The prisoner and the attendants all fled from before the terrible enunciation of his eyes. Sidi Ali alone had courage to remain and seize the aimless weapon.
"Aben Humeya!" said he, "what unmans you thus, before the eyes of slaves?"
"Were I less a man," cried Ripperda, turning his burning eye-balls upon him; "I could bear it. But now the curse has found me!"
CHAP. XI.
When Santa Cruz landed at Ceuta, he proceeded direct to the quarters of Don Joseph de Penil, and was told there of the attempt to storm the fortress, and its miraculous defence by the inexperienced but intrepid son of Ripperda. Don Joseph's wounds were in a mending state; and from him he learnt, that his son was also on the recovery; but less hopes durst be encouraged for the Marquis de Montemar.
"The worst wound is in his heart!" remarked Santa Cruz. For it could no longer be disguised from de Penil and the whole garrison, that Aben Humeya, the direful cause of all this bloodshed, was, though now an apostate and a rebel, once the great Duke de Ripperda, the universally honoured father of this noble young man!
His public attainder, and disgraced name at Seville, had made the circumstance known to all there; and the new army spread it at once through the lines of Ceuta.
But there was a kind hand which warded off a blow which might have been fatal to his blameless son. Don Ferdinand and Louis de Montemar lay in their wounds under the same roof; and by the same gentle ministry they were attended.