that at first nothing was visible, except the dim outline of a gilt retablo behind the altar, on which a light burned day and night before the ever-present host and such sacred bones and relics as had been saved from desecration by the Moors.
“Who dares to break in on my devotions?” cried a harsh voice, speaking as it were from the depths of sudden night before a shrine concealed in the sunken curvings of the wall. “Begone! leave me to commune with the saints.”
“It is in their name I come, O King, to defend the land they love,” answered Bernardo, bending his knee, in a voice so young and fresh, life and youth seemed to waft with it into the gloom.
There was a moment of silence.
“Not now, Bernardo, not now, my boy. Leave me. I have vowed a novena to the Virgin of Saragossa, whose favour I specially implore, with that of the Holy Santiago and Saint Isidore our patrons, on a great project I have in hand. Not now.”
“Yes, now,” in a stern voice came from Bernardo, fronting the king, who had turned reluctantly towards him. “What I have to say brooks not a moment’s delay.” Another crash from without interrupts him, and a wild whirl of hail and rain rattle outside on the casement. “Oh, my lord,” he continues, “are there no valiant knights in Leon that you should betray your kingdom into the hands of a strange king?”
“Betray? you dare to say betray, after the long and prosperous reign heaven has vouchsafed me?” cried Alonso, rising up from where he was kneeling as a subdued ray of light lit the sunken features of his emaciated face, with long white hair and beard, the natural fairness of his skin turned by time into a yellow tinge; his eyes full and grey, with thin imperceptible eyebrows, and cheeks deeply lined with wrinkles which collected on his high forehead under a silken cap. A noble face, once full of manly beauty, but with an expression of coldness and fickleness in the wandering eye, and weakness in the thin-lined mouth which marred it. Then in a louder tone he continued: “It ill becomes your slender years, Bernardo, and your lack of experience, to question the wisdom of your sovereign.”
“But to sell us to a foreigner, my lord, to give us over into the hands of the Frankish wolf! This can never be. A courage equal to Charlemagne’s beats in a thousand Spanish breasts, and I, Bernardo, will lead them. Not secretly and treacherously, but in the light of day. Therefore I am come to warn you against yourself. For by no unbiassed will of your own have you done this thing.”