chapter 2

THE RAY OF MOONSHINE

I do not know whether this is history which seems like a tale, or a tale

which seems like history; what I can affirm is that in its core it contains a

truth, a truth supremely sad, which in all likelihood I, with my imaginative

tendencies, will be one of the last to take to heart.

Another with this idea would perhaps have made a book of melancholy

philosophy. I have written this legend that those who see nothing of its deep

meaning may at least derive from it a moment of entertainment.

I.

He was noble, he had been born amid the clash of arms, and yet the sudden

blare of a war trumpet would not have caused him to lift his head an instant or

turn his eyes an inch away from the dim parchment in which he was reading

the last song of a troubadour.

Those who desired to see him had no need to look for him in the spacious

court of his castle, where the grooms were breaking in the colts, the pagesteaching the falcons to fly, and the soldiers employing their leisure days in

sharpening on stones the iron points of their lances.

"Where is Manrico? Where is your lord?" his mother would sometimes

ask.

"We do not know," the servants would reply. "Perchance he is in the

cloister of the monastery of the Peña, seated on the edge of a tomb, listening to

see if he may surprise some word of the conversation of the dead; or on the

bridge watching the river-waves chasing one another under its arches, or

curled up in the fissure of some rock counting the stars in the sky, following

with his eyes a cloud, or contemplating the will-o'-the-wisps that flit like

exhalations over the surface of the marshes. Wherever he is, it is where he has

least company."

In truth, Manrico was a lover of solitude, and so extreme a lover that

sometimes he would have wished to be a body without a shadow, because then

his shadow would not follow him everywhere he went.

He loved solitude, because in its bosom he would invent, giving free rein

to his imagination, a phantasmal world, inhabited by wonderful beings,

daughters of his weird fancies and his poetic dreams; for Manrico was a poet,

—so true a poet that never had he found adequate forms in which to utter his

thoughts nor had he ever imprisoned them in words.

He believed that among the red coals of the hearth there dwelt fire-spirits

of a thousand hues which ran like golden insects along the enkindled logs or

danced in a luminous whirl of sparks on the pointed flames, and he passed

long hours of inaction seated on a low stool by the high Gothic chimney-place,

motionless, his eyes fixed on the fire.

He believed that in the depths of the waves of the river, among the mosses

of the fountain and above the mists of the lake there lived mysterious women,

sibyls, nymphs, undines, who breathed forth laments and sighs, or sang and

laughed in the monotonous murmur of the water, a murmur to which he

listened in silence, striving to translate it.

In the clouds, in the air, in the depths of the groves, in the clefts of the

rocks, he imagined that he perceived forms, or heard mysterious sounds, forms

of supernatural beings, indistinct words which he could not comprehend.

Love! He had been born to dream love, not to feel it. He loved all women

an instant, this one because she was golden-haired, that one because she had

red lips, another because in walking she swayed as a river-reed.

Sometimes his delirium reached the point of his spending an entire night

gazing at the moon, which floated in heaven in a silvery mist, or at the stars,which twinkled afar off like the changing lights of precious stones. In those

long nights of poetic wakefulness, he would exclaim: "If it is true, as the Prior

of the Peña has told me, that it is possible those points of light may be worlds,

if it is true that people live on that pearly orb which rides above the clouds,

how beautiful must the women of those luminous regions be! and I shall not

be able to see them, and I shall not be able to love them! What must their

beauty be! And what their love!"

Manrico was not yet so demented that the boys would run after him, but he

was sufficiently so to talk and gesticulate to himself, which is where madness

begins.

II.

Over the Douro, which ran lapping the weatherworn and darkened stones

of the walls of Soria, there is a bridge leading from the city to the old convent

of the Templars, whose estates extended along the opposite bank of the river.

At the time to which we refer, the knights of the Order had already

abandoned their historic fortresses, but there still remained standing the ruins

of the large round towers of their walls,—there still might be seen, as in part

may be seen to-day, covered with ivy and white morning-glories the massive

arches of their cloister and the long ogive galleries of their courts of arms

through which the wind would breathe soft sighs, stirring the deep foliage.

In the orchards and in the gardens, whose paths the feet of the monks had

not trodden for many years, vegetation, left to itself, made holiday, without

fear that the hand of man should mutilate it in the effort to embellish.

Climbing plants crept upward twining about the aged trunks of the trees; the

shady paths through aisles of poplars, whose leafy tops met and mingled, were

overgrown with turf; spear-plumed thistles and nettles had shot up in the sandy

roads, and in the parts of the building which were bulging out, ready to fall;

the yellow crucifera, floating in the wind like the crested feathers of a helmet,

and bell-flowers, white and blue, balancing themselves, as in a swing, on their

long and flexible stems, proclaimed the conquest of decay and ruin.

It was night, a summer night, mild, full of perfumes and peaceful sounds,

and with a moon, white and serene, high in the blue, luminous, transparent

heavens.

Manrico, his imagination seized by a poetic frenzy, after crossing the

bridge from which he contemplated for a moment the dark silhouette of the

city outlined against the background of some pale, soft clouds massed on the

horizon, plunged into the deserted ruins of the Templars.

It was midnight. The moon, which had been slowly rising, was now at the

zenith, when, on entering a dusky avenue that led from the demolished cloister to the bank of the Douro, Manrico uttered a low, stifled cry, strangely

compounded of surprise, fear and joy.

In the depths of the dusky avenue he had seen moving something white,

which shimmered a moment and then vanished in the darkness, the trailing

robe of a woman, of a woman who had crossed the path and disappeared amid

the foliage at the very instant when the mad dreamer of absurd, impossible

dreams penetrated into the gardens.

An unknown woman!—In this place!—At this hour! "This, this is the

woman of my quest," exclaimed Manrico, and he darted forward in pursuit,

swift as an arrow.

III.

He reached the spot where he had seen the mysterious woman disappear in

the thick tangle of the branches. She had gone. Whither? Afar, very far, he

thought he descried, among the crowding trunks of the trees, something like a

shining, or a white, moving form. "It is she, it is she, who has wings on her

feet and flees like a shadow!" he said, and rushed on in his search, parting

with his hands the network of ivy which was spread like a tapestry from poplar

to poplar. By breaking through brambles and parasitical growths, he made his

way to a sort of platform on which the moonlight dazzled.—Nobody!—"Ah,

but by this path, but by this she slips away!" he then exclaimed. "I hear her

footsteps on the dry leaves, and the rustle of her dress as it sweeps over the

ground and brushes against the shrubs." And he ran,—ran like a madman,

hither and thither, and did not find her. "But still comes the sound of her

footfalls," he murmured again. "I think she spoke; beyond a doubt, she spoke.

The wind which sighs among the branches, the leaves which seem to be

praying in low voices, prevented my hearing what she said, but beyond a

doubt she fleets by yonder path; she spoke, she spoke. In what language? I

know not, but it is a foreign speech." And again he ran onward in pursuit,

sometimes thinking he saw her, sometimes that he heard her; now noticing that

the branches, among which she had disappeared, were still in motion; now

imagining that he distinguished in the sand the prints of her little feet; again

firmly persuaded that a special fragrance which crossed the air from time to

time was an aroma belonging to that woman who was making sport of him,

taking pleasure in eluding him among these intricate growths of briers and

brambles. Vain attempt!

He wandered some hours from one spot to another, beside himself, now

pausing to listen, now gliding with the utmost precaution over the herbage,

now in frantic and desperate race.

Pushing on, pushing on through the immense gardens which bordered the

river, he came at last to the foot of the cliff on which rises the hermitage of San Saturio. "Perhaps from this height I can get my bearings for pursuing my

search across this confused labyrinth," he exclaimed, climbing from rock to

rock with the aid of his dagger.

He reached the summit whence may be seen the city in the distance and,

curving at his feet, a great part of the Douro, compelling its dark, impetuous

stream onward through the winding banks that imprison it.

Manrico, once on the top of the cliff, turned his gaze in every direction,

till, bending and fixing it at last on a certain point, he could not restrain an

oath.

The sparkling moonlight glistened on the wake left behind by a boat,

which, rowed at full speed, was making for the opposite shore.

In that boat he thought he had distinguished a white and slender figure, a

woman without doubt, the woman whom he had seen in the grounds of the

Templars, the woman of his dreams, the realization of his wildest hopes. He

sped down the cliff with the agility of a deer, threw his cap, whose tall, full

plume might hinder him in running, to the ground, and freeing himself from

his heavy velvet cloak, shot like a meteor toward the bridge.

He believed he could cross it and reach the city before the boat would

touch the further bank. Folly! When Manrico, panting and covered with sweat,

reached the city gate, already they who had crossed the Douro over against

San Saturio were entering Soria by one of the posterns in the wall, which, at

that time, extended to the bank of the river whose waters mirrored its gray

battlements.

IV.

Although his hope of overtaking those who had entered by the postern gate

of San Saturio was dissipated, that of tracing out the house which sheltered

them in the city was not therefore abandoned by our hero. With his mind fixed

upon this idea, he entered the town and, taking his way toward the ward of San

Juan, began roaming its streets at hazard.

The streets of Soria were then, and they are to-day, narrow, dark and

crooked. A profound silence reigned in them, a silence broken only by the

distant barking of a dog, the barring of a gate or the neighing of a charger,

whose pawing made the chain which fastened him to the manger rattle in the

subterranean stables.

Manrico, with ear attent to these vague noises of the night, which at times

seemed to be the footsteps of some person who had just turned the last corner

of a deserted street, at others, the confused voices of people who were talking

behind him and whom every moment he expected to see at his side, spent several hours running at random from one place to another.

At last he stopped beneath a great stone mansion, dark and very old, and,

standing there, his eyes shone with an indescribable expression of joy. In one

of the high ogive windows of what we might call a palace, he saw a ray of soft

and mellow light which, passing through some thin draperies of rose-colored

silk, was reflected on the time-blackened, weather-cracked wall of the house

across the way.

"There is no doubt about it; here dwells my unknown lady," murmured the

youth in a low voice, without removing his eyes for a second from the Gothic

window. "Here she dwells! She entered by the postern gate of San Saturio,—

by the postern gate of San Saturio is the way to this ward—in this ward there

is a house where, after midnight, there is some one awake—awake? Who can

it be at this hour if not she, just returned from her nocturnal excursions? There

is no more room for doubt; this is her home."

In this firm persuasion and revolving in his head the maddest and most

capricious fantasies, he awaited dawn opposite the Gothic window where there

was a light all night and from which he did not withdraw his gaze a moment.

When daybreak came, the massive gates of the arched entrance to the

mansion, on whose keystone was sculptured the owner's coat of arms, turned

ponderously on their hinges with a sharp and prolonged creaking. A servitor

appeared on the threshold with a bunch of keys in his hand, rubbing his eyes,

and showing as he yawned a set of great teeth which might well rouse envy in

a crocodile.

For Manrico to see him and to rush to the gate was the work of an instant.

"Who lives in this house? What is her name? Her country? Why has she

come to Soria? Has she a husband? Answer, answer, animal!" This was the

salutation which, shaking him violently by the shoulder, Manrico hurled at the

poor servitor, who, after staring at him a long while with frightened, stupefied

eyes, replied in a voice broken with amazement:

"In this house lives the right honorable Señor don Alonso de Valdecuellos,

Master of the Horse to our lord, the King. He has been wounded in the war

with the Moors and is now in this city recovering from his injuries."

"Well! well! His daughter?" broke in the impatient youth. "His daughter, or

his sister, or his wife, or whoever she may be?"

"He has no woman in his family."

"No woman! Then who sleeps in that chamber there, where all night long I

have seen a light burning?"

"There? There sleeps my lord Don Alonso, who, as he is ill, keeps his lamp burning till dawn."

A thunderbolt, suddenly falling at his feet, would not have given Manrico a

greater shock than these words.

V.

"I must find her, I must find her; and if I find her, I am almost certain I

shall recognize her. How?—I cannot tell—but recognize her I must. The echo

of her footstep, or a single word of hers which I may hear again; the hem of

her robe, only the hem which I may see again would be enough to make me

sure of her. Night and day I see floating before my eyes those folds of a fabric

diaphanous and whiter than snow, night and day there is sounding here within,

within my head, the soft rustle of her raiment, the vague murmur of her

unintelligible words.—What said she?—What said she? Ah, if I might only

know what she said, perchance—but yet without knowing it, I shall find her—

I shall find her—my heart tells me so, and my heart deceives me never.—It is

true that I have unavailingly traversed all the streets of Soria, that I have

passed nights upon nights in the open air, a corner-post; that I have spent more

than twenty golden coins in persuading duennas and servants to gossip; that I

gave holy water in St. Nicholas to an old crone muffled up so artfully in her

woollen mantle that she seemed to me a goddess; and on coming out, after

matins, from the collegiate church, in the dusk before the dawn, I followed

like a fool the litter of the archdeacon, believing that the hem of his vestment

was that of the robe of my unknown lady—but it matters not—I must find her,

and the rapture of possessing her will assuredly surpass the labors of the quest.

"What will her eyes be? They should be azure, azure and liquid as the sky

of night. How I delight in eyes of that color! They are so expressive, so

dreamy, so—yes,—no doubt of it; azure her eyes should be, azure they are,

assuredly;—and her tresses black, jet black and so long that they wave upon

the air—it seems to me I saw them waving that night, like her robe, and they

were black—I do not deceive myself, no; they were black.

"And how well azure eyes, very large and slumbrous, and loose tresses,

waving and dark, become a tall woman—for—she is tall, tall and slender, like

those angels above the portals of our basilicas, angels whose oval faces the

shadows of their granite canopies veil in mystic twilight.

"Her voice!—her voice I have heard—her voice is soft as the breathing of

the wind in the leaves of the poplars, and her walk measured and stately like

the cadences of a musical instrument.

"And this woman, who is lovely as the loveliest of my youthful dreams,

who thinks as I think, who enjoys what I enjoy, who hates what I hate, who is

a twin spirit of my spirit, who is the complement of my being, must she notburning till dawn."

A thunderbolt, suddenly falling at his feet, would not have given Manrico a

greater shock than these words.

V.

"I must find her, I must find her; and if I find her, I am almost certain I

shall recognize her. How?—I cannot tell—but recognize her I must. The echo

of her footstep, or a single word of hers which I may hear again; the hem of

her robe, only the hem which I may see again would be enough to make me

sure of her. Night and day I see floating before my eyes those folds of a fabric

diaphanous and whiter than snow, night and day there is sounding here within,

within my head, the soft rustle of her raiment, the vague murmur of her

unintelligible words.—What said she?—What said she? Ah, if I might only

know what she said, perchance—but yet without knowing it, I shall find her—

I shall find her—my heart tells me so, and my heart deceives me never.—It is

true that I have unavailingly traversed all the streets of Soria, that I have

passed nights upon nights in the open air, a corner-post; that I have spent more

than twenty golden coins in persuading duennas and servants to gossip; that I

gave holy water in St. Nicholas to an old crone muffled up so artfully in her

woollen mantle that she seemed to me a goddess; and on coming out, after

matins, from the collegiate church, in the dusk before the dawn, I followed

like a fool the litter of the archdeacon, believing that the hem of his vestment

was that of the robe of my unknown lady—but it matters not—I must find her,

and the rapture of possessing her will assuredly surpass the labors of the quest.

"What will her eyes be? They should be azure, azure and liquid as the sky

of night. How I delight in eyes of that color! They are so expressive, so

dreamy, so—yes,—no doubt of it; azure her eyes should be, azure they are,

assuredly;—and her tresses black, jet black and so long that they wave upon

the air—it seems to me I saw them waving that night, like her robe, and they

were black—I do not deceive myself, no; they were black.

"And how well azure eyes, very large and slumbrous, and loose tresses,

waving and dark, become a tall woman—for—she is tall, tall and slender, like

those angels above the portals of our basilicas, angels whose oval faces the

shadows of their granite canopies veil in mystic twilight.

"Her voice!—her voice I have heard—her voice is soft as the breathing of

the wind in the leaves of the poplars, and her walk measured and stately like

the cadences of a musical instrument.

"And this woman, who is lovely as the loveliest of my youthful dreams,

who thinks as I think, who enjoys what I enjoy, who hates what I hate, who is

a twin spirit of my spirit, who is the complement of my being, must she not feel moved on meeting me? Must she not love me as I shall love her, as I love

her already, with all the strength of my life, with every faculty of my soul?

"Back, back to the place where I saw her for the first and only time that I

have seen her. Who knows but that, capricious as myself, a lover of solitude

and mystery like all dreamy souls, she may take pleasure in wandering among

the ruins in the silence of the night?"

Two months had passed since the servitor of Don Alonso de Valdecuellos

had disillusionized the infatuated Manrico, two months in every hour of which

he had built a castle in the air only for reality to shatter with a breath; two

months during which he had sought in vain that unknown woman for whom an

absurd love had been growing in his soul, thanks to his still more absurd

imaginations; two months had flown since his first adventure when now, after

crossing, absorbed in these ideas, the bridge which leads to the convent of the

Templars, the enamored youth plunged again into the intricate pathways of the

gardens.

VI.

The night was calm and beautiful, the full moon shone high in the heavens,

and the wind sighed with the sweetest of murmurs among the leaves of the

trees.

Manrico arrived at the cloister, swept his glance over the enclosed green

and peered through the massive arches of the arcades. It was deserted.

He went forth, turned his steps toward the dim avenue that leads to the

Douro, and had not yet entered it when there escaped from his lips a cry of joy.

He had seen floating for an instant, and then disappearing, the hem of the

white robe, of the white robe of the woman of his dreams, of the woman

whom now he loved like a madman.

He runs, he runs in his pursuit, he reaches the spot where he had seen her

vanish; but there he stops, fixes his terrified eyes upon the ground, remains a

moment motionless, a slight nervous tremor agitates his limbs, a tremor which

increases, which increases, and shows symptoms of an actual convulsion—and

he breaks out at last into a peal of laughter, laughter loud, strident, horrible.

That white object, light, floating, had again shone before his eyes, it had

even glittered at his feet for an instant, only for an instant.

It was a moonbeam, a moonbeam which pierced from time to time the

green vaulted roof of trees when the wind moved their boughs.

Several years had passed. Manrico, crouched on a settle by the deep Gothic

chimney of his castle, almost motionless and with a vague, uneasy gaze like

that of an idiot, would scarcely take notice either of the endearments of hismother or of the attentions of his servants.

"You are young, you are comely," she would say to him, "why do you

languish in solitude? Why do you not seek a woman whom you may love, and

whose love may make you happy?"

"Love! Love is a ray of moonshine," murmured the youth.

"Why do you not throw off this lethargy?" one of his squires would ask.

"Arm yourself in iron from head to foot, bid us unfurl to the winds your

illustrious banner, and let us march to the war. In war is glory."

"Glory!—Glory is a ray of moonshine."

"Would you like to have me recite you a ballad, the latest that Sir Arnaldo,

the Provençal troubadour, has composed?"

"No! no!" exclaimed the youth, straightening himself angrily on his seat, "I

want nothing—that is—yes, I want—I want you should leave me alone.

Ballads—women—glory—happiness—lies are they all—vain fantasies which

we shape in our imagination and clothe according to our whim, and we love

them and run after them—for what? for what? To find a ray of moonshine."

Manrico was mad; at least, all the world thought so. For myself, on the

contrary, I think what he had done was to regain his senses.

THE DEVIL'S CROSS

Whether you believe it or not matters little. My grandfather told it to my

father; my father related it to me, and I now recount it to you, although it may

serve for nothing more than to pass an idle hour.

I.

Twilight was beginning to spread its soft, dim wings over the picturesque

banks of the Segre, when after a fatiguing day's travel we reached Bellver, the

end of our journey.

Bellver is a small town situated on the slope of a hill, beyond which may

be seen, rising like the steps of a colossal granite amphitheatre, the lofty,

enclouded crests of the Pyrenees.

The white villages that encircle the town, sprinkled here and there over an

undulating plain of verdure, appear from a distance like a flock of doves which

have lowered their flight to quench their thirst in the waters of the river.

A naked crag, at whose foot the river makes a bend and on whose summitmay still be seen ancient architectural remains, marks the old boundary line

between the earldom of Urgel and the most important of its fiefs.

At the right of the winding path which leads to this point, going up the

river and following its curves and luxuriant banks, one comes upon a cross.

The stem and the arms are of iron; the circular base on which it rests is of

marble, and the stairway that leads to it of dark and ill-fitted fragments of

hewn stone.

The destructive action of time, which has covered the metal with rust, has

broken and worn away the stone of this monument in whose crevices grow

certain climbing plants, mounting in their interwoven growth until they crown

it, while an old, wide-spreading oak serves it as canopy.

I was some moments in advance of my travelling companions, and halting

my poor beast, I contemplated in silence that cross, mute and simple

expression of the faith and piety of other ages.

At that instant a world of ideas thronged my imagination,—ideas faint and

fugitive, without definite form, which were yet bound together, as by an

invisible thread of light, by the profound solitude of those places, the deep

silence of the gathering night and the vague melancholy of my soul.

Impelled by a religious impulse, spontaneous and indefinable, I

dismounted mechanically, uncovered, commenced to search my memory for

one of those prayers which I was taught when a child,—one of those prayers

that, later in life, involuntarily escaping from our lips, seem to lighten the

burdened heart and, like tears, relieve sorrow, which takes these natural

outlets.

I had begun to murmur such a prayer, when suddenly I felt myself

violently seized by the shoulders.

I turned my head. A man was standing at my side.

He was one of our guides, a native of the region, who, with an

indescribable expression of terror depicted on his face, strove to drag me away

with him and to cover my head with the hat which I still held in my hands.

My first glance, half astonishment, half anger, was equivalent to a sharp,

though silent, interrogation.

The poor fellow, without ceasing his efforts to withdraw me from that

place, replied to it with these words which then I could not comprehend but

which had in them an accent of sincerity that impressed me:—"By the

memory of your mother! by that which you hold most sacred in the world,

señorito, cover your head and flee faster than flight itself from that cross. Are

you so desperate that, the help of God not being enough, you call on that of theDevil?"

I stood a moment looking at him in silence. Frankly, I thought he was a

madman; but he went on with equal vehemence:

"You seek the frontier; well, then, if before this cross you ask that heaven

will give you aid, the tops of the neighboring mountains will rise, in a single

night, to the invisible stars, so that we shall not find the boundary in all our

life."

I could not help smiling.

"You take it in jest?—You think perhaps that this is a holy cross like the

one in the porch of our church?"

"Who doubts it?"

"Then you are mistaken out and out, for this cross—saving its divine

association—is accursed; this cross belongs to a demon and for that reason is

called The Devil's Cross."

"The Devil's Cross!" I repeated, yielding to his insistence without

accounting to myself for the involuntary fear which began to oppress my

spirit, and which repelled me as an unknown force from that place. "The

Devil's Cross! Never has my imagination been wounded with a more

inconsistent union of two ideas so absolutely at variance. A cross! and—the

Devil's! Come, come! When we reach the town you must explain to me this

monstrous incongruity."

During this short dialogue our comrades, who had spurred their sorry nags,

joined us at the foot of the cross. I told them briefly what had taken place: I

remounted my hack, and the bells of the parish were slowly calling to prayer

when we alighted at the most out-of-the-way and obscure of the inns of

Bellver.

II.

Rosy and azure flames were curling and crackling all along the huge oak

log which burned in the wide fire-place; our shadows, thrown in wavering

grotesques on the blackened walls, dwindled or grew gigantic according as the

blaze emitted more or less brilliancy; the alderwood cup, now empty, now full

(and not with water), like the buckets of an irrigating wheel, had been thrice

passed round the circle that we formed about the fire, and all were awaiting

impatiently the story of The Devil's Cross, promised us by way of dessert after

the frugal supper which we had just eaten, when our guide coughed twice,

tossed down a last draught of wine, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand

and began thus:

"It was a long, long time ago, how long I cannot say, but the Moors wereoccupying yet the greater part of Spain, our kings were called counts, and the

towns and villages were held in fief by certain lords, who in turn rendered

homage to others more powerful, when that event which I am about to relate

took place."

After this brief historical introduction, the hero of the occasion remained

silent some few moments, as if to arrange his thoughts, and proceeded thus:

"Well! the story goes that in that remote time this town and some others

formed part of the patrimony of a noble baron whose seigniorial castle stood

for many centuries upon the crest of a crag bathed by the Segre, from which it

takes its name.

"Some shapeless ruins that, overgrown with wild mustard and moss, may

still be seen upon the summit from the road which leads to this town, testify to

the truth of my story.

"I do not know whether by chance or through some deed of shame it came

to pass that this lord, who was detested by his vassals for his cruelty, and for

his evil disposition refused admission to court by the king and to their homes

by his neighbors, grew weary of living alone with his bad temper and his

cross-bowmen on the top of the rock where his forefathers had hung their nest

of stone.

"Night and day he taxed his wits to find some amusement consonant with

his character, which was no easy matter, since he had grown tired of making

war on his neighbors, beating his servants and hanging his subjects.

"At this time, the chronicles relate, there occurred to him, though without

precedent, a happy idea.

"Knowing that the Christians of other nations were preparing to go forth,

united in a formidable fleet, to a marvellous country in order to reconquer the

sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ which was in possession of the Moors, he

determined to join their following.

"Whether he entertained this idea with intent of atoning for his sins, which

were not few, by shedding blood in so righteous a cause; or whether his object

was to remove to a place where his vicious deeds were not known, cannot be

said; but it is true that to the great satisfaction of old and young, of vassals and

equals, he gathered together what money he could, released his towns, at a

heavy price, from their allegiance, and reserving of his estates no more than

the crag of the Segre and the four towers of the castle, his ancestral seat,

disappeared between the night and the morning.

"The whole district drew a long breath, as if awakened from a nightmare.

"Now no longer clusters of men, instead of fruits, hung from the trees oftheir orchards; the young peasant girls no longer feared to go, their jars upon

their heads, to draw water from the wells by the wayside; nor did the

shepherds lead their flocks to the Segre by the roughest secret paths, fearing at

every turn of the steep track to encounter the cross-bowmen of their dearly

beloved lord.

"Thus three years elapsed. The story of the Wicked Count, for by that

name only was he known, had come to be the exclusive possession of the old

women, who in the long, long winter evenings would relate his atrocities with

hollow and fearful voice to the terrified children, while mothers would affright

their naughty toddlers and crying babies by saying: 'Here comes the Count of

the Segre!' When behold! I know not whether by day or by night, whether

fallen from heaven or cast forth by hell, the dreaded Count appeared indeed,

and, as we say, in flesh and bone, in the midst of his former vassals.

"I forbear to describe the effect of this agreeable surprise. You can imagine

it better than I can depict it, merely from my telling you that he returned

claiming his forfeited rights; that if he went away evil, he came back worse;

and that if he was poor and without credit before going to the war, now he

could count on no other resources than his desperation, his lance and a half

dozen adventurers as profligate and impious as their chieftain.

"As was natural, the towns refused to pay tribute, from which at so great

cost they had bought exemption, but the Count fired their orchards, their farm-

houses and their crops.

"Then they appealed to the royal justice of the realm, but the Count

ridiculed the letters mandatory of his sovereign lords; he nailed them over the

sally-port of his castle and hung the bearers from an oak.

"Exasperated, and seeing no other way of salvation, at last they made a

league with one another, commended themselves to Providence and took up

arms; but the Count gathered his followers, called the Devil to his aid,

mounted his rock and made ready for the struggle.

"It began, terrible and bloody. There was fighting with all sorts of

weapons, in all places and at all hours, with sword and fire, on the mountain

and in the plain, by day and by night.

"This was not fighting to live; it was living to fight.

"In the end the cause of justice triumphed. You shall hear how.

"One dark, intensely dark night, when no sound was heard on earth nor a

single star shone in heaven, the lords of the fortress, elated by a recent victory,

divided the booty and, drunk with the fume of the liquors, in the midst of their

mad and boisterous revel intoned sacrilegious songs in praise of their infernalpatron.

"As I have said, nothing was heard around the castle save the echo of the

blasphemies which throbbed out into the black bosom of the night like the

throbbing of lost souls wrapped in the hurricane folds of hell.

"Now the careless sentinels had several times fixed their eyes on the

hamlet which rested in silence and, without fear of a surprise, had fallen asleep

leaning on the thick staves of their lances, when, lo and behold! a few

villagers, resolved to die and protected by the darkness, began to scale the crag

of the Segre whose crest they reached at the very moment of midnight.

"Once on the summit, that which remained for them to do required little

time. The sentinels passed with a single bound the barrier which separates

sleep from death. Fire, applied with resinous torches to drawbridge and

portcullis, leaped with lightning rapidity to the walls, and the scaling-party,

favored by the confusion and making their way through the flames, put an end

to the occupants of that fortress in the twinkling of an eye.

"All perished.

"When the next day began to whiten the lofty tops of the junipers, the

charred remains of the fallen towers were still smoking, and through their

gaping breaches it was easy to discern, glittering as the light struck it, where it

hung suspended from one of the blackened pillars of the banquet hall, the

armor of the dreaded chieftain whose dead body, covered with blood and dust,

lay between the torn tapestries and the hot ashes, confounded with the corpses

of his obscure companions.

"Time passed. Briers began to creep through the deserted courts, ivy to

climb the dark heaps of masonry, and the blue morning-glory to sway and

swing from the very turrets. The changeful sighs of the breeze, the croaking of

the birds of night, and the soft stir of reptiles gliding through the tall weeds

alone disturbed from time to time the deathly silence of that accursed place.

The unburied bones of its former inhabitants lay white in the moonlight and

still there could be seen the bundled armor of the Count of the Segre hanging

from the blackened pillar of the banquet hall.

"No one dared touch it, but a thousand fables were current concerning it. It

was a constant source of foolish reports and terrors among those who saw it

flashing in the sunlight by day, or thought they heard in the depths of the night

the metallic sound of its pieces as they struck one another when the wind

moved them, with a prolonged and doleful groan.

"Notwithstanding all the stories which were set afloat concerning the

armor and which the people of the surrounding region repeated in hushed

tones one to another, they were no more than stories, and the only positiveresult was a constant state of fear that every one tried for his own part to

dissimulate, putting, as we say, a brave face on it.

"If the matter had gone no further, no harm would have been done. But the

Devil, who apparently was not satisfied with his work, began, no doubt with

the permission of God, that so the country might expiate its sins, to take a

hand in the game.

"From that moment the tales, which until then had been nothing more than

vague rumors without any show of truth, began to assume consistency and to

grow from day to day more probable.

"Finally there came nights in which all the village-folk were able to see a

strange phenomenon.

"Amid the shadows in the distance, now climbing the steep, twisting paths

of the crag of the Segre, now wandering among the ruins of the castle, now

seeming to oscillate in the air, mysterious and fantastic lights were seen

gliding, crossing, vanishing and reappearing to recede in different directions,

—lights whose source no one could explain.

"This was repeated for three or four nights during the space of a month and

the perplexed villagers looked in disquietude for the result of those

conventicles, for which certainly they were not kept waiting long. Soon three

or four homesteads in flames, a number of missing cattle, and the dead bodies

of a few travellers, thrown from precipices, alarmed all the region for ten

leagues about.

"Now no doubt remained. A band of evildoers were harboring in the

dungeons of the castle.

"These desperadoes, who showed themselves at first only very rarely and

at definite points of the forest which even to this day extends along the river,

finally came to hold almost all the passes of the mountains, to lie in ambush by

the roads, to plunder the valleys and to descend like a torrent on the plain

where, slaughtering indiscriminately, they did not leave a doll with its head on.

"Assassinations multiplied; young girls disappeared and children were

snatched from their cradles despite the lamentations of their mothers to furnish

those diabolical feasts at which, it was generally believed, the sacramental

vessels stolen from the profaned churches were used as goblets.

"Terror took such possession of men's souls that, when the bell rang for the

Angelus, nobody dared to leave his house, though even there was no certain

security against the banditti of the crag.

"But who were they? Whence had they come? What was the name of their

mysterious chief? This was the enigma which all sought to explain, but whichthus far no one could solve, although it was noticed that from this time on the

armor of the feudal lord had disappeared from the place it had previously

occupied, and afterwards various peasants had affirmed that the captain of this

inhuman crew marched at its head clad in a suit of mail which, if not the same,

was its exact counterpart.

"But in the essential fact, when stripped of that fantastic quality with which

fear augments and embellishes its cherished creations, there was nothing

necessarily supernatural nor strange.

"What was more common in outlaws than the barbarities for which this

band was distinguished or more natural than that their chief should avail

himself of the abandoned armor of the Count of the Segre?

"But the dying revelations of one of his followers, taken prisoner in the

latest affray, heaped up the measure of evidence, convincing the most

incredulous. Less or more in words, the substance of his confession was this:

"'I belong,' he said, 'to a noble family. My youthful irregularities, my mad

extravagances, and finally my crimes drew upon my head the wrath of my

kindred and the curse of my father, who, at his death, disinherited me. Finding

myself alone and without any resources whatever, it was the Devil, without

doubt, who must needs suggest to me the idea of gathering together some

youths in a situation similar to my own. These, seduced by the promise of a

future of dissipation, liberty and abundance, did not hesitate an instant to

subscribe to my designs.

"'These designs consisted in forming a band of young men of gay temper,

unscrupulous and reckless, who thenceforward would live joyously on the

product of their valor and at the cost of the country, until God should please to

dispose of each according to His will, as happens to me this day.

"'With this object we chose this district as the theatre of our future

expeditions, and selected as the point most suitable for our gatherings the

abandoned castle of the Segre, a place peculiarly secure, not only because of

its strong and advantageous position, but as defended against the peasantry by

their superstitions and dread.

"'Gathered one night under its ruined arcades, around a bonfire that

illumined with its ruddy glow the deserted galleries, a heated dispute arose as

to which of us should be chosen chief.

"'Each one alleged his merits; I advanced my claims; already some were

muttering together with threatening looks, and others, whose voices were loud

in drunken quarrel, had their hands on the hilts of their poniards to settle the

question, when we suddenly heard a strange rattling of armor, accompanied by

hollow, resounding footsteps which became more and more distinct. We allcast around uneasy, suspicious glances. We rose and bared our blades,

determined to sell our lives dear, but we could only stand motionless on seeing

advance, with firm and even tread, a man of lofty stature, completely armed

from head to foot, his face covered with the visor of his helmet. Drawing his

broad-sword, which two men could scarcely wield, and placing it upon one of

the charred fragments of the fallen arcades, he exclaimed in a voice hollow

and deep like the murmurous fall of subterranean waters:

"'If any one of you dare to be first, while I dwell in the castle of the Segre,

let him take up this sword, emblem of power.

"'All were silent until, the first moment of astonishment passed, with loud

voices we proclaimed him our captain, offering him a glass of our wine. This

he declined by signs, perchance that he need not reveal his face, which in vain

we strove to distinguish across the iron bars hiding it from our eyes.

"'Nevertheless we swore that night the most terrible oaths, and on the

following began our nocturnal raids. In these, our mysterious chief went

always at our head. Fire does not stop him, nor dangers intimidate him, nor

tears move him. He never speaks, but when blood smokes on our hands, when

churches fall devoured by the flames, when women flee affrighted amid the

ruins, and children utter screams of pain, and the old men perish under our

blows, he answers the groans, the imprecations and the lamentations with a

loud laugh of savage joy.

"'Never does he lay aside his arms nor lift the visor of his helmet after

victory nor take part in the feast nor yield himself to slumber. The swords that

strike him pierce his armor without causing death or drawing blood; fire

reddens his coat of mail and yet he pushes on undaunted amid the flames,

seeking new victims; he scorns gold, despises beauty, and is not moved by

ambition.

"'Among ourselves, some think him a madman, others a ruined noble who

from a remnant of shame conceals his face, and there are not wanting those

who are persuaded that it is the very Devil in person.'

"The author of these revelations died with a mocking smile on his lips and

without repenting of his sins; divers of his comrades followed him at different

times to meet their punishment, but the dreaded chief, to whom continually

gathered new proselytes, did not cease his ravages.

"The unhappy inhabitants of the region, more and more harassed and

desperate, had not yet achieved that pitch of resolution necessary to put an

end, once for all, to this order of things, every day more insupportable and

grievous.

"Adjoining the hamlet and hidden in the depths of a dense forest, theredwelt at this time, in a little hermitage dedicated to Saint Bartholomew, a holy

man of godly and exemplary life, whom the peasants always held in an odor of

sanctity, thanks to his wholesome counsels and sure predictions.

"This venerable hermit, to whose prudence and proverbial wisdom the

people of Bellver committed the solution of their difficult problem, after

seeking divine aid through his patron saint, who, as you know, is well

acquainted with the Devil, and on more than one occasion has put him in a

tight place, advised that they should lie in ambush during the night at the foot

of the stony road which winds up to the rock on whose summit stands the

castle. He charged them at the same time that, once there, they should use no

other weapons to apprehend the Enemy than a wonderful prayer which he had

them commit to memory, and with which the chronicles assert that Saint

Bartholomew had made the Devil his prisoner.

"The plan was put into immediate execution, and its success exceeded all

hopes, for the morrow's sun had not lit the high tower of Bellver when its

inhabitants gathered in groups in the central square, telling one another with

an air of mystery how, that night, the famous captain of the banditti of the

Segre had come into the town bound hand and foot and securely tied to the

back of a strong mule.

"By what art the actors in this enterprise had brought it to such fortunate

issue no one succeeded in finding out nor were they themselves able to tell;

but the fact remained that, thanks to the prayer of the Saint or to the daring of

his devotees, the attempt had resulted as narrated.

"As soon as the news began to spread from mouth to mouth and from

house to house, throngs rushed into the streets with loud huzzas and were soon

massed before the doors of the prison. The parish bell called together the civic

body, the most substantial citizens met in council, and all awaited in suspense

the hour when the criminal should appear before his improvised judges.

"These judges, who were authorized by the sovereign power of Urgel to

administer themselves justice prompt and stern to those malefactors,

deliberated but a moment, after which they commanded that the culprit be

brought before them to receive his sentence.

"As I have said, as in the central square, so in the streets through which the

prisoner must pass to the place where he should meet his judges, the impatient

multitude thronged like a clustered swarm of bees. Especially at the gateway

of the prison the popular excitement mounted from moment to moment, and

already animated dialogues, sullen mutterings and threatening shouts had

begun to give the warders anxiety, when fortunately the order came to bring

forth the criminal."As he appeared below the massive arch of the prison portal, in complete

armor, his face covered with the visor, a low, prolonged murmur of admiration

and surprise rose from the compact multitude which with difficulty opened to

let him pass.

"All had recognized in that coat of mail the well-known armor of the

Count of the Segre, that armor which had been the object of the most gloomy

traditions while it had been hanging from the ruined walls of the accursed

stronghold.

"This was that armor; there was left no room for doubt. All had seen the

black plume waving from his helmet's crest in the battles which formerly they

had fought against their lord; all had seen it, blowing in the morning breeze,

like the ivy of the flame-gnawed pillar on which the armor had hung since the

death of its owner. But who could be the unknown personage who was

wearing it now? Soon it would be known; at least, so they thought. Events will

show how this expectation, like many another, was frustrated and how out of

this solemn act of justice, from which might have been expected a complete

revelation of the truth, there resulted new and more inexplicable confusions.

"The mysterious bandit arrived finally at the Council Hall and a profound

silence followed the murmurs which had arisen among the bystanders on

hearing resound beneath the lofty arches of that chamber the click of his

golden spurs. One of the members of the tribunal in a slow and uncertain voice

asked his name, and all anxiously listened that they might not lose one word of

his response, but the warrior only shrugged his shoulders lightly with an air of

contempt and insult, which could but irritate his judges, who exchanged

glances of surprise.

"Three times the question was repeated, and as often received the same or

a similar reply.

" 'Have him lift his visor! Have him show his face! Have him show his

face!' the citizens present at the trial began to shout. 'Have him show his face!

We will see if then he dare insult us with his contempt, as he does now hidden

in his mail.'

"'Show your face,' demanded the same member of the tribunal who had

before addressed him.

"The warrior remained motionless.

"'I command you by the authority of this council.'

"The same answer.

"'By the authority of this realm.'

"Nor for that."Indignation rose to its height, even to the point where one of the guards,

throwing himself upon the criminal, whose pertinacious silence was enough to

exhaust the patience of a saint, violently opened his visor. A general cry of

surprise escaped from those within the hall, who remained for an instant

smitten with an inconceivable amazement.

"The cause was adequate.

"The helmet, whose iron visor, as all could see, was partly lifted toward the

forehead, partly fallen over the shining steel gorget, was empty,—entirely

empty.

"When, the first moment of terror passed, they would have touched it, the

armor shivered slightly and, breaking asunder into its various pieces, fell to the

floor with a dull, strange clang.

"The greater part of the spectators, at the sight of the new prodigy, forsook

the room tumultuously and rushed in terror to the square.

"The news spread with the speed of thought among the multitude who

were awaiting impatiently the result of the trial; and such was the alarm, the

excitement and the clamor, that no one longer doubted what the popular voice

had asserted from the first—that the Devil, on the death of the Count of the

Segre, had inherited the fiefs of Bellver.

"At last the tumult subsided, and it was decided to return the miraculous

armor to the dungeon.

"When this was so bestowed, they despatched four envoys, who, as

representing the perplexed town, should present the case to the royal Count of

Urgel and the archbishop. In a few days these envoys returned with the

decision of those dignitaries, a decision brief and comprehensive.

"'Let the armor be hanged,' they said, 'in the central square of the town; if

the Devil occupies it, he will find it necessary to abandon it or to be strangled

with it.'

"The people of Bellver, enchanted with so ingenious a solution, again

assembled in council, ordered a very high gallows to be erected in the square,

and when once more the multitude filled the approaches to the prison, went

thither for the armor in a body with all the civic dignity which the importance

of the case demanded.

"When this honorable delegation arrived at the massive arch giving

entrance to the building, a pallid and distracted man threw himself to the

ground in the presence of the astonished bystanders, exclaiming with tears in

his eyes:

"'Pardon, señores, pardon!'"'Pardon! For whom?' said some, 'for the Devil, who dwells in the armor

of the Count of the Segre?'

"'For me,' continued with shaking voice the unhappy man in whom all

recognized the chief warden of the prison, 'for me—because the armor—has

disappeared.'

"On hearing these words, amazement was painted on the faces of as many

as were in the portico; silent and motionless, so they would have remained

God knows how long if the following narrative of the terrified keeper had not

caused them to gather in groups around him, greedy for every word.

"'Pardon me, señores,' said the poor warden, 'and I will conceal nothing

from you, however much it may be against me.'

"All maintained silence and he went on as follows:

" 'I shall never succeed in giving the reason, but the fact is that the story of

the empty armor always seemed to me a fable manufactured in favor of some

noble personage whom perhaps grave reasons of public policy did not permit

the judges to make known or to punish.

"'I was ever of this belief—a belief in which I could not but be confirmed

by the immobility in which the armor remained from the hour when, by the

order of the tribunal, it was brought a second time to the prison. In vain, night

after night, desiring to surprise its secret, if secret there were, I crept up little

by little and listened at the cracks of the iron door of its dungeon. Not a sound

was perceptible.

"'In vain I managed to observe it through a small hole made in the wall;

thrown upon a little straw in one of the darkest corners, it remained day after

day disordered and motionless.

"'One night, at last, pricked by curiosity and wishing to convince myself

that this object of terror had nothing mysterious about it, I lighted a lantern,

went down to the dungeons, drew their double bolts and, not taking the

precaution to shut the doors behind me, so firm was my belief that all this was

no more than an old wives' tale, entered the cell. Would I had never done it!

Scarcely had I taken a few steps when the light of my lantern went out of itself

and my teeth began to chatter and my hair to rise. Breaking the profound

silence that encompassed me, I had heard something like a sound of metal

pieces which stirred and clanked in fitting themselves together in the gloom.

"'My first movement was to throw myself toward the door to bar the

passage, but on grasping its panels I felt upon my shoulders a formidable

hand, gauntleted, which, after jerking me violently aside, flung me upon the

threshold. There I remained until the next morning when my subordinatesfound me unconscious and, on reviving, only able to recollect that after my

fall I had seemed to hear, confusedly, a sounding tread accompanied by the

clatter of spurs, which little by little grew more distant until it died away.'

"When the warden had finished, profound silence reigned, on which there

followed an infernal outbreak of lamentations, shouts and threats.

"It was with difficulty that the more temperate could control the populace,

who, infuriated at this last turn of affairs, demanded with fierce outcry the

death of the inquisitive author of their new disappointment.

"At last the tumult was quieted and the people began to lay plans for a

fresh capture. This attempt, too, had a satisfactory outcome.

"At the end of a few days, the armor was again in the power of its foes.

Now that the formula was known and the help of Saint Bartholomew secured,

the thing was no longer very difficult.

"But yet something remained to be done; in vain, after conquering it, they

hanged it from a gallows; in vain they exercised the utmost vigilance for the

purpose of giving it no opportunity to escape by way of the upper world. But

as soon as two fingers' breadth of light fell on the scattered pieces of armor,

they fitted themselves together and, clinkity clank, made off again to resume

their raids over mountain and plain, which was a blessing indeed.

"This was a story without an end.

"In so critical a state of affairs, the people divided among themselves the

pieces of the armor that, perchance for the hundredth time, had come into their

possession, and prayed the pious hermit, who had once before enlightened

them with his counsel, to decide what they should do with it.

"The holy man ordained a general fast. He buried himself for three days in

the depths of a cavern that served him as a retreat and at their end bade them

melt the diabolical armor and with this and some hewn stones from the castle

of the Segre, erect a cross.

"The work was carried through, although not without new and fearful

prodigies which filled with terror the souls of the dismayed inhabitants of

Bellver.

"As soon as the pieces thrown into the flames began to redden, long and

deep groans seemed to come out of the great blaze, within whose circle of fuel

the armor leapt as if it were alive and felt the action of the fire. A whirl of

sparks red, green and blue danced on the points of the spiring flames and

twisted about hissing, as if a legion of devils, mounted on these, would fight to

free their lord from that torment.

"Strange, horrible, was the process by which the incandescent armor lost its form to take that of a cross.

"The hammers fell clanging with a frightful uproar upon the anvil, where

twenty sturdy smiths beat into shape the bars of boiling metal that quivered

and groaned beneath the blows.

"Already the arms of the sign of our redemption were outspread, already

the upper end was beginning to take form, when the fiendish, glowing mass

writhed anew, as if in frightful convulsion, and enfolding the unfortunate

workmen, who struggled to free themselves from its deadly embrace, glittered

in rings like a serpent or contracted itself in zigzag like lightning.

"Incessant labor, faith, prayers and holy water succeeded, at last, in

overcoming the infernal spirit, and the armor was converted into a cross.

"This cross it is you have seen to-day, the cross in which the Devil who

gives it its name is bound. Before it the young people in the month of May

place no clusters of lilies, nor do the shepherds uncover as they pass by, nor

the old folk kneel; the strict admonitions of the priest scarcely prevent the

boys from stoning it.

"God has closed His ears to all supplications offered Him in its presence.

In the winter, packs of wolves gather about the juniper which overshadows it

to rush upon the herds; banditti wait in its shade for travellers whose slain

bodies they bury at its foot, and when the tempest rages, the lightnings deviate

from their course to meet, hissing, at the head of this cross and to rend the

stones of its pedestal."