BERNARDO hastily passed the court with swift, straight strides, his form in shadow defined against the light. A heavy peal of thunder sounded overhead as he turned to the right, where a marble stair, with a sculptured balustrade, guarded by soldiers, led to the royal apartments on the first floor, under a flat roof.

“‘Tis indeed a foul shame,” said Don Favila, looking after him, as he and his companions took shelter under the arcade from the now thickly falling rain, “that our king, who loves him well, does not grant him the honours of his birth and name him his successor. He guesses not who he is. You noted his words?” turning to Ricardo, who nodded.

“What! a bastard!” exclaimed the aged chamberlain; “a braggart and a bastard, instead of the victorious Charlemagne? Good gentlemen, you are distraught. Would you have a sovereign, the pureness of whose life will pass as an example in all time, forget so far his principles as to countenance his sister’s shame? The king, my master, has done right to protect his kingdom from such reproach.”

Meanwhile Bernardo passes the alguazils who knew him well, his mailed feet resounding on the marble floor as step by step he reaches a door before which a heavy panel of tapestry is displayed, bearing a royal crown, and beneath, the arms of Leon and Oviedo, bound by an inscription in old Gothic letters.

The first chamber, lined with wooden wainscot and a groined oaken roof, is bare of other furniture, save some rudely carved benches, on which meanly attired attendants sit or lounge.

These Bernardo passes with a hasty salute, which they respectfully return, then on into another and another chamber floored with coloured Moorish tiles, into the last, a hugely proportioned hall, the carved roof supported by lofty pillars. This hall, through the window of which the lightning plays, though void of furniture, is far more ornate than the rest, seeing that at the farther end, on a raised platform, surmounted by a dusty canopy, is a throne, on which a royal chair is placed, used on such rare occasions as when Alonso receives his compaÑeros and knights in state.

Nothing can exceed the neglect of this primitive apartment, now seen in the deep shadow of the coming storm. Trophies of early Gothic armour are fixed on hangings of once embroidered damask; but so little care has been taken that the nails have given way, the tapestry has fallen, and the mortar which knit together the solid blocks of stone is visible.

Before the throne stands a long wooden table, on which rests a rich enamelled crucifix, set with jewels, and huge candelabra of silver, holding waxen torches such as are used in churches to light up the shrines of saints, a rude attempt at splendour which leaves the rest more bare. Seats there are with time-stained leather coverings, and a royal chair inlaid with ivory, as was also the curiously formed footstool. Two low doors open in a recess behind the throne into two opposite turrets, one leading to the private apartments of the king, who lives alone—Queen Berta being relegated to a distant part of the palace, which formed three sides of a square, fronting the cathedral, where there is an array of delicately carved saints and martyrs niched round the deep curves of three arched portals under two turreted towers;—the other door opening into a small chapel, where King Alonso, kneeling on the bare stones, passes a great part of the day and often of the night, in ecstatic prayer and meditation.

Not for a moment did Bernardo hesitate. As he knocked on the oaken panels interspersed with heavy nails, which opened to the chapel, the latch yielded to his hand, and he entered as a blinding flash of lightning gleamed bright and strong and the thunder broke loudly overhead. An instant after, all had darkened into so profound a gloom

that at first nothing was visible, except the dim outline of a gilt retablo behind the altar, on which a light burned day and night before the ever-present host and such sacred bones and relics as had been saved from desecration by the Moors.

“Who dares to break in on my devotions?” cried a harsh voice, speaking as it were from the depths of sudden night before a shrine concealed in the sunken curvings of the wall. “Begone! leave me to commune with the saints.”

“It is in their name I come, O King, to defend the land they love,” answered Bernardo, bending his knee, in a voice so young and fresh, life and youth seemed to waft with it into the gloom.

There was a moment of silence.

“Not now, Bernardo, not now, my boy. Leave me. I have vowed a novena to the Virgin of Saragossa, whose favour I specially implore, with that of the Holy Santiago and Saint Isidore our patrons, on a great project I have in hand. Not now.”

“Yes, now,” in a stern voice came from Bernardo, fronting the king, who had turned reluctantly towards him. “What I have to say brooks not a moment’s delay.” Another crash from without interrupts him, and a wild whirl of hail and rain rattle outside on the casement. “Oh, my lord,” he continues, “are there no valiant knights in Leon that you should betray your kingdom into the hands of a strange king?”

“Betray? you dare to say betray, after the long and prosperous reign heaven has vouchsafed me?” cried Alonso, rising up from where he was kneeling as a subdued ray of light lit the sunken features of his emaciated face, with long white hair and beard, the natural fairness of his skin turned by time into a yellow tinge; his eyes full and grey, with thin imperceptible eyebrows, and cheeks deeply lined with wrinkles which collected on his high forehead under a silken cap. A noble face, once full of manly beauty, but with an expression of coldness and fickleness in the wandering eye, and weakness in the thin-lined mouth which marred it. Then in a louder tone he continued: “It ill becomes your slender years, Bernardo, and your lack of experience, to question the wisdom of your sovereign.”

“But to sell us to a foreigner, my lord, to give us over into the hands of the Frankish wolf! This can never be. A courage equal to Charlemagne’s beats in a thousand Spanish breasts, and I, Bernardo, will lead them. Not secretly and treacherously, but in the light of day. Therefore I am come to warn you against yourself. For by no unbiassed will of your own have you done this thing.”

“Silence, rash boy,” answered Alonso, roused into unwonted passion by these stinging words, “you presume upon my constant favour to insult me.”

“Never, oh never! All that I know of kindness is from you,” and Bernardo cast himself at Alonso’s feet and seized his hands. “You are my king and master. I forget none of your bounties to a friendless boy” (at this word Alonso started, and laid his hand tenderly on Bernardo’s head, but presently withdrew it with a sigh); “but neither the crown you wear nor your bounties, had they been ten times greater, would make me a traitor to the land.”