The soldiers easily perceived that the pilgrim hearing this story, bathed his face with his tears, and with sad and violent sighings endeavoured to pierce heaven: they desiring the cause, he remaining a long time silent, and they still pressing him; in the end he began to cry out: Oh miserable wretch that I am, I have lost my honour, my glory is destroyed, my hope is dead, by the hands and weakness of a woman. Oh that ever the sea pardoned my life, since that with so much pity, it reserved thine, to the end that my eyes might be witnesses (after so many labours and dangers) of such an offence. Well did the soldiers know that this was the man whom the pilgrim respected, and the true north star unto which she turned the needle of her affection: but they endeavouring to comfort him, so much increased his fury, that drawing forth his sword out of his pilgrim’s staff, the outside whereof served as a scabbard, he ran enraged out of the house unto the house where the captain lay, and there gave such blows upon the door, and such loud cries, that the captain thinking he had been assailed by the Justice or by the inhabitants of that place, leaped out of his bed in his shirt, his pistol in his hand, and opening the door asked Who was there? A wretched man, answered the pilgrim with an incredible fierceness, and one from whom thou hast taken his honour, with this vile woman which thou dost possess. Doricles discharged his pistol and the pilgrim turning his body, the bullet lit in his arm. All the company ran thither at the noise, and the valiant Catalonian disposed himself to strike quicker than the lightning come out of thunder sent by Jove against the giants, when the miserable pilgrim woman, embracing him with prayers, begged the pilgrim’s life, saying unto Doricles, that this man was he whom she did only acknowledge for her master, and on the other side assuring her desperate husband that she had not transgressed against her honour, neither in deed, word nor thought; because his prayers had not vanquished her, and his threats could never. I do not know if it ought to be believed of a woman: the history commendeth her chastity, and I do religiously believe the virtue of this sex so much esteemed by me, and so greatly held in account all my life. Doricles would willingly that the pilgrim should have been contented with his life, which he would leave him, and that he should have gone away without the woman, but the incensed Castilian defying him to a single combat, began to defame him, and provoke him in such manner, that he commanded his soldiers to hang him up at the next tree of the mountain: hardly was the word out of the captain’s mouth, when the pilgrim found himself carried out of the village by those barbarous fellows, and upon his way towards the wood where he should be branched up. Finding himself then at the place of execution and in the presence of an inevitable death, he entreated them with tears that they would let him recommend his soul to him that was the author thereof; which being permitted unto him, he drew out of his bosom an image of the blessed Virgin; which holding up, with his eyes and his hands to heaven, he began his prayers devoutly, having the match of one of their pieces about his neck near unto him who tied it to a bough of a great oak, only waiting for the end of his devotions: nevertheless even as he fastened the last knot, the fair morning rejoicing the world with new light, clearly discovered the amiable colour of his face.
Who will believe that in the space of one night so many fortunes should happen to one man, if it were not known that things are written to be marked, and that evils do seldom come alone, seeing that the evils which happen in one night to one unfortunate man, do surpass all the prosperity which can happen to a fortunate man in all his life? The soldiers seeing the honest and grave countenance of this pilgrim, his youth and his innocence, and being otherwise mollified with his prayers; or having their hearts secretly touched by the hands of God, for he who hardened Pharaoh’s heart can mollify others, they resolved to let him live, not willing to be more cruel than the sea, which the day before had cast him upon land from drowning; and thinking it was an infamous cruelty, that he who had been spared by things without sense, should be destroyed by them who ought to have reason. The pilgrim gave them thanks for their liberality, and referring their reward unto heaven, entreated them that if by chance, this woman which he had left, did persevere in the firmness of her speech, they should tell her that she should find him at Barcelona: this said, he took his way towards the city, and the soldiers towards the village. But the feigned news of his death which they were constrained to deliver unto Doricles, so much deprived the sorrowful pilgrim woman of sense (whom he had already thrust out of his chamber, being vexed with her cries) that she remained a long time as dead, and when as she was come again unto herself, she did and said so many pitiful things, that these fierce men most accustomed to shed blood, did now shed tears. So that the captain despairing of ever being able to pacify her, and thinking that the beginnings of extreme grief do easily pass to a frenzy, commanded that she should be carried upon the great highway; where the miserable woman was left, drowning herself in tears, and murdering her face with her hands, she made herself look with great deformity: from thence following the way by the seaside she went to Valencia.
The pilgrim in the meantime was at Barcelona, having stayed two days, to view the goodly strong walls of the city; the third day as he was beholding the Viceroy’s palace, this fisherman, whose voice had so unhappily drawn him from the cabins of the other fishermen, and as a deceitful hyena had called him to bring his life into such danger, knew him, and demanded of him if he were not the thief, which entertained him the other night with words, until his companions came and entering by force into the houses of the village, had robbed them and pillaged them? It is true answered the pilgrim, that I am he who by the sound of thy voice came out of the cabins of men of thy profession, but not he who came with the robbers which you speak of: upon this they contested one against the other, insomuch that the people ran to the noise; and as to be pursued with hue and cry, there needs no more cause but to be a stranger, so all the world believing in the natural Catalonian’s words, the poor pilgrim was impetuously carried away by the people, and as a robber put into prison.
The infamous rabble who for crimes great or small are accustomed to possess these places, which are like so many true representations of Hell, put him into a dark corner worse than the worst sink of Constantinople, where it is impossible to recite the blows they gave him, and the injuries they said unto him: because having no metal about him but the bullet, which Doricles shot into him the night of his misfortune, he had not wherewith to pay his garnish or entrance, nor ability to find better means to appease them.
Night victorious over human cares, imposing rest unto their labours and their thoughts, and reducing their actions to a deep silence came amongst these barbarous people, yet the miserable stranger only not so much as closing his eyes: he felt not the grief of his wound, not the infamy of his imprisonment, all that which troubled him, and all that which he feared, was the pilgrim woman’s losing of her honour, which wrought so with him, that whilst others slept in this confusion, without that the want of beds, the importunity of many noisome creatures, which run up and down in the prison, the fear of judgement to come, nor the present misfortune could wake them; our pilgrim only is awake, complaining against heaven, the sea, and his cruel fortune which had preserved his life, then, when he had no feeling of death, to make him suffer it now in a state so sensible.
At the length the sun with a countenance full of shame and as if he had been constrained, shone through the thick bars of the prison windows, showing in the pale colour of his beams, that he feared he should be kept there, when the pleasant blows of the jailer, and the sweet noise which his keys made in the strong locks, awaked from their forgetfulness those unto whom the fear of punishment for their faults could work no remembrance: but the pilgrim was not waked, because he was not asleep; he came out amongst the rest nevertheless to give thanks to the day, for having passed over so miserable a night. There began this miserable body to move his parts, going many leagues in a little space: prayers importuned some, care wearied others; necessity called out here, hunger sighed there, and Liberty was wished for everywhere: the laws called upon execution, ministers upon punishment, and favour importuned for delay; those who had wherewith went out by the air, others not having wherewith could not find the door; the confusion of voices, the unquietness of the judge, the coming in of some, the going out of others, and the noise of fetters, made in this discordant instrument a fearful striving.
In this time, a knight, who for the nobleness of his blood, and the antiquity of his imprisonment, was generally respected as the master, cast his eyes upon the pilgrim, and considering his deep melancholy, his habit and his person, incited by his good countenance and aspect, (for there is no letter of favour which worketh greater effects in all necessities) called him to a little alley which answered to the door of his chamber, and asked his name, his country, and the cause of his imprisonment. The pilgrim recited unto him the success which you have heard, beginning his life, from the time that the sea gave it him, by casting him upon the shore not far from the walls of Barcelona. The knight wondered at it, and collecting from his reasons, and the manner of his speech, his understanding and his gentleness, took such affection unto him, that he placed him in his chamber: where having restored his weak forces, with conserves which he had, he made him reveal his arm, and he himself healed the wound with medicines and words, which he had learned being a soldier; for if herbs and stones have this virtue, wherefore should it be wanting to holy words?
The contented pilgrim afterwards turning his eyes round about the chamber, saw written upon the walls with a coal according to the ancient manner of prisoners, certain hieroglyphic verses, at the sight whereof, he knew that he who had written them was not ignorant. Over the picture of a young man, which had the chief place, was written this verse from Virgil:
in somnis ecce ante oculos maestissimus Hector
After that was painted a heart with wings, which flew after death with the letter of Aeneas, sending the body of his friend to the great Evander.