shrieked, struggling to rush out. “Do you see”—and she pointed upwards to the chain of heights shutting in the city—“the hills of the Sierra take strange shapes—I dare not look on the green valleys! See the flying Goths curse me. They come! They come! showing their gaping wounds. Look, look, the plains run with blood. The figure of the king rides by! I know him! He is fair. It is Roderich, but sick to death. See, his horse falters. He falls. On, on they come, the Gothic host, but with the faces of corpses. Surely they did not ride thus to battle? Do you hear the voices in the air? Death, death to Florinda! And I will die, as they bid me!”
With a wild cry that rang round the perfumed groves of the Alcazar, before Julian could stop her, she had rushed to the entrance of a tower which jutted from the walls into the garden, and, bounding up the stairs, barred the upper door.
Her father, speechless with horror, stood rooted to the spot; a moment more, and her slight form leaned over the battlements. “Now, now, I come,” she shouted. “No ghost can haunt me there,” and from the topmost parapet she flung herself!
Hapless Florinda! Thus she passed; but still in that garden, it is said, the spiked palm-leaves rustle in the breeze, like souls in pain; the canes and the reeds bow their heads over the fountains, the frogs croak sadly in the cisterns, and a Moorish cascade, rushing down a flight of marble steps, sings in voiceless melodies her name.
CHAPTER VIII
Frandina and her Son Put to Death by Alabor
