Читать книгу Old Court Life in Spain (Vol.1&2) - Frances Minto Elliot - Страница 13

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LL night a light burned in the tent of Don Roderich. If he slept, his slumbers were troubled. Now the pale form of Florinda rises before him with sad eyes, then the hideous vision of the necromantic Tower of Hercules haunts him. He starts up, and, opening the purple hangings of his tent, gazes out at the starry splendour of the Southern night.

Before him lay the grassy flats about Xerez, dimly lit by the dark glow of the signal fires marking the verge of the opposite camps. A pale crescent moon hanging over the Moslem tents brought out the lines of low hills far back on the horizon. Not a sound was heard but the tramp of the sentinels, or the neigh of a war-horse, ill-stabled on the turf. The distant click of a horse’s hoofs roused him to attention, and he distinctly saw the shadowy outline of a single horseman hurrying along the river’s verge, the bearer of the message big with his doom.

From his belt he drew an arrow and sped it swiftly from a golden bow, watching its silent course, but the dark figure still rode on.

Heavy was his heart within him as he watched the dawn of day (say the old chroniclers), not for himself, but for the thousands who lay stretched in slumber around, and the thought of the lonely Egilona called from him a sigh. Of all things, to a brave heart treachery is the sorest woe, and treachery he knew was at work with Julian close at hand. He would have challenged him to single battle, as knight to knight, but for the memory of his crime. This made him shrink before the father whose just vengeance had brought the invaders into the land.

With the glorious burst of morning all these dismal thoughts vanished. Again he became the brilliant chief who had wrested from Witica the crown of Spain. Again his heart swelled with the ardour of battle, as he prepared to lead his army with the pomp proper to a Gothic king.

A comelier monarch never drew breath than Roderich as—attired in a robe of beaten gold, sandals embroidered in pearls and diamonds on his feet, a sceptre in his hand, and a gold crown on his head resplendent with priceless gems—he mounted the lofty chariot of ivory, drawn by milk-white horses champing bits of gold, the wheels and pole covered with plates of gold, and a crimson canopy overhead. As he advanced in front of the army shouts of delight rent the air.

“Forward, brave Goths,” he cried, waving his glittering sceptre, as he halted in the front of the royal standard. “God is above to bless the Christian cause! Your king leads you! Forward to the fight, and death be his portion who shows any fear!”

Ere his voice had ceased, the sun, which had risen brilliantly, sank behind a bank of vapour, and a rising sirocco raised such clouds of dust that the very air was darkened.

Various was the fortune of the day. To the battalions of light Arab horsemen, throwing showers of arrows, stones, and javelins, the old Gothic valour opposed lines of steady troops. Where the Moslem fell, the Christian rushed in, seized both horse and armour. Desperately they fought and well, until the plain was strewn with prostrate Moors.

Don Roderich, throwing off the cumbrous robes of state, and mounting his satin-coated steed, Orelia, a horned helmet on his head, sternly grasping his buckler, was foremost wherever danger menaced. With the reins loose upon Orelia’s neck (who utters a wild snort rushing forward at full speed to meet the charge) the Moors fled before him, as though he were a second Santiago descended from the skies.

Tháryk, the one-eyed, maddened at seeing his battalions retreating, flung himself before them, and, rising in his stirrups, strove to stem the tide.

“Oh, Mussulmen,” he shouted, “whither would you fly? The sea is behind you, the enemy in front. You have no hope but in valour. Follow me; aim at the leaders. Pick off the Christian knights. He who brings in the head of the Goth shall swim in gold.” And putting spurs to his charger, he laid about him to right and left, trampling down the foot-soldiers, followed by Tenedos, a Spanish renegade, and a whole company of savage Berbers, who fell upon Ataulfo and the men he led.

A hand-to-hand conflict ensued. Ataulfo was wounded while he struggled with Tenedos, whom he had felled to the earth with his battle-axe, but his good horse being disabled and useless, obliged him to dismount. He tried to seize the reins of that of Tenedos, but the sagacious animal, as if recognising the hand which had smitten his master, reared and plunged, and would not let him mount. On foot he repulsed a whole circle of assailants. Blow after blow he dealt upon the enemy, keeping back the fierce crew of turbaned Berbers that sought to strike him down.

“All honour to Christian chivalry,” cried Tháryk, who, seeing the quick gleam of swords and scimitars around the Gothic prince, spurred to the spot. But a selfish thought came to crush the generous impulse which had moved him for a moment.

“If Ataulfo falls, it will be death to the army of Roderich,” whereupon he dealt him such a cruel blow with his scimitar as felled him to the earth. A pool of blood formed round him. Then the Moor, for an instant separated from him by a squadron of horse, led by Pelistes, hastened to deal him the death-blow.

No Goth possessed the moral influence of Pelistes. He was the high priest of chivalry. With him rode his only son. In vain he warned him not to expose himself. In vain! The die was cast—he fell! His maiden battle was doomed to be his last! Alas! poor father! Borne on the shields of his vassals, they carried the boy towards the royal tent, where Roderich was leading his Gothic guards forward to terminate the battle by a victorious onslaught.

At this moment, when the sun, long obscured by clouds, reached the meridian, and shone forth in sudden lustre, a deafening shout was heard, and Archbishop Opas, in a complete suit of armour, struck out from the centre of the Christian army at a gallop to join the Moors.

From that moment the fortune of battle changes. In vain does Pelistes, forgetting his grief, lead on such as would follow him. For the first time his voice falls on deaf ears. In vain Teodomir endeavours to rally his veterans. In vain Roderich on his war-horse, grasps sword and buckler, to reform his flying troops. Surrounded and assailed by his own treacherous subjects, his sword flies like lightning round his homed casque, each stroke felling an enemy. Around him the fight thickens. “A kingdom for his head,” cries the voice of Julian, pressing closer and closer with his perjured band.

A VIEW OF MECCA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

A mortal panic falls on the Christians. Not only do they not fight, but they throw away their arms and fly!

For three whole days the Bedouins and Berbers, the fleetest riders among the Africans, pursue the flying Goths over the plains. But few of that vast host live to tell the tale. Alone, with a compact body of men, Teodomir manages to escape into the East, and Pelistes, carrying the body of his son, shuts himself up behind the walls of Cordoba.

And Roderich?

The Christian chronicler who furnishes these details records that the king fell by the sword of Julian, but this is too much of a monkish morality to be true. It is said that Orelia, stained with blood and disabled, was found entangled in a marsh on the borders of the Guadalete, the sandals and mantle of her master beside her.

But where history is silent romancers take up the tale, in those same ballads, parodied by Cervantes, in the inimitable scene of the puppets, in the second part of Don Quixote, when Master Peter, representing Roderich’s tragic death, grows alarmed at the Don’s frantic wrath, and his drawn sword, and cries, “Hold! hold! These are no real Berbers and Moors, but harmless dolls of pasteboard, picturing unhappy King Roderich, who said, ‘Yesterday I was lord of Spain, and to-day I have not a foot of land which I can call my own. Not half an hour ago I had knights and empire at my command, horses in abundance, and chests and bags of gold, but now you see me a ruined and undone man!’ ”

Roderich, say the ballads, did not perish in the battle of the Guadalete, but seeing that the day was lost, he fled. But not far, for the sleek-skinned Orelia, bleeding with wounds to death, soon fell. Then the king wandered on foot, faint and sick, his sword hacked into a saw, his jewelled mail drilled through. On the top of the highest rock (that is not much, for we are in the eternal plains) he sits down and weeps. Wherever he turns the sight of death meets his gaze. His valiant Goths have fallen or have fled. No refuge is left in the walled cities, or by the sea-shore. Toledo, his capital, is far away, and who knows if his banner still floats from the Alcazar towers? Below is the battlefield stained with Christian blood. There his royal banner trails in the dust. The bodies of his dying troops cover the plain. The shrill cry of the Arab comes sharply to his ear. He can discern the form of Julian, sword in hand, dealing destruction to such as still linger, and Tháryk, on his Arab courser white-turbaned, more terrible than the phantoms of the black kings who haunt the desert!

Just, however, as Roderich, in despair, is about to kill himself (so the ballad says) a shepherd appears, who gives him food, and conducts him to a neighbouring hermit. The hermit, on learning who he is, regards him somewhat dubiously, exhorts him to pray, and purify himself from sin. As to hospitality he can offer him only an open grave, into which Roderich descends without a murmur, in company with a big black snake. If his repentance be sincere, the hermit tells him, the snake will leave him harmless; if not, it will bite him until he dies.

In the grave the king lies silent for three days. Then the hermit appears, and asks: “How fares it, most noble king? How do you relish your dark bed and dismal bedfellow?”

“The snake,” answers Roderich, “is black, and rears its crest, but it does not bite me. Pray for me, good father, that I may be unharmed.”

But that very afternoon, sore and doleful moans smite the hermit’s ear. It is Roderich from the grave crying, “Father, father, the snake gnaws me. Now, now I feel his pointed teeth. O God, will it soon end?”

At which the hermit, gazing down, exhorts him to bear the pain, “to save his sinful soul,” in the true style of monkish consolation.

And thus poor Roderich dies a miserable death, verifying what Sancho Panza says to the duchess, “that all the silks and riches of the Goths did not prevent his being cut off,” and the traitor and renegade, Julian, helps the Moors to possess Xerez, and the plain from Seville to the rock of Gibraltar, called Gebel Tháryk (hill of Tháryk,) which they kept for many centuries, until driven out by Alonso, the wise King of Leon and Castile.