda's
indignation at the Moors for abandoning the ramparts, seemed the more
exasperated, when report told him the breach was defended by the
Marquis de Montemar.
"We both did our duty," said he to me, with a horrible smile; "though
Louis would have served Spain better, if he had suffered his brother
soldiers to kill its enemy." "But he would not have been your son!"
replied I. The Duke looked sternly at me. "Martini how often have
I told you, I have no son? No part in any human being—but what
administers to my vengeance!"
"Then came the intercepted courier from Oran. His dispatches related
the attempt on Ceuta; and that the Marquis de Montemar was dying of
his wounds. He was brought before the Basha; and, on being questioned,
acknowledged that you were dead. At that unexpected disclosure, nature
asserted itself in your father's breast. He found you were yet his
son, in the moment you were lost to him for ever. His grief knew no
bounds; it was terrible, and in despair. Alas! Signor, it was phrenzy
wearing the garb of warlike retaliation. His orders were full of blood
and extirpating revenge. All flew at his command; but, though all
were brave, none fought as he did. His onward courage and invincible
resolution on that desperate day of his defeat, surpassed human daring,
and almost human credibility. He fell, bleeding at every pore. I was
near him at the instant; and raising him from the ground, then as
insensible as if past the pains of death, the Arab, Ismail Cheriff,
assisted me, and we bore him to a place of security.
"We knew that all was over in the field; and, dreading the malice of
his Moorish rivals, as soon as we perceived life in him, we conveyed
him safely into Tetuan; and, closing the gates, prepared to defend
him against the immediate fury of his vanquished soldiers; who, we
were soon informed, were in mutiny, and urging their no less hostile
commanders to lead them against their former Basha."
But an antidote to the deadly aconite which much of this narrative
contained, was also gathered by the anxious son of Ripperda. He learnt
that the blood which flowed so copiously from his father's wounds had
cleared the long troubled fountain of his heart.
When the Duke recovered from his first mortal weakness, he found that
he had also recovered a memory he would gladly have lost for ever. The
madness of his revenge had passed away in the floodgates which opened
from his streaming sides. No mist now hung over his better faculties.
He saw his injuries as they were; but he also beheld his extravagant
retaliation in its true enormity. He had become a rebel, an apostate,
an enemy to all mankind! He had sacrificed his honour, his affections,
his soul, to a phantom that vanished in his embrace, and left him to
a terrible conviction of perdition! His son was no more! The race of
Ripperda was then extinct; and all the fame, and all the glory for
which he had contended, were blotted out for ever. His evil deeds alone
would be remembered, as an example to avoid and to shudder at! Remorse
fastened on the heart of the dying man; but it was a remorse, direful
and dark. Repentance did not shed a tear there; for the mortal vice of
his youth and of his manhood still kept guard over the better spirit
within. He was too proud to give vent to the anguish of his soul; too
proud to acknowledge to man or to God, the secret of his misery,—that
he was a sinner and in despair.
Louis passed with Martini over the embattled terraces, which, in the
present fortified state of the city, occupied the place of citron
groves on the flat roofs of the houses of Tetuan. The Ginaraliph,
or, otherwise, the Basha's palace, was in the centre of the town,
surrounded by sumptuous gardens, and stood in the moon-light,
reflecting from its gilded domes the milder splendours of her orb. The
courts and the chambers spoke of pomp and luxury. Guards lined the
galleries; and the baths and remote pavilions of the Basha, breathed
every fragrance of Arabia, and sparkled every where with gold and
silver stuffs, draperying the walls, and carpeting the floors. Did
Paradise consist in banqueting the senses, here it was. But Paradise
dwells within the heart. In that of the expiring possessor of all these
delusions, there was only a desert to be found; and, in such a state,
gloomily awaiting his last sigh, and the direful judgment that was to
be passed upon his soul, Louis beheld his father, lying as one already
dead, under the mockery of all this gilded pomp.
Ripperda did not see the grey form that glided into his apartment;
for he did not raise his head from its fixed position on his pillow.
Martini advanced to the couch.
"My Lord, I bring you good tidings!"
Ripperda took no notice of what was said. Martini drew closer and
repeated his words. His master opened his eyes with a look of reproach.
"I do not deceive you, my Lord," cried the faithful servant; "my
tidings are the most precious your dearest wishes could desire."
"Then they would rid me of this world, and all that troubles me!" cried
Ripperda. "Tell me nothing, for I have no wishes here." "Your son, my
Lord," returned Martini, "would you not hear of him?"
"No!" cried the Duke, in a voice of peculiar strength. "His reputation
is my infamy! Let me die without that last drop."
Louis could refrain no longer. He sunk on his knees. His cowl was now
thrown backward from his head; and though at the extreme distance of
the apartment, his father recognised him at the first glance. His eyes,
for a while, became riveted to the strange vision; but he did not, for
a moment, believe it otherwise than a reality.
"Who is that?" cried he to Martini, and pointing to the figure.
"The Marquis de Montemar," replied the Italian.
Louis was now on his feet, and approached his father. Ripperda drew
himself up on his bed.
"And what," cried he, in a severe tone, "if you be yet a wretch in this
miserable world? What tempts you again into the presence of the man
who has survived all relations but his own conscience?"
"My own conscience, and my heart!" cried Louis, "from this hour,
determined to live and die by my father."
Ripperda bent his head upon his clasped hands. Louis drew near, then
nearer, and kneeling by the bed, touched those hands which seemed
clenched in each other with more than mortal agony. The bed shook under
the strong emotion of the Duke. At last, his hands closed over his
son's; and Louis, in broken accents, exclaimed: "Oh! my father: In all
that I have offended you, in word or deed, pardon; and bless me by your
restored confidence!"
"Louis," cried the Duke, after a pause, and relinquishing the hands he
held: "Pardon is not a word to pass my lips. I know it not. I shall
never hear it. Let all men perish as I shall perish."
"You will not pronounce such a sentence on your son?" returned Louis,
seeing the distemper of his mind, and praying inwardly, while he sought
to soothe, and to turn him to better feelings. "You gave me birth, and
you will not leave me to die, without having received your forgiveness
for all my unintentional offences."
"Louis de Montemar!" cried the Duke, "virtuous son of an angel I shall
never behold! There is no death in your breast; no need of forgiveness
from earth or heaven! But your father!—Shudder while you touch him,
for hell is already in his bosom."
Ripperda's face was again buried in his hands. That once godlike
figure shook as under the last throes of dissolution; and before his
anguished son could form his pious hopes into any words of consolation,
a slave appeared for a moment at the curtain of the door. The act of
prostration, holding out a sealed packet to Martini, and vanishing
again, seemed comprised in less than a second. Martini knew the
writing to be that of a friend of his own, in the suite of Adelmelek;
and, aware of some pressing danger from the abrupt entrance of the
slave, he broke the seal. He read, that the late Emperor being deposed,
Adelmelek was advancing to Tetuan, to threaten it with destruction;
or to allow it to purchase its ransom by an instant surrender of its
Basha. This sacrifice being made, the offending Aben Humeya would be
put to an ignominious death; and so the laws of Mahommed should be
appeased, and an exemplary warning set up to all foreign invaders of
the rights and honours of true Mussulmen.
Without preface, Martini communicated this information to those
present. He no longer feared the execution of such threats, but
felicitated his master on the arrival of the Marquis de Montemar, who
would himself defend his father's life from these ungrateful Moors.
"And was it my death you feared?" asked the Duke, gloomily looking up
from his position, and bracing his nerves at this seeming summons to
renewed action. "Were it to be found, I would seek it; but there is no
death for me. Torn from this murderous world by violence, or sapped by
the consuming hand of corporeal pain, neither can give me rest."
"Yes, my father," gently rejoined Louis, "there is rest in the grave
when—"
"Silence!" interrupted the Duke, all his former haughtiness confirming
his voice and manner: "Is it you that would cajole reason with
sophistry? That would give up your unsullied truth at last, to insult
your father by preaching an annihilation you know to be a falsehood?
I know a different lesson. A man cannot rid himself of bodily pangs
by moving from place to place. How then shall the torments of the
spirit be extinguished, by so small a change as being in or out of
this loathed prison of flesh? When my soul, my own and proper self,
when it is freed by death from the fetters of the passions which have
undone me; then I shall think even more intensely than I do now. I
shall remember more than I do now. I shall see the naked springs, the
undisguised consequences of all my actions. They will burn in my eyes
for ever. For such, I feel, is the eternal book of accusation prepared
for the immortal spirit that has transgressed beyond the hope of
pardon, or the power of peace! Louis," added he, grasping his arm, and
looking him sternly in the face; "has not your Pastor-Uncle taught you
the same?"
"Yes; and more," replied his son. "He has taught me, that it is
impossible for the finite faculties of man to comprehend the infinite
attributes of God;—how he reconciles justice with mercy, in the
mystery of the redemption, and renews the corrupted nature of man
by the regeneration of repentance! Recall the promises of the
Scriptures, my father; and there you will find, that He who washed
David from blood-guiltiness, and blotted out the idolatry of Solomon;
that He who pardoned Cephas for denying Him in the hour of trial, and
satisfied the perverse infidelity of Thomas; that He who forgave Saul
his persecutions, and made him the ablest apostle of his church; nay,
that He who has been the propitiation of man, from the fall of Adam to
the present hour,—wills not the death of a sinner, but calls him to
repentance and to life!"
"But what," returned the Duke, "if I know nothing of these things? You
start! But it is true. The Scriptures you talk of, is the only book I
never opened." There was a terrible expression in the eyes of Ripperda
as he delivered this, and listened to the heavy groan that burst from
the heart of his son.
"In this hour," continued he, "when all human learning deserts me;
rejected by the world, and loathing man and all his ways;—in this
bitter hour, I believe, therein I might have found the word of life!
But I derided its pretensions, and the penalty must be paid!"
Louis had recovered himself from the first shock of this awful
confession. He beheld the desperate resignation of his father's
countenance when uttering the last sentence; but he did not permit
it to shake his manhood a second time, as he now took up the sacred
subject in the language of Scripture itself. He had been well taught by
the precepts and example of his Pastor-Uncle; and with a memory whose
tenacity astonished even himself, and a power of argument which seemed
the eloquence of inspiration, the young preacher sat by his father's
side; till a light, like the morning sun, rose upon the chaos of his
mind, and feeling warmth with the beam, his heart, which until now had
been like a stone in his bosom, melted under the genial influence; and
the eyes, which had not endured the softness of a tear for many months,
overflowed on the hand of his son.
The soul of Louis was then as in heaven. He was speechless with
gratitude; and when his father looked upon him, he beheld his face,
indeed as an angel; for all that he had taught and promised, was then
effulgent in his upward eyes.
Louis passed the night in his father's chamber. And before another sun
arose and set, and rose again, he had so entirely satisfied him of the
truth and efficacy of the religion of Christ, that the noble penitent
begged to seal his repentance and his faith, by receiving the holy
sacrament from the hands of the prior of Saint Philip's.
During these few sacred days, the Duke became so tranquillized by
the hopes of religion, that he found freedom of mind sufficient, to
converse with his son on his future temporal concerns. He took pen and
ink, to write something to that effect; which he forbade Louis to open,
till the writer were no more.
"It particularly relates to England;" said he, "for that country must
hereafter be yours. It is the only one I ever knew, where virtue is a
man's best friend. You came innocent out of it; and it is to your own
credit, and the influence of God alone, that you return unpolluted by
the stains which have made my name one universal blot. Oh, Louis,"
cried he, wringing his hands; "you have taken from your father, the
sting of death; you have brought him the true unction of heaven; and
given him that peace, which the world and all its empires cannot give;
and what do I bequeath thee in return. The memory of my infamy? But it
will not reach you in England; or if it do, that people are too just,
to condemn the blameless son, for the delinquency of his parent."
Louis's heart sprang to that country to which his father exhorted him
to return. Since he left it, his pilgrimage had been one of anguish; an
expedition of contest and sorrow; of defeat without error; and victory
which could yield no triumph.
"But you will live, my father!" said he, observing that for the last
few hours his pains had ceased; and his countenance bespoke, if not
the serenity of innocence, the resignation of religion. "Your bodily
sufferings are ameliorated; and we shall see England together."
Ripperda looked on him with a sudden brightness in his eye.
"That penance is spared me!" cried he, "while on earth, I should feel
that memory and reproach are the worms that never die! I have indeed,
no pain; neither in my spirit, nor in my body; and in the moment the
latter ceased, your father felt the bond was taken off that fastened
his frail being to this world!"
Louis now understood what another few hours would so soon demonstrate.
"Here is the remnant of a sword," rejoined the Duke, putting the
shattered remains of one into his son's hand. "It broke in the conflict
on the breach of Ceuta, but it did not fail me. Its fractured blade
slew the Biscayen who wounded you in my defence. Preserve it Louis;
for it was my friend, when I believe I had hardly another friend left.
It saved my life from assassins in the mountains of Genoa. Who wielded
it, I know not; but remark its motto, J'ose! and should you ever meet
its owner, remember that William de Ripperda's last injunction was,
Gratitude!"
Louis kissed the shattered blade, and put it into his bosom. At the
same instant he heard a stir in the vestibule; and with a melancholy
haste, he rose, and opened the curtain, to welcome the prior of Saint
Philip.
The Roman Catholic religion was the first Ripperda had exercised; and
though he knew it by its ceremonials only, yet it was most grateful to
him to die in its profession:—And as his soul now worshipped the only
God and Saviour, in spirit and in truth; in his circumstances, every
water was alike holy that baptized him to salvation.
"Father!" said he, when the priest entered; "you come to behold in me
the end of all human vanity. What have I not been? What am I now? An
example, and a beacon! What Ripperda was, is now forgotten; what he is,
will be remembered by men, and reproached upon his posterity, when God
has erased the record for ever!"
With his hands clasped in those of the prior, he made a short,
but contrite confession of his transgressions and his faith. From
those hallowed lips he received the sacred absolution; and as the
consummation of his eternal peace, raised on his bed upon his knees,
and supported on the breast of his son, for the first, and the last
time, he received the pledge of his salvation, in tasting with a
believer's heart, the last supper of our Lord.
"It is the bread of life!" cried he, firmly pressing the hand of Louis;
and starting forward with his eyes rivetted, as if on some invisible
object:—"Thou hast given it me; and thy mother——" he fell back on
the bosom of his son. At that moment, the smile which was once so
beautiful, but now rendered ghastly by the hues of death, flitted
over his blanched lips. It seemed the glittering wing of a seraph,
escaping the marble tomb. All was still. The voice of the priest raised
a requiem to the departing spirit; but Louis had neither voice nor
tear. He was sunk on his knees, to adore the merciful God, into whose
presence his beloved father was then passed away.
