Legends & Romances of Spain Part 26

Spurring their beaten horses to a last effort, they soon gained the summit of the little hill. Dismounting, Fernando sought for the entrance to the rather dilapidated building, and having found it, was about to make his way inside, when he was surprised to see a man kneeling on its flagstones, engaged in earnest prayer. His long beard, his patched clothing, and his general appearance signified that he was a Moslem hermit, one of those who had retired from the haunts of men to practise his religious austerities in peace. Fernando was about to address him roughly and bid him begone, when the holy man, hearing the ring of his mailed foot upon the pavement, looked up and asked him what he required.

"Get you gone," said Fernando, "for we are about to defend this place to the last extremity against your infidel brethren."

The hermit smiled. "Young man," he said, "what possible defence can you hope to make in this poor place against the numbers which will shortly surround you? Your sword and that of your companions will be of little more avail than these poor walls, which, almost ruined as they are, would soon be beaten down. Trust me, there is a much better defence against the violence of man than either stone or steel."

"I know not of what you speak, old man," said Fernando, "but in those things which you deride, I, as a soldier, have been accustomed to place my trust."

"Alas," said the hermit, "that it should be so! Have you not been taught, young man, in your own country that G.o.d is a surer defence to those who trust Him than those vain material bulwarks which men of blood erect against one another's rage? Put your trust in G.o.d, I say, and He will be able to succour you, even through the least of His servants."

"Were it the G.o.d of the Christians of whom you speak," replied Fernando, "I would agree that your words were those of wisdom, but in the mouth of an unbeliever they have naught but a blasphemous ring."

"Sir Knight," said the hermit, "you are yet a young man, but as you grow older it will be given you to understand that G.o.d is the same in all lands, and that division of His personality is one of the fictions with which the Father of Lies seeks to make enmity between the righteous. Argue no longer, I pray you, but take heed to what I say. This remnant of stone is the last remaining turret of an ancient fortalice, beneath which extends a labyrinth of dungeons. Secrete yourselves speedily in the darkness of this labyrinth, I beg you, so that you may evade your pursuers and regain your own country after nightfall."

"Have a care, Don Fernando," cried one of the prince's comrades. "This infidel seeks to beguile us into a trap, where his countrymen will be able to murder us at their leisure."

"Not so," replied the prince, "for I can see that the mind of this good and holy man holds a better purpose toward us, and I willingly yield myself to his care. Lead the way, good father, to the hiding-place of which you speak." The hermit immediately requested the cavaliers to enter the building, and indicated to them a dark and sloping pa.s.sage, down which they led their horses. They had scarcely had time to conceal themselves in the gloomy recesses to which it led when with a loud clamour the infidels who had been pursuing them rode up. Their leader challenged the hermit and asked him if he had observed any Christian knights pa.s.s that way. "a.s.suredly no Christian knights have pa.s.sed this way, my son," replied the man of G.o.d; "go in peace." The Moslem captain with a grave salutation immediately remounted his horse, and the band swept on.

The hermit having entertained the Christian knights to the best of his poor resources, returned to them within a few hours and told them that darkness had now fallen. "You will now be able," he said, "to make a safe return to your own land."

"How can I reward you?" cried Fernando, whose generous heart had been deeply stirred by the old man's unaffected kindness.

"There is one way in which you can do so, young cavalier," said the recluse, "and that is by trying to form a better opinion of the men of my race."

"You ask a difficult thing," said the prince sadly, "for truth compels me to say that I have heard great evil of the Moors, and but little good."

"That is not surprising," said the hermit, with a smile, "since you will readily admit that you have not encountered them otherwise than with sword in hand or as prisoners whose hearts are burning with the bitterness of defeat. Open your mind, young man, or rather pray that its doors, until now closed, should be thrown wide to admit the rays of celestial wisdom. Seek for the best in your enemies, and believe me you will not fail to find it."

As he spoke, Fernando indeed felt as if the doors of his spirit, until now rusty with prejudice, had been unbarred. "I shall not forget your advice," he said, "for surely nothing evil can come from one so good and n.o.ble," and with a respectful gesture of farewell he mounted his horse and, followed by his companions, rode away.

He arrived safely in his capital in the early hours of the morning, and having bathed and refreshed himself, sought his audience chamber, where, surrounded by his anxious ministers, he told them of the adventure which had befallen him.

"Great has been your good fortune, your Majesty," said one of his advisers. "But for the services of this good man you would certainly now have been a captive in the citadel of your enemies. Surely few such spirits can reside in Moorish bodies."

"How so, senor?" replied the prince. "May it not be otherwise? When all is said and done, what do we know of the Moors, save that knowledge which is gained by constant strife with them? Would it not be well for us to strive to know them better?"

"What!" cried another councillor, "do we not know them for dogs and infidels, for perjured blasphemers and wors.h.i.+ppers of false G.o.ds? Heaven forbid that we should have further converse with them than that of the herald, which serves to call us into the same field as they, so that we may bring our lances to bear upon their infidel bodies."

"These words seem to me neither good nor wise," said Fernando gently; "and I tell you, senors, that while riding home this morning I made a resolution to know those Moors better, even to travel into their country, study their inst.i.tutions and their faith, and meet them as men rather than as enemies."

"Madness!" cried the Chancellor. "The rash vow of a young and inexperienced prince."

"That is not my opinion," replied Fernando, "but in order to avoid all unnecessary risks I have resolved to disguise myself as a Moslem. As you are aware, I have a perfect acquaintance with the Moorish tongue, and the manners and religious customs of our neighbours I know by report. I have taken this resolve, and am not to be dissuaded from it."

"Your Majesty's word is law," replied the Chancellor, who saw in the prince's resolve an opportunity for the extension of his personal power. Others of his suite did their best to turn aside Fernando's resolution by every argument in their power, but to no avail. His preparations were speedily made, and within three days of announcing his determination the prince, disguised as a Moslem of rank, set out by night for the frontiers of his enemies.

On entering their country he resolved to make in the first place for the capital, a town of considerable importance, on reaching which he dismounted from his Arab steed and put up at a khan, or public hostelry. Here he found himself in the company of travellers of all sorts and conditions. The merchant sat at the same table with the mullah, or priest, and the soldier shared his meal with the pilgrim. The first thing that Fernando noticed regarding these people was their great abstemiousness. They ate but little food, and drank not at all, unless of milk or water. The atmosphere of gravity prevalent in the inn surprised him. These sober, sallow-faced men sat, for the most part, with downcast eyes, speaking rarely, and without gesticulation, and in a low and decorous tone of voice. If asked a question, they did not answer at once, but appeared to cogitate upon their reply, which was invariably courteous and couched in formal but agreeable language. All their conduct seemed to be subservient to decency and dignity. Fernando noticed that they were spotless in their cleanliness. Not only was this so as regards their garments, but they were constantly performing ablutions, either in the inn itself during the stipulated hours of prayer, or in the magnificent public baths of the city.

On the other hand, the disguised prince could not but see that these men were one and all within the grip of a powerful formalism, which had the effect of cramping and limiting their ideas, and which was only too painfully evident in their speech and manners. There seemed to be no room for individuality in their system of life. He entered into conversation with one of the shaven mullahs, who had retired into a corner the better to read his copy of the Koran. At first he evinced but little inclination to talk, but seeing that the prince wished to exchange ideas with him, he soon brought the conversation round to the especial point of Moslem law he was studying, upon which he split so many hairs that the hapless Fernando deeply regretted that he had ever approached him.

Fernando Makes Comparison

That night as Fernando lay in bed he summed up his impressions of the day.

"These people seem to me exceedingly formal and conventional,"

he thought, "but against that we have to place the garrulity and boisterousness of men of European race, their frequent lack of dignity and too great familiarity of manner. That mullah, too, was terribly long-winded, but have we not bores of our own, and in plenty? Is it not the case that in all parts of the world selfish introspection and scholarly pride frequently turn a man into a public nuisance? It seems to me that the great bulk of mankind merely acts in imitation of its fellows, and that only here and there does one meet with a person of any outstanding individuality."

When he arose next morning Fernando paid a visit to the great mosque of the city. It was the first time he had entered a Moorish place of wors.h.i.+p, and he was struck by the circ.u.mstance that the atmosphere which prevailed within it closely resembled that to be found in a Christian cathedral. The same hushed silence was distinctly noticeable. Here and there stood a mullah, or teacher, instructing his disciples in Mohammedan law and ritual, and this Fernando was rather pleased than otherwise to notice, as direct instruction in the tenets of the Christian faith was but seldom to be procured in the churches of his own country. Another thing he could not but observe was the manifest learning and erudition of the speakers. This seemed to him far in advance of the monkish accomplishments of his own priestly subjects, whose learning was of the most slender description, and but few of whom were able to write, and he was deeply interested to find that in an annexe to the mosque, which was fitted as a scrivenry or writing-room, a number of mullahs, old and young, sat at desks writing swiftly in the Arabic script and engaged in the multiplication of copies of the Koran and other works of a religious nature.

From the mosque Fernando speedily found his way to the university, and was soon lost in wonder at the rich intellectual life which flourished there. In one room a white-robed teacher was lecturing upon the practice of medicine with an ac.u.men and ability he had never heard equalled. His knowledge of drugs and chemistry and of the properties of plants and herbs appeared to be both wide and exact, and when Fernando thought upon the wretched leeches to whom so many of the lives of his subjects annually paid forfeit he experienced a deep feeling of shame that these swarthy yet studious foreigners were so easily able to eclipse them in both theory and application. But he was acute enough to discern that the lecturer spoke of the medical art as a thing the principles of which were already fixed beyond the power of expansion. He spoke of experiment in the past tense, and all his references were to the great teachers of the old world, to Galen and Hippocrates, to Avicenna and to Rhazes. If he did chance to allude to the teachers of his own day, it was in rather an apologetic manner, and by no means in a complimentary sense. Antiquity was everything to him, and the tenets of the old masters of medicine appeared to him quite as sacred in their way as the words of the Prophet himself.

In an adjoining cla.s.sroom Fernando lingered some time to listen to a professor of astrology. This ancient art had always held a certain fascination for him, and he was well aware that the Moors were among its greatest interpreters. The lecturer described at length the influences which the various planets had upon the destinies of man, the manner in which their conjunctions and oppositions affected human affairs, and the characters of persons born under certain astrological conditions. This science too appeared to him incapable of extension or fresh effort, and while hearkening to the speaker he found that though he heard much that his common sense told him was incapable of definite proof, he gleaned nothing of the nature of those planets themselves, their physical movement, or their scientific relation to the earth. In the geography cla.s.sroom he found that instruction was based upon more modern lines. The works of Arab travellers who had journeyed extensively in Asia and Africa were touched upon. The conditions of life in distant countries of the world were discussed, and as a general rule with much greater exact.i.tude than in the European schools which he had visited, where fact was often subordinated to fancy and where the extraordinary was prized at a much higher rate than the probable.

Leaving the university, the court of which was filled to overflowing with scholars who appeared to be disputing on various phases of erudition, Fernando walked to the crowded market-place, a portion of which, he observed, was given over to the sale of ma.n.u.scripts, and this part, he could not help noticing, was much better patronized than those where food-stuffs and wearing apparel were for sale. In the more open s.p.a.ces jugglers and mountebanks, usually accompanied by performing animals, went through all sorts of gambols and antics. Here and there small knots of men discussed the more obscure points of the Koran or of Mohammedan law, while others sat in shady corners, lazily drinking sherbet or drowsing away the hot morning hours. In the booths which surrounded the market-place he saw various tradesmen at work--carpenters, smiths, sandal-makers, tailors--but he noticed that the efforts of these were of the most leisurely description, and that their tools were of a type much more antiquated than those in use among the tradesmen of his own country. The hand of time was indeed heavy upon the whole race. In some things it appeared to have made great advances, while in others it seemed to have retained the primitive ideas of the Dark Ages. Its progress seemed to have been made in the realm of thought alone, but even here everything was derivative and had reference to the experiments of an older age.

Strangely enough, however, Fernando felt that much of this conservatism touched a responsive chord within his own nature.

"Are these people not right," he argued with himself, "when they let well alone, as the proverb says? If they have brought about a condition of things which suits them as a race, would it not be folly in them to embark upon a career of experiment which might prove wholly unsuitable to them? They seem reasonably happy and contented. Suppose a condition of affairs such as obtains within my own princ.i.p.ality were suddenly to be forced upon them, would their happiness not be changed into wretchedness? It must be that long experience has taught them that their present manner of life is by far the most convenient for them. Can it be that their dislike of us arises from the great differences between our inst.i.tutions and theirs? But, again, is it not possible that these things are very much on the surface? Their real natural sympathies and antipathies are, after all, very similar to our own. They are entirely dependent upon the changes of the seasons and upon the tillage of the earth for their food; they live constantly in fear of warfare; the same private troubles between man and man, between neighbour and neighbour, arise among them as among ourselves; they are subject to the rule of authority precisely as we are. The modifications of all these things are, after all, those of place and circ.u.mstance, nor is it possible for any one individual among them to break away from established custom, any more than it is in Spain. We do not differ from them in the salient things of life, but only in its surface details. Their religion teaches that the good are rewarded and the bad punished, that a man must be constant in his patriotic and domestic affections. After all, had one of these brown men been reared in Spain, at the age of twenty years he would have been moved by the same prejudices as myself, and have become so like me in every particular as to be indistinguishable from an ordinary Spaniard."

Pa.s.sing through one of the gates of the city, Fernando walked into the country. It very much resembled the rural portions of his own princ.i.p.ality, except that it was cultivated with greater care. Here and there tiny, snow-white farm-steadings nestled in hollows, and from these streams of reapers and gleaners spread across the fields in every direction, for it was harvest-time. Fernando joined one of these groups, and was surprised to find that there was little difference between it and a similar party in Christian Spain. At intervals the work of garnering the grain was relaxed, and the reapers sat in a circle and listened to the music made by one of their number on the pipe, which possessed a strange melancholy of its own. Fernando found in them the same simple and easily satisfied disposition that he had discovered among his own peasantry. They shared their bread and cheese with him, and tendered him a draught of goat's milk from a large skin bottle, which he made s.h.i.+ft to swallow with rather a wry face, for princes as a rule do not accustom themselves to the pungent odours of such a beverage. Thus refreshed, he pa.s.sed on, walking slowly through the heat of the day, which was now well advanced, and resting every now and then beneath the shadows of the roadside trees.

He had advanced perhaps a mile and a half farther on when he came to a wide, open plain upon which he beheld a large body of Moorish cavalry performing military evolutions. His soldier's eye took in the scene with interest, and he was quick to see that the rapid movements of these lightly armed hors.e.m.e.n were greatly superior to those of his own heavily accoutred warriors. At the word of command the squadrons wheeled and charged with surprising unanimity and rapidity, and when the word was given to halt they did so on the instant, without scattering or losing the alignment of their ranks. The evolutions of one of the squadrons brought it quite close to where the prince was standing, and the officer in command, evidently regarding him as a pilgrim of sanct.i.ty, gave him a courteous salutation.

"I take it, reverend sir," he said, "from the evident pleasure with which you regard this scene, that you have once been a soldier yourself?"

"That is quite true," replied Fernando; "I was a soldier for many years, and saw a good deal of service in another part of the country; but war is no longer my business, and I do not, as I once did, cherish it for itself alone."

"But surely," said the soldier, "war is the only career to which a n.o.ble mind can turn? You are young, and have evidently left its ranks too early."

"Nay," rejoined the prince, "I am ready, if necessity enjoins, to take up the sword once more, but only in case of unrighteous invasion or to settle a grievous wrong. As I have said, I no longer desire war for its own sake."

"But," said the soldier, smiling, "you do not mean that we should be unprepared for attack? We know not the moment at which the rude and savage Christians from the north may send a mult.i.tude of warriors against us."

"Nor do they know, my friend, when we shall take it into our heads to make a foray into their lands," said Fernando.

"But," said the officer, "if we were to do so, it would only be as a protective measure after all, for we are well aware that they will never become reconciled to us."

"Have we ever tried to discover that?" asked Fernando. "I fear not. We have certainly made treaties with them, but these seem to have been made for the very purpose of being broken."

"Yes," said the officer, his lip curling, "they are treacherous dogs, these Spaniards, upon whose word no honest man can rely. They have broken treaty after treaty."

"If I'm not mistaken," said Fernando, "we have done the same, only our rulers take extraordinary care that the people shall not be acquainted with the full measure of our national dishonesties, but shall be told that it was necessary to act in such and such a manner because of the untrustworthy nature of our enemies. May I ask, sir, if you have ever travelled in Christian Spain, or have known other Christians than those whom you may have chanced to take as prisoners?"

The cavalryman shook his head. "Now I come to think of it," he said, "I have crossed swords with more Spaniards than I have bandied words with, but I do not doubt, as you imply, that there are n.o.ble spirits among that people, for I know out of my own experience that they are stout men of war, and a brave soldier can scarcely be other than an honourable man. But you will excuse me, sir; I can remain no longer. In the name of G.o.d, I wish you a pleasant journey."