“There is no Maurico now to save thee. He is dead—he is dead.”
He ran towards her, but suddenly he stopped, and trembled like a coward, as he was. For there, standing between him and his expected prize, was the minstrel, Maurico himself! Standing there was the very man he had seen fall on the field; or—or, was it his shade?
And Leonora? After an instant of doubt and hesitation—for she, too, believed her lover was not of this world—she ran to him, and, with a great cry, threw herself upon his breast.
The consternation of the dastardly count hardly gave him much time for deliberation; but, on a signal, his followers swarmed out from their hiding places, and surrounded the lovers. But they reckoned without their host. The next instant Maurico and the Lady Leonora were protected by trusty arms.
In vain the count drew his sword and rushed upon the troubadour. Twenty swords were pointed at him—twenty swords that in an instant would have touched his heart. But their leader, Maurico, who still suffered from his wound, bade them spare him.
So the count yet stood alive in the midst of his followers. Stood unsubdued by the mercy which had now been shown him; stood, and vowed vengeance against his gentle foe; stood and cursed him as he led the lady away. Away from him, the rival; away from the convent, away to Castellor, which had fallen into the rebels’ hands, and whose governor was Maurico, the Warrior Minstrel.
Part III.—The Gipsey’s Son.
Surely, mercy may sometimes be a fault, if extended to a heartless man.
The Count di Luna held his life by the great mercy of the gipsey stranger, but he determined to reduce the castle, whose master was that gipsey, hoping that he might yet destroy a hated rival. No breath of gratitude was in his heart. He thought only of revenge, and turned away his face from the light.