I dropped down by his side, seized with terror and grief, imprinting kisses on his ash-pale face, contorted by pains, I called his, mine, and at last Amelia’s name in his ear; but seeing him without the least motion at the sound of the latter, I really feared that he was dead. Pietro beat his breast, tore his hair, and rent the air with doleful lamentations. The bye-standers crowded upon us, and perceiving, after many fruitless trials, some faint vestiges of life in the Duke, we carried him to the next house and put him to bed. The contusions and wounds he had received, by having been dashed against the rocks, were examined by a surgeon, who declared they were not mortal. I uttered a loud shout, throwing myself on my knees, and offering fervent thanks to God. The Duke opened his eyes and closed them again. The surgeon desired us to retire, and not to disturb his rest.
While Pietro went on horseback to the house of the Marquis, in order to inform him of the accident that had happened to his son, I repaired to the strand, in hopes that the bodies of Amelia and Lady Delier would be driven on shore. However the wind having shifted suddenly, as is usual in hurricanes, I was obliged to give up the hope of procuring an honourable burial to those unhappy ladies.
The Duke was in a senseless stupor, when I returned. Alas! his spirit seemed to tarry reluctantly in a world which separated him from his adored Amelia. But why should I tear open again my half-cicatrised wounds? I shall not enter into a description of his situation, I still fancy I hear the shrieks of horror, and the wild shouts which he uttered during a burning fever, when he fancied he saw his Amelia either in dangerous or in happy situations. His imagination and his lips were constantly occupied with her. When, at length, his fever abated, and his recollection returned, he really fancied the history of Amelia’s hapless fate to be the delusion of a feverish dream. Although I was very cautious to dislodge this delusive opinion only gradually, yet the discovery of his error affected him so violently, that I apprehended it would deprive him, if not of his life, at least of his understanding.
Here I cannot omit mentioning a scene which happened at the beginning of his amendment. The Marquis had ordered him to be carried to his house as soon as he began to mend, and nursed him with paternal care. He came, one day, when the Duke was sleeping, and I sitting by his bed-side, to enquire how his son did; as he bent over the sleeper, and seemed to look anxiously whether any signs of returning health appeared in his face, he observed on the bosom of his son a blue ribbon. He pulled it carefully out, and the picture of the Queen of Fr**ce was suspended to it. The countenance of the Marquis resembled at first that of a person who is dubious whether he is awake or dreaming; but soon after I saw his face grow deadly pale, and his whole frame quiver violently. No sooner had he recovered the power of utterance, then he begged me to retire. Two hours after he left the apartment in violent agitation, without observing me. On my entrance into the sick room I found the Duke bathed in tears. The ribbon was still fastened round his neck, but the picture of the Queen was taken from it.
I signified to him my astonishment. He squeezed my hand tenderly, and said:—“You are my only friend, for whom I wish to have no secrets; and yet I am so unhappy as to have this wish too denied me. Don’t press me to tell you what has been transacted between me and my father; I have been obliged to promise with a dreadful oath to take the secret along with me in my grave—In my grave!” he added a little while after, “I am impatient to occupy that habitation ever since Amelia and Antonio have made it their abode.”
“Miguel” I exclaimed, straining him to my heart, “dispel these gloomy thoughts. You shall learn that one has not lost every thing when in possession of a friend like me.”
“I know you, and I thank you,” he replied, with emotion, “let us die together; this world is not deserving to contain us. What business have we in a world (he added with a ghastly look) in which vice only triumphs, and good men find nothing but a grave?”
Reader, do not fancy this language to have originated merely from a transient agitation of mind; alas! it originated from a heart exasperated by the concurrence of the most melancholy misfortunes, and this exasperation was rooted deeper than I had fancied at first. It generated in his soul poisonous shoots which injured his religion. He declared it to be impossible a good God could designedly make good men so unhappy as he had been rendered. He ascribed the origin of his misfortunes to a bad principle, which, having a share in the government of the world, had appropriated his understanding merely to the execution of its bad purposes. He maintained that it was contrary to the nature of an infinitely good being to effect even the best purposes by bad means; and if there were in this world as much disorder, imperfection, and misfortune, as harmony, perfection and happiness, this would be an undeniable proof that the world was governed, and had been created jointly by a good and bad principle. In short, he subscribed entirely to the system of the Manichees.
I perceived this new deviation of his mind with astonishment and grief, and thought it my duty to lead him back in the path of truth as soon as possible, because this error deprived him of the last consolation in his sufferings. For which reason I endeavoured to convince him, that the ideas of a bad and a good principle annul each other; that it is a downright contradiction to believe in the existence of a bad God: that consequently, the fundamental ideas of his system were absurd, and, of course, the system itself unsupported. I proved to him that the evil in this world is not inconsistent with the goodness and providence of God, and that even the happiness of the wicked, and the sufferings of the good, ought not to undermine our belief, but rather to strengthen our hope of a life hereafter, in which every one will receive the just reward of his actions. But how convincing soever my arguments would have been to any unprejudiced person, yet they made very little impression on the Duke, whom the disharmony and gloominess of his mind had too much prepossessed for his comfortless system. Far from finding the least contradiction in it, he was firmly persuaded that the belief in a bad principle served to defend God against the complaints and reproaches of the unfortunate, while he found a great consolation in venting his resentment against the bad principle, whom he believed to be the author of his sufferings. He was therefore firmly resolved to refute the arguments which I had opposed to his system; and as soon as he was able to leave his bed, began to arrange his ideas on that head, and to secure them by a proper train of arguments against my objections. He had almost finished his work when Alumbrado returned from his journey.