The Queen's cabinet at Seville was employed on many projects besides that of sealing the union between Portugal and Spain. The venerable Grimaldo was just dead; and the affairs of state falling entirely into the management of the Marquis de Castellor and the Count de Paz, she affected a warm interest in the former, though she detested him in her heart, not only as the most successful rival of her regretted Ripperda, but because his talents were equal to his ambition. And what was more provoking to a despotic woman, he made her feel that he could maintain his ground by the same surreptitious art he had obtained it.

The Count de Paz was a man of a different complexion. Covetousness, and an abject dependent on individual favour, tethered his vain-glorious spirit to a boundary he panted to overleap, but everlastingly found it a limit he could not pass. This man, Isabella used as her instrument, and by his connivance, admitted a third person to their private councils, who commanded him with the invincible power of a superior demon.

In obedience to the Queen, and this her secret counsellor, he was to influence the Marquis de Castellor to extort an act of aggression from the French arms against the German Emperor.

Since the public betrothment of Maria Theresa to the Prince of Lorraine, Isabella had become reconciled to Louis the Fifteenth; and she now wanted to attack the grasping power of the rival Empire, by a concerted act of open hostility. France was to invade Austria on the side of Germany; while Spain, in consequence of the death of the Duke of Parma, should resist the pretensions of the Emperor to that duchy; and, in support of the rights of Prince Carlos, (the late Duke's kinsman, and Isabella's son,) overrun that part of Italy with Spanish troops.

Her secret counsellor had already moved the cardinal minister of the French King to thwart the establishment of the pragmatic sanction; and through the Queen of Spain and De Paz, he had drawn from the treasury of Philip a large subsidy to support the pretensions of Bavaria.

On the open rupture between Isabella and the Empress, the former was not long at a loss how to revenge herself on the wide ambition of her rival. Her midnight familiar whispered the means. He told her that Gibraltar was not more the fortress of England than of Austria. Whoever possessed that rock, commanded the Mediterranean, and bound all on its banks to his feet. The interest of Austria and the House of Brunswick were now the same. He therefore exhorted her to categorically demand Gibraltar of the King of England; and to make her husband and his council, see the wisdom of considering him the King of England who would restore that gem to the Spanish crown.

One of the last acts of George the First was to reject this demand with a positive refusal; and the following evening saw a tall, dark man, of a noble mien, pass into the private cabinet of the King of Spain. They were alone together for some time; and then the Queen and the two ministers of state being introduced, a paper was signed in their presence by Philip and the stranger, and the royal seals of Spain and of Great Britain solemnly affixed to the deed.

Santa Cruz met this personage as he withdrew through the vestibule of the King's apartment. He knew him, and stood with his hat in his hand till he passed.

"Do not repeat what you have seen," whispered Isabella, who found the Marquis gazing after him; "but now you read my riddle. A few months may see you governor of Gibraltar!"

"The trenches of San Roque must first be opened in England!" replied he, answering her gay smile with unusual gravity.

"No," was her reply; "there we spring a mine; and the best engineer in Christendom has his hand on the match."

Santa Cruz understood enough of her meaning, not to make a second observation in so public a passage; and bowing to her beckoning finger, he followed her into her apartment.

He held in his hand the first official dispatches from Ceuta. The last had not arrived. But the fugitive merchants from Larach were then in the palace, with their calamitous account of the fall of that fortress.

The Queen was enraged at these determined acts of hostility in the man to whom she had condescended to humble herself as a suppliant; and vehemently arraigning the insolence that durst disdain her returning favour, she preceded Santa Cruz to the chamber of her royal husband.

On the King's being told the fate of Larach; and learning, by the discomfiture of Don Joseph de Penil, how nearly Ceuta had shared the same disaster, he issued his orders that the troops just called off from the lines of San Roque, should be employed without delay in a final vindication of the Christian name in the plains of Barbary.

These forces had been intended by Isabella and her secret counsellor, to make a descent on the British shore; and there, as Santa Cruz had guessed, assert the rights of him who had purchased the support of Philip by a written pledge for the restitution of Gibraltar. But at this moment resentment obliterated every promise; and, in the rage of revenge against the man who had disdained her, more as a woman than a queen, she at once announced to her husband, that it was his own rebellious subject, the Duke de Ripperda, who, under the assumed name of Aben Humeya, but as a real apostate and a traitor, waged war in Africa against his King and his God.

Philip's amazement was creditable to his heart; and, when unquestionably convinced, his indignation against the Duke's irreligion superseded the expected resentment for his rebellion. He summoned his council; and in full assembly of the ministers and grandees, degraded the Duke de Ripperda from all his honours, hereditary and by creation; confiscated his estates; and ordered the arms of his family to be obliterated from the Spanish college of arms.

With the feelings of an ancient Spanish nobleman, Santa Cruz saw the rapidity of this act of disgrace. Not in consideration of the degraded Duke; for in becoming an infidel, he had sunk himself below the power of man to cast him lower; but compassion for his blameless and exemplary son, filled the heart of Santa Cruz with honourable sympathy.

The Queen turned on him at the moment, and observing the expression of his countenance, said with a taunting surprise;—

"Marquis, you pity this renegade!"

"Madam," replied he, "I respect the Marquis de Montemar."

Isabella drew towards the King.

"Your Majesty will grant an exception in behalf of that young man? He covered the retreat of de Penil into Ceuta, and merits some exemption from the universal stigma on his father."

"We may consider that hereafter," replied the King, "meanwhile let the edict be published."

The messenger from the surgeon at Ceuta, who dispatched him during the panic immediately succeeding the return of the unfortunate sortie, went direct to the Marquis Santa Cruz's house in Seville. The Marquis was from home, but the man delivered his credentials to the servants; and with the eagerness of a first bringer of news, gave an exaggerated account of the defeat of Don Joseph, the death of de Blas, and the wounded state of Don Ferdinand d'Osorio. He closed his report of the latter, by saying, he was rescued by the intrepid interference of the Marquis de Montemar, from sharing the fate of the governor; but as the Moorish sabres were generally venomed, little hope could be cherished of his ultimate recovery.

On Santa Cruz's return from the palace, he found his wife and daughter in speechless agony, listening to this narrative of despair. He sent the man from the room; and by reading the dispatch which the official messenger had brought, he succeeded in convincing them that the Moors did not poison their weapons, and that the life of his son was in no present danger. The Marchioness however, insisted on accompanying her husband to Ceuta; and Marcella, in a passion of tears, implored her father to permit her to be her mother's attendant.

Dreading that despairing love had precipitated the vehement nature of her brother, upon the swords of his enemies, Marcella now reproached herself for having so decisively, and therefore she thought cruelly, rejected his suit. In the paroxysm of her grief and her remorse, she threw herself at her father's feet; and to his astonishment, informed him of Ferdinand's love for the cousin of the Marquis de Montemar; declaring at the same time, her own resolution no longer to oppose his wishes of her passing her life a professed nun; provided her vows might be simply confined to celibacy, and a secluded state; and Ferdinand be allowed to marry the English lady. The Marquis was confounded, and looked at his wife.

"It is too true;" was her reply to his enquiring eyes; "Ferdinand loves Alice Coningsby; and my invaluable child would make herself the price of her brothers happiness."

"Marcella," replied Santa Cruz, turning with solemnity to his daughter; "this is not what I expected from you. You dishonour your father and your brother, by your petition. You may accompany your mother to his sick couch; and for the rest, should he recover, I hope he will find a fitter oblation to his blind passions, than a sister's and a parent's conscience."

Marcella rose humbled from her knees; and in speechless sorrow left the apartment. The Marquis looked after her and sighed; and the Marchioness taking his hand, pressed it to her lips, wet with her drowning tears, and exclaimed;— "Better that we had never met, than that the purest offspring of our heaven-sanctified union, should be consigned to a living tomb! Oh, Santa Cruz, why is she to be our victim!"