It was long past midnight when the chamber assigned to Egiza was thrown open
by a page and entered by Count Julian, who bore in his own hand the lamp which
gave light to the apartment. The young exiled prince, exhausted by anxiety and
travel, was sleeping; but his sleep was troubled with fearful and tormenting images.
He groaned piteously, and his arms were extended, and his hands closed, with the
action of one engaged in a struggle with his direst enemy. Julian, as he beheld
this sight, dismissed the attendant, and, setting the light upon the floor, bent over
the sleeper. His hands were placed upon his shoulder, and his voice summoned
him to rise. There was an impatience in his movement, and in the tones of his utterance,
which seemed occasioned by the fact that one, suffering, though perhaps in
different degree, from the same cruel affliction with himself, could thus subside into
consolatory slumbers. The agony in his own heart taught him to believe that his
eyelids would never again be visited by that sweet soother of the wretched and
desponding soul.

“Arise, and come with me! Thou hast surely slept enough. It will help thy

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slumbers hereafter, when thou hearest that we are now on our quest of vengeance.
Arise, if thou hast the heart for food like this!”

Egiza was upon his feet in an instant.

“I am ready,” was his only answer.

“Give me thy hand!” said Julian, while he extinguished the light. He grasped
the wrist of the youth, who felt the fingers of his conductor, like so many icicles,
closing upon his own. In this manner they went forward, the youth unknowing
whither. In a few moments they found themselves in the court of the citadel and
under the full glory of the starlight. The heavens wore an unclouded hue of such
sweet serenity, that Egiza looked upward with the momentary flush of one who
fancies that pure spirits are gazing down upon him. Julian's eyes were fixed upon
the earth. His fingers still grasped the hand of the youth, with a muscular tenacity
which only forbore to give pain. They went on in silence until they reached a
postern. Here Julian spoke a few words, in low tones, in the ears of a soldier who
made way for them as they emerged through the opening. The gates were closed
behind them, and as the morning star looked out from his fold they found themselves
beyond the walls of Ceuta and on their way to the tents of the Almagreb.

“Whither do we go?” demanded Egiza, somewhat impatient of the silence. His
hand had been released by his conductor the moment they were without the fortress.

“What matter?” said the other. “Hast thou anywhere a home? Hast thou
a country? Art thou not an exile—a banished man! Is it not permitted to any
one to slay thee! What shouldst thou care whether thy feet wander through the
courts of Andalusia, or among the wild tents of Tingitania?”

“It is true!” said Egiza, mournfully, and with that seeming lassitude of spirit
which was but too apt to control and enfeeble his energies.

“True! ay! But is that good reason why thou shouldst faint? Is it not something
to move thee to manhood rather?—to make thee show thy strength, thy resolution—
to arm thee with pride and hate—to fill thee with a bitter anxiety for strife—
to give thee courage—to show thee where vengeance is to be won, and make thee
to laugh at dangers?”

“Thinkst thou that I fear?”

“No. But not to fear is not enough? The common brute opposes a firm front
to the danger which assails him in his own jungle, but the nobler nature waits not
to be baited in his den. To endure is the mule's courage—to contend is the lion's
instinct. The breadth of back and strength of sinew counsels one—the great spirit
informs the other, Wouldst thou have vengeance, there must be deeds as well as
endurance: a courage to seek and assail, not less than a hardihood to contend with
the danger when it comes. I tell thee, man, I am one to pluck down the temple
upon my own shoulders, if so be that I can drag my enemy in the same moment
beneath the toppling ruins!”

“What meanest thou?”

“I have said to thee—hast thou a country?”

“Have I not answered?—I have none!”

“Nor I! nor I! But yesterday I had a country! Did I not love that country?
Witness, ye stars, that have seen my watches for her safety—ye sands, that have
beheld my marches and my battles—with what ardor, what constancy, what strength,
let the Arab tell you—let all Tingitania, all Spain declare! Over these plains but
this day I hurried, smiting, sweeping the swarthy Arab from my path with the
unsparing edge of the sword. Look around you: here are the proofs. My foot,
even now, is upon an enemy's careass!”

Egiza recoiled. Such was the fact. The face of the slain man was turned

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upward, pale and immovable, beneath the light of the stars. Rigid in death, his eyes
were yet opened to the heavens, glazed and glittering with a spectral stare, that
made the youth for a moment forgetful of his own griefs in the natural horror of
his emotions. Before him were numerous proofs of the truth which Julian uttered.
Their course lay along the plain of battle. Their feet were momently among the dead.
Little heaps lay, at intervals, where the opposing combatants had fallen together;
and sometimes the sandals of the prince were held to the earth in the little puddles
of congealed, or congealing gore, which, but a few hours past, had warmed some
hopeful human heart.

“Ay, here they lie! These are sacrifices, which, but this day, I offered up for
the safety of my country. This hour I have no country! The desert is now more
dear to me than Spain. These Arabs whom I slew—they who survive—are less
the foes of Julian than the Goth and the sovereign whom he serves with such
base fidelity.”

Stern and solemn was the silence which ensued. Slowly they made their way
among the bodies of the slain. The plain of death was covered with thousands.
As far as the eye could stretch Egiza could detect the little heaps which, he too
well conceived, were raised of stiffened corses that had lately been living hearts. A
natural horror kept him silent while they hurried forward. But, indeed, Egiza
knew not well what answer to make in the hearing of a passion, such as that of
Julian, which seemed so much more intense and overwhelming than his own. He
did not conceive the purpose of the other, though he had vague doubts and misgivings
of the purport of the journey. But, with that incertitude of character
which distinguishes the feebler moral nature, he did not venture to question its
object. He did not demand, as the more determined temper always does, that the
blind should be taken from his eyes. The superior will of his conductor effectually
cowed and coerced his own. On they went, he following in a silence which, but
for the mutual solemnity of their thoughts, would have been humiliating to his
mental independence. He was in no mood for speech—and brief, broken exclamations
only, now fell from the lips of Julian. Still they trode through ranks of the
dead. At length they reached the summit of a hill which they had been gradually
ascending. Here the carnage seemed to have been most terrific. Here the pursuit
ceased—and the last terrible struggle had been made by the fugitives to unite
against their pursuers. Every step was made over bodies of the slain. The lightarmed
Arab, with his dark eyes glistening in death, lay grappled and stiff in the
immovable grasp of the more muscular soldier of the north. The fire seemed to
linger still in the eyes of the one, and the fierce muscular compression of strife was
still conspicuous in the close pressed lips and frowning forehead of the other.
Gazing, even against his will, upon these frightful images, Egiza was not conscious
of those farther objects towards which the hand of Julian was outstretched.

“See you not?” said the latter.

The tones of his voice, which were hollow, struck painfully upon the ear of his
companion. He looked up. They stood on the summit of the hill, the opposite
side of which sank abruptiy. The wide spread plain was before them; and, in the
distance, a thousand dusky objects were spread out which the inexperienced eye
might not define, and scarcely distinguish

“Seest thou?” said Julian.

“What are these?”

“The tents of the Arab!”

“Ha!”

“Within those tents sleep the soldiers of Muza Ben Nosier. But this day my

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foes, they were driven with shame and bitter discomfiture from before the walls of
Ceuta. Now!—”

“What wouldst thou?”

“Now!—I hold them foes no longer. The savage is the friend of Julian—the
Arab, the African, the wolf, sooner than Roderick and Spain. This night I take
my place in the tents of the Arab.”

“Thou will not yield thy country to the infidel?”

“I have no country!”

“Why hast thou brought me here?”

“For vengeance!”

“I will not go with thee!”

“Thou shalt!”

“I will not be a traitor to my country—yield my religion to the infidel—renounce
my God!”

“Country—God—religion! Ha! ha! ha! Why did I cumber myself with this
boy? What! thou hast a country? It has given thee a precious shelter! A
God? He has watched over thee truly with paternal care! Religion? Verily!
thou wearest the garments! Go to! thou art no man!”

“Show me the way to vengeance upon Roderick, and thou shalt see if I lack
manhood.”

“And thinkest thou, idle boy, that the arm of Julian would need thy help if
fate should give us chance to meet Roderick in combat? And thinkest thou that
such poor revenge as his destruction will satisfy a thirst like mine?”

“What vengeance wouldst thou have?”

“Vengeance upon the criminal, be sure! vengeance upon his creatures—the
ministers of his will—those who pander to his lusts, and stimulate his monstrous
appetites!”

“I am with thee.”

“Nor these alone. I will leave my vengeance as a trophy upon the face of the
land over which he sways! Her blackened cities shall be the monuments of my
wrath? Her smoking turrets shall proclaim my triumph, as, in their pride of
place, they beheld the dishonor of my child! Ages yet to come, which shall hear
of the shame of Cava, shall hear, also, of the terrible vengeance of her sire! The
Arab shall be the weapon of my wrath!”

“We part: I go with thee no more!”

“Nay! nay! we cannot part! Thou shalt go with me, thou shalt partake in
this glorious consummation. My daughter gave thee her love—I had been better
pleased had she chosen a bolder spirit; but as she loved thee, thou shalt partake of
the vengeance to which I dedicate my soul this hour. Spain is no more thy country.
Thou art a banished and proscribed man. We cannot conquer Roderick but
through the heart of Spain. Come with me, my son. It is not that I seek thy
help, or care for what thy arm may do; but I would have thee share, for my
child's sake, the great revenge which is to pacify my heart!”

“I dare not! True, I have no country, but I will not be a traitor to the country
which was once mine!”

“Will not! Say'st thou, will not? Say not so. Be not rash—be not erring, my
son. Bethink thee! Be wise—be bold. Be with me the minister of a mighty
vengeance.” This was said entreatingly and in subdued accents.

“I cannot—I will not—dare not!”

“Will not? Then thou diest! Thus I cut asunder all the links which bind me
to the soil of Spain?”

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Sudden and terrible was the doom that followed. The fierce man smote
the unconscious victim to the earth with a single stroke of his dagger. He uttered
not a word—not a groan. The weapon had passed into his heart with unerring
aim, and the unhappy prince fell on his face, upon a hillock of Gothic and Arabian
dead. Julian lifted the dagger aloft in the starlight, as if dedicating it to the service
of some observant Fate; then, calmly folding it beneath his vest, he continued his
way in the direction of the tents of Muza Ben Nosier.