“Aye, even he!” at length it came, and Gonzalvo sternly pointed to the young nobleman’s name upon the list. “Elvira, Gonzalvo’s daughter! away with this engrossing weakness; well is it for thee, none but thy father marks it. I have heard, and in return for that kind confidence would, had the fates decreed, have sought, fixed, gloried in thy happiness, though the choice had been other than mine own! but now—with this damning proof. My child! my child! away with the unworthy weakness; it shall not so debase thee!”
“Weak! debased! who dares to say these words to me—to me? Am I not still Elvira?” she sprang to her feet, standing erect in all her majesty, but with cheeks of marble whiteness, gleaming out from that night-black hair, as if their rich current had rushed back to her heart. “What is it they said—that he was guilty?—false! ’tis false! yet if ’tis not—misled—misguided—father, is there no pardon?—there must—there SHALL be. What is his doom? speak! there is no weakness now!”
“Death, or the galleys!—what else befits the ingrate traitors?” in a deep concentrated voice the answer came. “Ha! Holy Virgin! my child! my child!” She had tottered—fallen—and lay without voice or motion at his feet.
III.
Luigi Vincenzio denied none of the charges brought against him, save that of the intended murder of the principal Spaniards in Italy. Such baseness he strenuously denied; they had decoyed him into the conspiracy, working on all his peculiar feelings of love of land and of his exiled king, who was not alone regally, but personally dear to him. The conspiracy appeared to him but a noble effort of some few bold hearts to throw off the hated yoke of the foreigner; and therefore he had joined it, and even now, in danger of death, of worse than death—the galleys, he persisted in the glory, the virtue of his cause. It was rumoured that Gonzalvo, in his still continued desire to conciliate the Neapolitan nobles, had offered to Vincenzio, not alone pardon but riches, and connection by marriage with one of the most powerful and noble families of Castile, though its name never transpired, if he would take a solemn oath to be true to the interests of Ferdinand of Arragon, and never seek Naples again, save in pursuance of that monarch’s interests; and these offers, more than usually magnanimous even for Gonzalvo, were, to the utter bewilderment of all, refused.
Scarcely a week after Vincenzio’s arrest, the unusually strict retirement of the Lady Elvira was disturbed by an earnest petition for a private interview, on the part of a Neapolitan boy, who, the attendant said, had been so urgent, and appeared so exhausted, that he could not refuse him entrance. He would not tell his business to any save the Lady Elvira. Permission was given, and he was conducted to her presence, clothed in a coarse folding cloak of Neapolitan cloth, with the red picturesque cap of the country slouched upon his brow. He stood at the threshold of the apartment, his arms folded in his mantle, his head bent on his breast, as if either physical or mental strength had for the moment utterly failed him. “Retire,” was the first word that met his ear; and he perceived the Lady Elvira addressed her attendants, who still lingered. “Retire, all of you. The boy asked a private audience, and I have promised it. Treachery! danger!—I fear them not!—begone!” and they obeyed. One searching glance the boy cast around, and ere the lady could address him, he had darted across the room, and flung himself at her feet, clasping her knees with the convulsive grasp of agony, struggling for words, but so ineffectually that nought but quivering anguish convulsed those parched lips, nought but agonized sobs found vent. Mantle and cap had both fallen in the quickness of the movement, and though the inner dress was still the boy’s, that exquisite face, that swelling bosom told a different tale.
“Ha! who art thou? What wouldst thou?—speak, silly trembler,” and even at the moment that an indescribable thrill passed through the heart of Gonzalvo’s daughter, she struggled to speak playfully. “In sooth, thou art too lovely to wander forth alone, save in this strange guise; speak—what is thy boon?”
“A life! a life they say is forfeited! Lady, kind, generous lady, oh, have mercy! I thought I had words to plead his cause, to beseech, implore, adjure thee, but I have none—none! Mercy, oh, have mercy!”
“Mercy! I am no sovereign to give life or death, poor child! How may I serve thee, and whom is it thou wouldst save?”
“Art thou not Elvira?—art thou not Gonzalvo’s daughter?—and will he not pardon at thy word? Oh, seek him! Tell him Constance, princess of Naples, is in his power! yields herself his prisoner, to be dealt with as he lists, let him but spare Luigi—Luigi, my own noble love! Give him but pardon, life, liberty! Lady, lady! plead for him! let them hold me prisoner in his stead. Wherefore lookest thou thus? Mercy, oh, have mercy—save him!”