This sudden interruption appeared to be the reverse of disagreeable to the lady of the house, who had for some time been giving indications of weariness and annoyance. As soon as the tranquillity of the company was restored, she pointed out that it was time that a vivid narrative of something should take the place of reading, and thought Euchar ought really to make it his duty to undertake this, seeing that, in general, he was so obstinately silent, as to contribute little to the entertainment of the company.
Euchar said, modestly, that he was anything but a good story-teller, and that the tale which he thought of telling was of a very serious, perhaps even terrible description, and might be anything but enjoyable by the company. But four very young ladies immediately cried out, with one voice "Oh! something terrible, please! I do so love to be terrified!"
Euchar took his place in the chair of the narrator, and began as follows:--
"We have been passing through a period in which events have swept athwart the stage of the world like a series of raging hurricanes. Humanity, shaken to its depths, has given birth to things portentous, even as the storm-tossed ocean casts up to the surface of its seething surges the terrible marvels of its abysses. Whatever could be accomplished by lion-like courage, unconquerable valour, hatred, revenge, fury, and despair, was achieved during the Spanish war of independence. I should like to tell you of the adventures of a friend of mine, whom I shall call Edgar, who served in that war, under the banners of Wellington. He had left his native place in deep, bitter irritation, at the shame of his Fatherland, and gone to Hamburg, where he lived in a little room which he had taken, in a retired quarter. He had a neighbour, who lived in the next room to him, with only a wall between them, but he knew nothing more of him than that he was an old man, in infirm health, who never went out. He often heard him groan, and break out into gentle pathetic lamentations; but he did not understand the words he spoke. After a time, this neighbour begun to walk assiduously up and down in his room, and it appeared to indicate returning health when he tuned a guitar one day, and began to sing in a soft voice, songs which Edgar recognized to be Spanish romances.
On being closely questioned, the landlady confided to Edgar, that his neighbour was a French officer who had been invalided from the Romana corps, that he was under secret espionage, and very seldom ventured to go out.
In the middle of the night Edgar heard this Spaniard play on his guitar more loudly than before, and begin, in powerful strangely changing melody, the 'Profecia del Pirineo of Don Juan Baptista de Arriaja.' There came the stanzas commencing--
"Y oye que el gran rugido,
En ya trueno en los campos de Castilla," &c.
The glowing enthusiasm with which the old gentleman's singing was instinct, set Edgar's blood ablaze. A new world dawned on him. He knew, now, how to arouse himself from out his sickly mood, and under an impulse to deeds of valour, fight out the contest which was eating up his heart. He could not resist an eager desire to make the acquaintance of the man who had thus inspired him with new life. The door gave way at the pressure of his hand, but the moment he entered the room, the old man sprung from his bed with a cry of "Träidor" (traitor), and made straight at Edgar with a drawn dagger. Edgar succeeded in evading the well-aimed thrust by a skilful movement, and in grasping the old man, and holding him down on his bed.
While he thus held him, for he had but little strength at the time, he implored him in the most touching language, to forgive the stormy fashion of his entrance: he assured him that he was no traitor; but that on the contrary, what he had heard him sing had lighted up all the rage, the inconsolable pain, which had been tearing his breast asunder into an unslakeable desire for combat. He longed to hurry to Spain, there to fight for the freedom of the country. The old man gazed fixedly at him, and said, "Can it be possible?" and embraced Edgar, who, naturally, continued his assurances that nothing could induce him to forego his resolve, at the same time throwing his dagger down on the ground.