Stung to the quick, Julian rose, flinging a furious glance on the calm, cold eyes riveted upon him. “Pelistes,” he cried, “what means this mockery? You know me well. I am Julian.”
“I know you for a base apostate,” thundered Pelistes, the great wrath within him finding sudden vent, “an apostate and a traitor. Julian, my friend, was a Christian knight, devoted, true, and valiant, but you, you have no name. Infidel, renegade, and traitor, the earth you tread abhors you. The men you lead curse you, for you have betrayed Spain and your king. Therefore, I repeat, O man unknown, if you declare you are Don Julian, you lie. He, alas! is dead, and you are some fiend from hell who wears his semblance. No longer can I brook the sight.”
So, rising from the table, Pelistes departed, turning his back on Julian, overwhelmed with confusion, amid the scornful smiles of the Moslem knights, who used while they despised him.
As yet, however, all had gone well with him. If a traitor, his treason was successful. He held high command among the Arabs under Tháryk and Mousa, and amassed great wealth by his country’s spoil, but he loathed himself more and more. He knew that all men despised him. Too old and too serious for the sensual life of the Moors, and as a warrior little caring to be delicately fed and housed, he sought solace in the company of his masculine but faithful wife, Florinda, and his little son.
Florinda, alas! how changed! Her sweet, soft eyes were wild. The delicate bloom upon her cheek had deepened into a fixed red; her mouth made for kisses, lined and hard, her whole face strangely haggard. No words can paint the anguish she suffered at returning into Spain with her mother. Julian would have folded her in his arms, but she turned from him:
“Touch me not, my father,” she cried, shuddering. “Your hand pollutes me. Why have you brought me here?”
“But, my daughter,” answered the unhappy parent, averting his face, not to catch the reproachful anguish of her eyes, “surely it is not for you to accuse me? All I have done was to avenge you.”
“Ah!” she answered with a wild laugh. “That is false. I called for you in my trouble to take me from the court, and the reproachful eyes of Egilona. But never, never, did I bid you visit the wrong I had suffered upon the land. What had Spain to do with me? No, not Florinda, but your own ambition prompted you. To wear the crown of Roderich was your aim. I was but the instrument of your ambition. Let me go,” she