"Dost thou say so?—He died not in the streets? Praised be God, for this his goodness!" cried Don Gabriel, falling on his knees. "My sin, then, hath not been visited on the guileless and true! My son Amador yet liveth!"
He looked to the page, and now, for the first time, observed, as far as this could be seen through his thickly padded garments, that the form of Jacinto was greatly attenuated; his cheeks were hollow and colourless, and his countenance altered, as by some such grief as had been at work in his own bosom. He seemed, too, to be very feeble. But, if such were the appearances of sorrow on his visage, they assumed a yet more striking character of agony and despair, when the knight's words of joy fell on his ear. His face grew paler than death, he trembled like a linden leaf, and his lips scarcely obeyed their function, when he replied, with a faint and fruitless effort at calmness,—
"I will not deceive my lord; no, heaven be my stay! I will not deceive my lord. Though my friend,—my patron,—my protector,—the noble Amador,—fell not in the streets, but returned to his people, yet is his fate wrapped in mystery,—in darkness and in fear. That night, that dreadful night!—O heaven! the causey covered with men, shrieking and cursing, stabbing and rending! the lake choked with corses, and with dying men still contending, and suffocating, each in the grasp of a drowning foe!—But I think not of that, I think not of that!—Who lived? who died? We searched for the body of my lord, but found it not: he was not with those they led to the pyramid; his corse floated not among the hundreds, which befouled the lake: yet did they discover his goodly war-horse on the water-side,—his surcoat was dragged from a ditch, among cannon, under whose heavy bulk lay many bodies, which the Indians strove to push up with poles—but my lord's body rose not among them. And yet, he sleeps in the lake,—yes, he sleeps in the lake! for how could he escape that night, and I no more by his side?"
As Jacinto spoke, he wept and sobbed bitterly, giving himself up to despair. But not so the knight: he listened, somewhat bewildered, to the confused narration of an event, in which he had shared no part; but catching the idea, at last, and mingling it with another, the fruit of his very distempered mind, he said, quickly, and almost joyously,—
"Dry thy tears; for now I perceive that my son is not dead, but liveth; and straightway we will go forth, and seek him!" Jacinto regarded the knight with a melancholy look. He noticed the incredulity, and resumed, with much devout emphasis,—"But a moment since, before thou camest into this den, mine eyes were opened upon paradise; it was vouchsafed to me, who must never hope to enjoy such spectacle again,—no, desdichado de mi! never again, never again,—to look upon the golden city of God; wherein I walked, with all those whom, in my life, I had loved, and who were dead. There saw I, among the saints and seraphim, my father, who fell in arms at the sack of Alhama; my mother, who died giving me birth; together with all the friends of my childhood, who perished early: there, also, I beheld Alharef and Zayda, the murdered and the blest,—with all others that were truly dead. Now thou wilt see, how God opened mine eyes in this trance; for, though I wept thee, dear child, as truly believing thou wert deceased, yet thee I saw not among the blissful, where thou must have been, hadst thou been discarded from earth, as I thought thee. And I remember me, too, and great joy it is to remember, that my son Amador was not among those saints; for which reason, heaven makes it manifest to us, that he lives. Now, therefore, let us go forth from this desert, and seek him. Though mine eyes are sealed among these hills, and my feet stumble upon the rocks, yet will heaven point us out a path to Mexico!"
"Alas! my lord need not seek so far," said the page. "The pagans are now alone in the city, having driven out their enemies, with terrible slaughter.—Never more will the Spaniards return to it!"
"Ay, now, I remember me!" said the knight, catching up some of his battered armour, as he spoke. "This defence, that I had thought for ever rejected, must I again buckle on. I remember me, thou spokest of a night of retreat by the causeway, very dreadful and bloody. Ay! and thou saidst thou wert at Amador's side!—How was it, that thou wert taken from him, and didst yet live?"
"My father Abdalla," said Jacinto, sorrowfully, "my father, by chance, heard me cry at the ditch, when my lord, Don Amador, was gone; and he saved me in his canoe."
"Thy father? thy father, Abdalla?—I remember me of Abdalla," said the knight, touching his brow. "There is a strange mystery in Abdalla. I am told—that is, I heard from my poor Marco—that Abdalla, the Moor, did greatly abhor me, even to the seeking of my life."
"He wronged him!" said the page: "whatever was my father's hatred of my lord, he never sought to do him a wrong!"