"No," firmly replied the renegade, "she did not; but the gentle creature knew too well how boundless was the power of her persecutor, and trembled to provoke its influence—not for her own sake, but for mine. Our mutual inclination was no longer a secret; and my presumption in crossing the will of my arrogant master, would have been attended with inevitable ruin. Anselma, sensible of our dangerous position, carefully endeavoured to avoid the threatened storm. It was all in vain; her tears fell fast, and her prayers were uttered in all the fervour of desolate grief; but the barbarian saw those tears unmoved, and heard her piteous expostulations with the coldness of a villain. Nay, he felt exasperated at the resistance with which his wishes were opposed by one whom his pride naturally led him to consider as affording an easy conquest. He had been accustomed, in his shameful career, to meet with little or no opposition; he was base enough to doubt the very existence of female virtue; and was it for a poor humble girl, born his dependant, an orphan from her childhood, and clinging to no other protection than that which could be afforded by such a thing as I, to contradict the vile opinion which the proud patrician entertained?
"Cañeri, I will no longer dwell on this subject. Gomez Arias at length resolved to accomplish by a vile contrivance, what he could not obtain by seductive persuasion. I was despatched on a trifling commission to one of his estates, my presence being an obstacle to his designs; for poor and despised as I was, Gomez Arias nevertheless looked upon me with a feeling of dread. He could crush the reptile, but he feared the sting. I was strong in my very weakness, for as I had but one solitary motive to link me to life; that being removed, my oppressor felt aware my life would then only serve as the price by which I was to purchase revenge.
"I was absent, when one of his miscreants administered some deleterious beverage to the unsuspecting Anselma, the effects of which answered to their utmost extent the wishes of the libertine. An irresistible lethargy oppressed the senses and rendered powerless the limbs of the helpless victim. In that state she was borne to the couch of her undoer, and by a stratagem worthy of the monster by whom it was invented, Gomez Arias triumphed over her passive unconscious form. Happy, happy if the unnatural slumber in which Anselma was immersed, had subsided into the sleep of death. But no, she awoke—she returned to life, only to curse that life which was now covered with degradation. Alas! she had no one to whom she could fly, and under whose fostering kindness she might hide her shame; she had no refuge left—none but death, the last shelter of virtuous woman betrayed. She spurned with indignant pride the glittering offers of the miscreant who wrought her ruin. She recoiled with abhorrence from his loathsome caresses; cursed in bitter agony his unmanly deed, and brooded over her misfortune, until the loss of her reason followed the profanation of her person."
Again the renegade stopt in his recital, as if unable to sustain the painful recollection, and after a pause he continued:—
"Evening was falling as I returned from my distant mission. My heart felt unusually heavy and desponding; as I was passing near a precipice in these very mountains, my ear was struck with the hum of voices, mingled with the discordant shrieks of birds of prey which issued from the abyss below. Presently a flight of those ominous birds came screaming on high, as if scared by some unwelcome intruders, and the hum of voices was converted into a long, piercing, and promiscuous lamentation. With as much activity as the perilous nature of that precipice would permit, I hastened towards the spot, and soon perceived the melancholy cause of the wailings that had arrested my course. Some peasants were with difficulty dragging from that frightful abyss a burthen, which, as well as I could distinguish from the distance, appeared a human body. I approached nearer, and found that it was in reality a human—a mangled corpse!—It was that of my Anselma!"
"Oh, horror!" exclaimed Cañeri, in chilled amazement.
"It was Anselma," gloomily repeated Bermudo; "my love, my only happiness in this accursed world. She had already been dead sometime. Her slender garments were rent, her long tresses torn and stained with blood, and her delicate limbs broken and mangled with the fall. Alas! her beautiful features were now scarcely discernible; the raven had plucked at those eyes that once beamed with affection, and the hungry vulture had lacerated the pure heart, that hallowed shrine of innocence and love and virtue. I did not weep, nor did I utter a single groan; no sign of grief escaped me. No,—the springs of my heart were instantaneously frozen, and with horrified stupor I gazed on the ghastly spectacle. Suddenly my whole frame underwent a revolution. I felt a dreadful pressure on my heart,—a ball of fire seemed rolling in my brain. It was torture intense; the pangs of frenzied agony came over me, and for a time I knew not what I did; but the tempest of passion gradually subsided, and my soul became fixed in that settled and sombre mood, which has been to me as a second nature since that dreadful event.
"The sad remains of the lovely Anselma were consigned to the kindred earth, and I hastened to learn the cause of the appalling fate, which my boding heart already but too faithfully foretold. I hurried to the mansion of Gomez Arias; the truth was soon revealed, but I felt no surprise—I was prepared for the dire intelligence. I reproached Gomez Arias in the most bitter and provoking terms; he answered me with the laugh of contempt. I laid my hand on my sword—he smote me on the face. Furiously I drew the mortal weapon, but was soon overpowered and disarmed by the numerous attendants of my foe. I applied for redress—for justice. I denounced my enemy as the murderer of Anselma. It was all in vain; justice affected to be deaf to my earnest and reiterated appeal. Alas! what redress could I obtain against so powerful an enemy? His constant good fortune had raised him in the estimation of the court; he was brave, victorious in various encounters against the Moors in the war of Granada. His services were rewarded; his crimes overlooked; and I with the sting of shame and revenge and disappointment rankling in my heart, determined to extort with my own hands that redress which the justice of my country had denied me. I made a world to myself in the solitude of my now desolate feelings. Severed from every pursuit, a stranger to every natural tie, I resolved to dedicate all the resources of my soul to the prosecution of the most exemplary revenge. Ever since that time, I have, under the cover of various disguises, hovered about his path, and I had once an opportunity of partly satiating my thirst of revenge; but I let it pass, because the draught would not half satisfy my fevered longing for deeper retribution. It was in the embrace of a deep slumber that I once saw Gomez Arias, and I hovered over his devoted head with the pleasure of the vulture that sees beneath him its defenceless prey."
"And why didst thou not slay him?" inquired Cañeri.
"No!" replied the renegade, "I would not kill him then, for that were no revenge; his soul would flee from this world without the knowledge that it was I—it was Bermudo that inflicted the wound. I did not kill him; I reserved his hated life for more exquisite tortures—a more appalling fate, with all the harrowing attendants of remorse and despair."