in startling distinctness in the rapidly succeeding sheets of lightning)—“tell me, I pray you, what name I bear, and from whom I am sprung? I crave it as a boon. Men call me Bernardo del Carpio, by the name of the castle you bestowed upon me. When I question further they turn aside and smile. But a knight in such a battle as I go to lead against the Franks must wear his own escutcheon on his shield, not one granted him by favour.”
Had a viper suddenly fixed its sharpest fangs upon his flesh Alonso could not have started with greater horror. His glassy eyes fixed themselves on the unconscious Bernardo, who eagerly awaited his answer to be gone, with an expression of mingled dread and terror, eyeing him as if the foul fiend himself had crossed his path, while a tremendous explosion of thunder overhead rattled around, and flash after flash of lightning quivered upon the walls. At length, out of his mouth came inarticulate words, mixed with broken phrases, but spoken so low in the uproar created by the storm no sense came to Bernardo.
“Begone, bastard!” cried the king at length, every feature in his face working with the violence of his passion. “Have I harboured you so many years to open the wound of my dishonour? Is this the return you make for all my care? Neither name nor kindred have you, so get you gone. The sight of you offends me.”
“Oh, my lord!” answered Bernardo, whose open countenance had grown very white, deep lines forming on mouth and brow with a sudden look of age the course of years could not have wrought, “had any man but you spoken thus to me, he would not have lived to draw another breath. Your words point to some hideous secret, some foul crime, in which you share. Great God! whence am I sprung? The very beasts have dams that suckle them, and is Bernardo alone deprived of the common claims of nature?”
No answer came from the king; no sign, no yielding. Bernardo’s question had struck him to the quick.
“As you pray for mercy, sire, speak one word,” urged Bernardo, the trembling of his lips telling what he suffered. “Are father and mother dead?”
“Both to me,” was the stern answer. “The mortal spark of life can never reanimate the soul dead in sin. Question me no more, audacious youth. And think not, because my blood runs in your veins that I will favour your ambition. Rather have I called in the stranger to occupy the throne. Now you know my mind. Were I dead, my spirit would stand as with a flaming sword to shut you out.”
“Then sweeter far than life and honour and glory, come death!” exclaimed Bernardo, throwing up his arms. “From this day I am a desperate man. My sword is to me the staff of life; bloodshed and carnage the food on which I live. Come now over the grey heights of the mountains the Frankish host and I will meet them as never mortal did his country’s foes. Come, great Charlemagne and all your peers; iron-fisted Guarinos, good Ferragol, Oliver, Gayferos, and Roland, bravest of paladins. Come all. Despair, dishonour are the keen edges to the weapon which I draw for your destruction. An unknown knight, degraded from my place, I will leave a name behind me that shall be honoured as long as Spain cleaves the seas. Adieu, my lord,” turning to the king, “you have forgotten your duty to the land you rule, come to you inch by inch, bathed in Gothic blood. I, Bernardo del Carpio, the nameless outcast, go forth to defend it. You have planted a dagger in my heart not hecatombs of the enemy can draw forth. Adieu!”
“Now stay, my boy,” cried the king, laying his hand on his shoulder as he turned to go. “Spite of the past, my heart warms to you. Take the lion of Leon and place it on your shield; and when men ask you by what right, answer, ‘By order of the King.’ ”
At this moment the tempest seemed to have reached its climax; a loud and hollow reverberation, like the sound of a blow upon a brass timbrel, shook the palace to its foundations and the whole firmament pulsated with flame. But Bernardo heeded not: with his features locked in a cold, impassive silence, he passed out.