"It is the bread of life!" cried he, firmly pressing the hand of Louis; and starting forward with his eyes rivetted, as if on some invisible object:—"Thou hast given it me; and thy mother——" he fell back on the bosom of his son. At that moment, the smile which was once so beautiful, but now rendered ghastly by the hues of death, flitted over his blanched lips. It seemed the glittering wing of a seraph, escaping the marble tomb. All was still. The voice of the priest raised a requiem to the departing spirit; but Louis had neither voice nor tear. He was sunk on his knees, to adore the merciful God, into whose presence his beloved father was then passed away.
CHAP. XVI.
Louis opened the sealed packet, and obeyed his father's dying injunctions to the minutest circumstance.
According to the noble penitent's written command, and by the friendly management of the faithful Arab, his death was concealed from the Moors, until all was accomplished which he wished to be done. When every thing was completed, his body was taken away by night to the chapel of Saint Philip, and buried in its consecrated garden, without pomp, or a register on his grave.
Louis remained for an hour alone, by the humbled relics of all that was once admired and honoured in man. His heart would have been with that cold corpse, had he not known that its spirit must be sought in other regions. But on that awful spot, he called on the shade of his mother; he invoked the soul of him, who had sinned and been forgiven! He laid his own ambition, and all that was yet within him of this world, on that first altar of nature, at the foot of the cross. He rose with a holy confidence, and was comforted.
He bade adieu to the brethren, who now knew him as the son of the deceased, and blessed him for his filial heroism. The prior conducted him, with a similar benediction, to the boat that was to convey him to the late Basha's armed galleon in the bay. Martini was already there, with the Count de Patinos. Ripperda had held him a close prisoner in a remote tower of the Ginaraliph; but with his dying breath, he pronounced his release; and the Count with other Christian captives, to whom the same voice gave liberty, were now safely embarked, along with the treasures of Ripperda, in the vessel that was to carry his son to the opposite shore.
Nature seemed to have put on her mourning garments; for all was universal darkness: not a star in the heavens, nor a glow-worm on the beach, shed one ray of light to guide his little bark, as it silently floated down the river.
He left a letter with the prior, for the Marquis Santa Cruz. It was to be conveyed to Ceuta with the first messenger from the brotherhood; and would inform him of the melancholy and decisive events in Tetuan. Louis wrote fully on every subject; and told the Marquis, that his father had ordered him to take de Patinos and the Christian captives to Gibraltar, and from thence give them liberty. The Duke had also enjoined certain sums to be left with the brethren of Ceuta and Tetuan, for the ransom of other captives in the interior; while the treasure on board the galleon was to be consigned to the governor of Gibraltar, under the personal agency of Martini d'Urbino, for a general fund towards freeing the numerous Christian slaves on the coast of Barbary.