Part 2 (1/2)

”Thou shalt see thy champion, Cadi! hither quick the captive bring!”

Thus in wrath and deadly anger spoke Al-Widdicomb, the King: ”Paler than a maiden's forehead is the Christian's hue, I ween, Since a year within the dungeons of Grenada he hath been!”

Then they brought the Gomersalez, and they led the warrior in; Weak and wasted seemed his body, and his face was pale and thin; But the ancient fire was burning, unsubdued, within his eye, And his step was proud and stately, and his look was stern and high.

Scarcely from tumultuous cheering could the galleried crowd refrain, For they knew Don Gomersalez and his prowess in the plain; But they feared the grizzly despot and his myrmidons in steel, So their sympathy descended in the fruitage of Seville. {12}

”Wherefore, monarch, hast thou brought me from the dungeon dark and drear, Where these limbs of mine have wasted in confinement for a year?

Dost thou lead me forth to torture?--Rack and pincers I defy!

Is it that thy base grotesquos may behold a hero die?”

”Hold thy peace, thou Christian caitiff, and attend to what I say!

Thou art called the starkest rider of the Spanish cur's array If thy courage be undaunted, as they say it was of yore, Thou mayst yet achieve thy freedom,--yet regain thy native sh.o.r.e.

”Courses three within this circus 'gainst my warriors shalt thou run, Ere yon weltering pasteboard ocean shall receive yon muslin sun; Victor--thou shalt have thy freedom; but if stretched upon the plain, To thy dark and dreary dungeon they shall hale thee back again.”

”Give me but the armour, monarch, I have worn in many a field, Give me but my trusty helmet, give me but my dinted s.h.i.+eld; And my old steed, Bavieca, swiftest courser in the ring, And I rather should imagine that I'll do the business, King!”

Then they carried down the armour from the garret where it lay, Oh! but it was red and rusty, and the plumes were shorn away: And they led out Bavieca from a foul and filthy van, For the conqueror had sold him to a Moorish dog's-meat man.

When the steed beheld his master, loud he whinnied loud and free, And, in token of subjection, knelt upon each broken knee; And a tear of walnut largeness to the warrior's eyelids rose, As he fondly picked a bean-straw from his coughing courser's nose.

”Many a time, O Bavieca, hast thou borne me through the fray!

Bear me but again as deftly through the listed ring this day; Or if thou art worn and feeble, as may well have come to pa.s.s, Time it is, my trusty charger, both of us were sent to gra.s.s!”

Then he seized his lance, and, vaulting, in the saddle sate upright; Marble seemed the n.o.ble courser, iron seemed the mailed knight; And a cry of admiration burst from every Moorish lady.

”Five to four on Don Fernando!” cried the sable-bearded Cadi.

Warriors three from Alcantara burst into the listed s.p.a.ce, Warriors three, all bred in battle, of the proud Alhambra race: Trumpets sounded, coursers bounded, and the foremost straight went down, Tumbling, like a sack of turnips, right before the jeering Clown.

In the second chieftain galloped, and he bowed him to the King, And his saddle-girths were tightened by the Master of the Ring; Through three blazing hoops he bounded ere the desperate fight began-- Don Fernando! bear thee bravely!--'tis the Moor Abdorrhaman!

Like a double streak of lightning, clas.h.i.+ng in the sulphurous sky, Met the pair of hostile heroes, and they made the sawdust fly; And the Moslem spear so stiffly smote on Don Fernando's mail, That he reeled, as if in liquor, back to Bavieca's tail:

But he caught the mace beside him, and he gripped it hard and fast, And he swung it starkly upwards as the foeman bounded past; And the deadly stroke descended through the skull and through the brain, As ye may have seen a poker cleave a cocoa-nut in twain.

Sore astonished was the monarch, and the Moorish warriors all, Save the third bold chief, who tarried and beheld his brethren fall; And the Clown, in haste arising from the footstool where he sat, Notified the first appearance of the famous Acrobat;

Never on a single charger rides that stout and stalwart Moor,-- Five beneath his stride so stately bear him o'er the trembling floor; Five Arabians, black as midnight--on their necks the rein he throws, And the outer and the inner feel the pressure of his toes. {18}

Never wore that chieftain armour; in a knot himself he ties, With his grizzly head appearing in the centre of his thighs, Till the petrified spectator asks, in paralysed alarm, Where may be the warrior's body,--which is leg, and which is arm?

”Sound the charge!” The coursers started; with a yell and furious vault, High in air the Moorish champion cut a wondrous somersault; O'er the head of Don Fernando like a tennis-ball he sprung, Caught him tightly by the girdle, and behind the crupper hung.

Then his dagger Don Fernando plucked from out its jewelled sheath, And he struck the Moor so fiercely, as he grappled him beneath, That the good Damascus weapon sank within the folds of fat, And as dead as Julius Caesar dropped the Gordian Acrobat.

Meanwhile fast the sun was sinking--it had sunk beneath the sea, Ere Fernando Gomersalez smote the latter of the three; And Al-Widdicomb, the monarch, pointed, with a bitter smile, To the deeply-darkening canvas;--blacker grew it all the while.

”Thou hast slain my warriors, Spaniard! but thou hast not kept thy time; Only two had sunk before thee ere I heard the curfew chime; Back thou goest to thy dungeon, and thou may'st be wondrous glad, That thy head is on thy shoulders for thy work to-day, my lad!

”Therefore all thy boasted valour, Christian dog, of no avail is!”

Dark as midnight grew the brow of Don Fernando Gomersalez:-- Stiffly sate he in his saddle, grimly looked around the ring, Laid his lance within the rest, and shook his gauntlet at the King.

”Oh, thou foul and faithless traitor! wouldst thou play me false again?

Welcome death and welcome torture, rather than the captive's chain!