Читать книгу The Knight Of Leon: - Sylvanus Cobb - Страница 8

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A WEEK had passed away since the day of the tournament. Charles of Leon had been the observed of all observers; for nearly every one in Granada had recognized him as the knight who gained the victory in the lists. The universal attention he arrested prevented him from noticing those who were dogging his steps as spies upon his actions; but such there were; for the alcalde had taken care that the Christian knight should not escape his espionage. What Ben Hamed had in his mind was locked up in his own bosom; but sure it is that he had a secret dread of the count, and he meant to take measures, if possible, to thwart any designs the knight of Leon might have had in coming to Granada. He set his spies upon the Christian, but he only told them that the stranger might be dangerous to the kingdom.

It was evening—late in the evening—and Charles of Leon stood by an open window and looked out upon the city. He had dismissed his esquire, and the latter was already snoring in an adjoining apartment. The full moon rode high in the heavens, and, save a few fleecy clouds that hung like masses of light down here and there in the azure vault, all was clear and bright. The air was balmy and inviting, and the young Christian resolved to walk forth and enjoy it. At first he thought of arousing Pedro; but upon second thought he concluded to go alone, the better to enjoy the scene, and the better to commune with his own thoughts.

A light Moorish turban hung in the apartment, and this the knight placed upon his head. A Moorish mantle, too, he threw over his shoulders, for he wished to escape impertinent observation; not that he had fears for his personal safety, but he liked not the curiosity of which he was so generally made the object. He passed down to the hall with a light tread, so that he might not awaken Pedro Bambino, and as he gained the street he paused for a moment to consider upon the direction he should take. The loud murmuring of the rapid Darro fell upon his ears, and he resolved to seek the river.

Several of the city guard were in the long street that led towards the Alhambra, but none of them intercepted the knight as he walked slowly along. At length he reached the bend of the river. The swift waters were rushing on to join the larger Xenil, and moving along to where a grove of olives threw out their green branches, Charles sat down upon the greensward and gazed thoughtfully upon the stream.

It was a fit time and place for reflection, and the Christian knight dwelt long upon the image of both memory and imagination. More than once the name of the fair maiden who had bestowed upon him the reward of his victory at the tournament dwelt upon his lips, and when he thought of her, a soft, generous emotion came to his soul. He remembered her bright eye, and her sweet smile, and her gentle voice, and the words she had spoken.

In the midst of his reverie the young count was aroused by a sound near him as if a light foot had fallen upon the sward. He arose to his feet, but he saw nothing save the olives that grew about him. He would have moved back towards the city again, but he hesitated, as he thought he heard the sound again. This time he was more confident, and ere long he saw an object beyond the grove that seemed gliding towards the river. Charles took a few steps nearer to the edge of the copse, and he could see that it was a female who had attracted his attention. She was moving slowly along, and occasionally she would stop and gaze about her. She was dressed in a white robe, and the light of the moon enabled Charles to see her form distinctly. Ere long she gained the bank of the river, and, after looking about her a moment, she sank down upon her knees and clasped her hands towards heaven.

Charles of Leon moved nearer to the spot. Stealthily he glided on, and he heard the words that fell from her lips. It was a prayer she uttered, in half broken sentences, and though a sort of calmness pervaded her speech, yet the breath of anguish was plainly distinguishable.

"Great Allah protect me and forgive me for this, the last act of my life!" uttered the female, and then she let her hands fall upon her bosom as she moved nearer to the river.

Charles of Leon uttered a suppressed cry, and sprang quickly forward. He seized the unfortunate being just as she was preparing to leap into the rapid stream, and drew her back from the river's bank. A quick cry escaped her lips as she felt the hand upon her arm, and instinctively she turned to see who it was that held her. The bright rays of the moon fell full upon her face, and the Christian knight started with a strange emotion of astonishment, as he beheld the beautiful features of Zehra!

"Great God!" he ejaculated, still gazing upon the face that was turned towards him, "do my eyes deceive me, or is this the daughter of Ben Hamed?"

"Let me go, sir," murmured the girl, as she feebly endeavored to remove the strong hand that was laid upon her.

"But tell me if I am not right. Is not this Zehra?"

"Alas! It is, sir. O, let me go!"

"Hold a moment," said Charles. "Do you recognize me?"

"Yes; you are the noble Christian knight upon whom I bestowed the badge of honor."

"And is it possible that I have saved you from a fearful death?"

"Death?" murmured Zehra, looking mournfully up into the knight's face. "No, no—it was life I sought."

Charles of Leon was struck by the strange manner of the fair girl, and if he had thought that her mind might be wandering, he was convinced to the contrary while he gazed into her face. All was strangely calm there, and a mournful determination was seated upon her thin pale lips.

"Will you trust me with the secret of this?" asked the knight, as he gently drew the poor girl farther from the river. "I pledge you my knightly word that I will not betray you."

"And will you let me seek my rest when I have told you?"

"I will try that you have rest," returned the knight. "Now tell me why you should seek the fearful death you have courted."

"Death to the faithful is but the passage from earth to heaven. 'Tis but to leave the dark shades of sorrow behind us, and bound to the rest of that realm where Allah cannot forsake those who love him. I would have died, because earth is all misery to me now. I cannot live, when to live is but to be unhappy."

"Can one so beautiful as you be unhappy?" said the knight, instinctively drawing Zehra nearer to him, and gazing more intently upon her features.

"Beautiful!" repeated the girl. "Alas! sir, it is because I am thought beautiful that I must suffer. Were my face made up of wrinkles and fearful blotches—were my form ill-shapen, and my health, even, gone from me, I might be happy."

"You have not told me yet of the sorrow from which you seek escape."

"Then listen, sir. My father has given me to the king, and I am to be one among his wives!"

"To Mohammed!" uttered Charles. "To be a bauble in the harem of that sensual profligate? Impossible!"

"I have spoken the truth, sir knight, and I have trusted to your honor."

"And you have trusted to an honor that is not tarnished," quickly returned the knight, with tender enthusiasm. Then in a lower tone he added, "you cannot love such a man as he."

"Love him!" cried Zehra. "I can only loathe him. Ah! death were indeed preferable."

"Your father must be indeed cruel. You have given your heart to another."

Charles spoke this almost at random, as he looked into Zehra's face. She was silent for a moment; but soon she replied:

"You mistake me, sir. 'Tis no selfish motive that moves me. I would only save myself from the misery of the life my father has doomed me to suffer; I have no other object; my heart looks not beyond that escape. Now let me go, sir."

"And if I release you now, will you seek that death from which I have just withdrawn you?"

Zehra bowed her head and gazed long upon the greensward at her feet. She trembled with emotion, and Charles saw tears glisten in the moonbeams as they fell from her cheeks.

"If you leave me now, will you still seek the grave of the Darro?" repeated the knight.

"O, sir, I cannot live to be the thing they would make me. I cannot live to feel the affections of my heart withering up in their bloom, and sinking away into the cold grave of misery. I cannot live to know my love must freeze in its earliest flood. I will die."

It was some moments ere the Christian knight dared make reply to this. Those were days when knights held it a sacred duty—a duty of knightly honor—to protect females from the hand of suffering; but this was not taken upon themselves merely as a thing of duty. The heart had much to do with it. Charles of Leon had entered Granada with a whole heart in his bosom; but since the moment when the Moorish maiden had smiled upon him in his moment of proud victory he had given her a place in his heart. As he gazed upon her now, he knew that the whole of his heart was hers. There was no thought of expediency in his bosom—no thought of causes and consequences—but he acknowledged to himself the whole truth. Those tears that fell from the dark lashes of the beautiful girl, spoke a language to his soul more strong than words, and the keenness of her suffering appealed to his every sense of humanity and knightly honor.

"Fair maiden," he said, at length—and he took her unresisting hand as he spoke—"this is a strange time and place for us to meet, and the circumstances of the moment are more strange still. You must not die—you shall not. 'Tis a fearful thought to dwell upon self-murder!"

Zehra started at the words, and the tone in which they were uttered, and she gazed up into the speaker's face.

"Alas! and is it not a fearful thought to dwell upon a life such as that to which I am doomed?" she murmured.

"But are there not those who can save you from such a fate?"

"No. Who shall dare to thwart the king?"

"A bold, true-hearted knight shall do it. Were Mohammed a thousand times a king, I would dare snatch you from his grasp."

"You?" uttered Zehra, starting with a sudden thrill of deep emotion.

"Yes, fair maiden. If you will trust to me, I swear by the cross of the Saviour, that while I live you shall not be the king's."

Zehra bowed her head, and Charles of Leon felt her hand tremble violently.

"Speak to me. Will you accept my pledge?"

"I ought not, from a Christian knight."

"But you, too, shall be a Christian. You shall bask under the sunlight of that religion that makes woman sacred—that religion that recognizes the love of the human heart as one of its own brightest attributes. Many of the Moors are Christians."

"I know it," returned Zehra, with her eyes still bent to the ground. "Once I had a nurse who was a Christian, and she taught me your religion."

"And did you not love it! Did your soul not go forth in worship towards that Saviour who died for a sinful world?—that blessed Saviour whose every thought was love, and whose heart knew no ambition but to make those happy and good about him! Zehra, could you not be a Christian?"

"I have often thought so."

"And may it not be mine to teach you? Tell me—will you accept my pledge?"

The fair maiden turned her gaze upon the face of the man who spoke to her, and the deep sorrow had given place to a look of calmer, holier feeling. She thought not of the knight's being almost a stranger to her; she only knew that he was kind, and that he offered her protection. Like the wayfarer through a darkened forest by night, who bails the sunlight with joy, did she bless the heart that had opened its sympathy for her.

"I cannot reject your kind offer," she said.

"And you will trust fully?"

"Yes."

"Zehra, if your happiness cannot be secured in Granada, what then?"

The maiden pointed to the waters of the Darro.

"Know you not that there are other places besides Granada, and besides the Darro?"

"None for me."

"Yes, there are. Surely you would not hesitate to flee this country, if misery alone awaited you here?"

"No."

"You would not hesitate to leave even the roof of your father?"

The maiden started, and withdrew her hand from the hold where it had been resting. Though she seemed upon the point of speaking, yet she remained silent.

"Did my speech offend you?" asked the knight.

"No, no, sir. I only thought how meagre are the ties that bind me to Ben Hamed."

"But he is your father."

"You said I might trust you."

"Most implicitly," returned Charles.

"Then," said Zehra, in a low tone, "I have reason to believe he is not my father; but he dreams not that I hold the suspicion. You would hold me indeed heartless, could I willingly fly from the parent that gave me being."

"Not if he were cruel."

"Cruelty, even, may not separate the hearts of child and parent. But I feel that Ben Hamed is not my parent. My old nurse told me he was not, and I have reason to believe her words were true."

"You may be missed," said Charles. "Let us return."

The fair girl placed her hand freely in that of the knight, and together they turned back towards the city. Charles of Leon would have questioned her more concerning her parentage, but he had too much delicacy. He felt a strange interest in the being who had thus been thrown in his way, and with that impulse which seldom springs up in the heart but once in a lifetime—he had resolved he would love her with his whole love and faith.

Some might say the Christian knight was blind. Perhaps he was, as the world of selfishness goes; but where generous love and kindness of heart can see, there he walked. His was a soul that curbed not those impulses that led him towards the boon of joy; for he had no impulses that were not born in honor.

"Here, kind sir, I will turn off," said Zehra, as they reached a point where a group of poplars and orange trees reached back to a line of buildings near the banks of the Xenil.

"I will accompany you to the dwelling of Ben Hamed."

'"No, no. You might be seen."

"As you will, lady—but ere we part, I would say one word more. When does your father mean to give you to the king?"

"In three short months."

"Then will you accept my knightly faith for your protection? If you will I shall feel authority to serve you."

"I do accept it, sir," returned Zehra.

"Then go your way, and God be with you."

As Charles of Leon spoke he pressed the hand he held to his lips, and in a moment more Zehra glided from his sight among the orange trees.