During the confinement of Louis in the monastery of Val de Penas; and while the Marquis Santa Cruz, and the Queen of Spain, were alike wondering at no intelligence having arrived from him since his departure from Madrid; news of various kinds created as various perplexities in the cabinet of the King.

Two Spanish galleons had been taken by a fleet of Barbary corsairs. The coasts of the Mediterranean were filled with pirates of every-sized vessel, manoeuvred with a courage and a skill that baffled every art to avoid them; and while this extraordinary accession to the Barbary marine arose on the sea like an exhalation, a Moor, under the name of Aben Humeya, as suddenly made his appearance in Morocco, carrying all before him in the field and in the state. He possessed the confidence of Abdallah, without a rival; and, after having discomfited that monarch's rebellious kinsman Muley Hamet, was advancing at the head of his victorious army to redeem to the Emperor the possession of Ceuta:—the Gibraltar of the Spaniards on the African shore.

Hostilities were at this time hanging in the balance between Great Britain and Spain, on account of Gibraltar; and to awe the replies of the Britannic minister to its demanded restitution, an army of twenty-five thousand men, (which were on their march to Italy to effect a similar object on the duchies of Parma and Placentia,) were ordered to fall back, and make demonstrations towards the British fortress. Part of this army were in Valentia; and on a second courier arriving from Ceuta with intelligence that Aben Humeya had concluded a treaty defensive and offensive between the Moorish Emperor, and the other Barbary Powers, King Philip saw the necessity of detaching one division at least to the protection of his African dominions. He appointed Santa Cruz to the command; but on some strange inconsistent and perverse arguments of his ministers, when the Marquis appeared for his last directions, His Majesty informed him, that a thousand men were sufficient to raise the siege. If more were necessary, they should be sent; but too formidable a body at first, would only increase difficulties, by raising the consequence of a Barbarian chief in the eyes of Christian Europe. Santa Cruz saw that the jealousy of the ministers against himself was the origin of this damp on the first vigorous proposal of the King; but determined to do his own duty at least, he acquiesced, and withdrew from the royal presence. He made a rapid journey to Val del Uzeda where he found his son just arrived from Italy; and giving him orders to hold himself in readiness to accompany any second detachment to Ceuta, he took a parental farewell of his family, and returned to Madrid. In the same evening that he alighted at his own hotel he received the packet from Louis de Montemar, and had a long and distressing conversation with the friar, who brought it.

The contents of the letter filled him with astonishment and trouble. He had no need of further investigation, to conclude who was the Aben Humeya, who was putting so new and menacing a face on every thing in Barbary; and considering that circumstances demanded the disclosure to the Queen, he hastened to the palace. A private audience was immediately granted, and the letter of the dying son of the lost Ripperda confided to Her Majesty.

Isabella read it with indignation. Ripperda's treasures had then spread the Spanish seas with depredators; his domination had concentrated the states of Barbary into one interest; his resentment had turned their whole force against the power of Spain! She had but one policy; to wrest this mighty Son of Vengeance from his passion and his influence. And, having determined it as most prudent to conceal the discovery from the King and his ministers, she gave her present counsellor carte blanche, to reconcile Ripperda on any terms; and, should his more worthy son be found alive, she commanded that he should be made the agent with his father.

"But, should he be no more?" inquired the Marquis, with a sigh which could hardly have been deeper for his own son.

"Then," replied she, "you must chuse another embassador. I will reward him, according to his success with this formidable renegado." With this commission, though without a hope of seeing the son of Ripperda yet an inhabitant of this world, Santa Cruz took the convent in his way to the plains of Valentia. When he alighted at the gate, the Abbot met him; and answered to his fearful question, "That the Marquis de Montemar not merely breathed, but he trusted was far advanced in his recovery."

From the night in which the dispatch left him, the virulence of the fever disappeared. He felt and bewailed himself as a man; and the fiend which despair had locked within his bosom, fled with the genial flood. He remained in a state of calm that astonished himself; while it amazed all around, to see one who was a heretic, so evidently comforted by an influence from on high.

Santa Cruz sent to inform him of his arrival, and was immediately admitted to his cell. Lorenzo withdrew as the Marquis entered. Louis was dressed in his usual cloaths, but from present weakness yet lay on a couch. The window of his cell was open to admit the mountain air, which blew fresh and cheeringly over his face. That face was not to be described:—It spoke of heaven, and his whole form harmonized with the celestial witness.

Santa Cruz stopped and gazed on him; while Louis, raising himself on his arm, stretched his hand towards him with a smile that made the veteran's head bow before the youthful saint. He advanced and embraced him. Louis bent his face upon the Marquis's hand.

"You will live my son!" cried Santa Cruz, in a burst of manly sensibility; "you will recover your father to his God, and to his country!"

"I could wish to live for that purpose!" replied Louis, "but be it as heaven wills. My prayers may be effected without my own agency."

When recovered from his emotion, the Marquis communicated his present commission; and in recapitulating the tidings from Morocco, the mantling colour on the hectic cheek of Louis shewed, that he too, recognised his father in the new Aben Humeya. In narrating the rapid successes of the apostate Duke, Santa Cruz dwelt on one circumstance, which contained some antidote to the poison of the rest.

Muley Hamet, with a large army of disaffected Moors, had appeared on the plain of Marmora, about half a day's journey from the capital of Morocco. Aben Humeya assembled the household troops; and on the same day the tidings arrived, marched to oppose him. His forces were inferior in number to the enemy; but their leader gave them an example of confidence, telling them they must strictly obey his orders, and on his head he would assure them victory. Muley Hamet practised the usual Moorish stratagems, which the discipline of his adversary so completely baffled, that enraged with disappointment he dared a general engagement in the very worst position he could have chosen. Aben Humeya had drawn him into the declivities of the mountains, where the cavalry, his principal strength, could not act; and sending a detachment to block up the regress, by occupying the pass of Cedi Cassem, the rebel Prince suffered a total defeat. Every soul might have been cut off, but the new Mussulman had not yet forgotten the warfare of Christian nations. He called to his men to remember that the misguided followers of Muley Hamet were their brethren; and that after the signal chastisement they had received, it was the victor's duty to suffer the escape of the remnant. Aben Humeya pursued the same conciliatory conduct in taking Tetuan and Arzilla from the power of the rebel; and an offer of general pardon being spread amongst the refractory Moors, the troops of Muley Hamet deserted to his adversary, and he fled to the mountains.

"This consummate policy is the Duke de Ripperda's," said the Marquis; "and the Duke in his sanest mind."

"I would draw another inference from such policy," rejoined his son, "that whether his mind be in full health or disordered, this mercy is a sure pledge, the Christian principle remains in his heart."

"There is no disordered intellect in these plans and executions;" returned Santa Cruz, "but a stretch of capacity, and an extravagant exertion of its power, which compels common minds to pause and wonder. Genius, however, may often be mistaken for madness; for it frequently acts so entirely under the influence of imagination, as to do things so utterly irrational, that if it be not the effect of an absolute want of reason, it is certainly that of a dereliction from reason, and produces the consequences of madness."

Louis knew to whom this latter remark might have too well applied, and with stifled emotion, he answered:—

"That conduct then, is most likely to be according to good judgement, which is actuated by sober experience alone."

"That conduct," replied the Marquis, "which avoids the enthusiasm of fancy and the passions, as he would the shoals and quicksands of the sea! But there is something more required than sober experience. A well regulated mind must sit in judgement upon that experience; and, my dear de Montemar," continued he, pausing, and impressively pressing his hand, "wisdom and virtue will be the issue."

Louis returned to the last act of his father upon the plains of Marmora. It obliterated the phrenzied moment of their parting; and opening his heart to a dawn of hope, he took the letter of the Queen, which her own hand had addressed to the banished Ripperda, and putting it in his bosom, told his veteran friend he was ready once again to visit the African shores.

This re-animation was not transitory. Santa Cruz was to set off the following morning towards his army; and having calculated the slower progress of troops to the coast, and the usual delays in getting on board the transports, a day was fixed for Louis joining him, without any dangerous haste, at the place of embarkation.

Youth and inward vigour, with the bracing, life-inspiring air that is breathed from the lips of a friend, restored Louis to such a strength, that at the time appointed, he appeared on the quarter-deck of the Trinidada, the vessel that was to bear Santa Cruz to the Mahommedan shore.

Unconscious of the wound they probed, the officers of the General's staff discoursed largely on the crusade to which they were going; and descanted with unrestrained freedom on the Moorish leader. Some affirmed him to be an Arab; others a brother of the Emperor, who was so distinguished in their father's life-time, as to awaken the jealousy of Abdallah; and on his accession, the Prince suddenly disappeared. Rumour spoke of the bow-string; but hints being also spread, of a perpetual imprisonment in the seven towers of Mequinez, it was afterwards supposed that he had purchased liberty and honour by assuming a new name, and fighting the battles of his brother.

Louis could not bear these guesses; nor the invectives, (to the justice of which his own heart assented,) in which these young men indulged against the renegadoes at the court of Abdallah. Sidi Ali, a Sicilian apostate, and a celebrated engineer, was most especially the object of their anathemas; as, from his skill, they expected some protraction in the glory of repelling Aben Humeya from the walls of Ceuta. When these discussions began, Louis usually retired to a distant corner on the quarter deck, to commune with his own thoughts; and while his upright mind armed itself in its own integrity, his body derived its wonted vigour from the genial breezes of the sea.

On the night of the sixth day after they had set sail from the port of Carthagena, the little fleet entered the bay of Ceuta; and, on a wave smooth as glass, the troops stepped into boats which rowed them to the perpendicular walls of the town. Here all was deep shadow. Louis saw nothing through the universal blackness. Nor did he note the dreary splashing of the boats in the fathomless water; nor did he feel the chilling vapour which arose from its cold surface, withheld from evaporation by the height and closeness of the outworks. He was in the first pinnace; and had no thought, nor observation, but for the object of their landing.

An archway, and a long flight of steps in the rock between two walls, were the only egress on this side into the fortress. The boats crowded to the spot, where their crews severally leaped on the narrow platform, and ascended the stony ladder. A light heart was in every brave breast; and plumed with anticipated victory, they seemed to fly. Louis alone, whose whole soul was once as much on the wing for military atchievements, moved with a slow, but a firm step; for, against whom was the sword of his first field to be drawn?

On entering the fortress he fully understood how necessary was all this silence in gaining the shore. Count de Blas the governor, informed the Marquis Santa Cruz, that the Moors were in great force before the town. That several skirmishes had taken place between the corps of observation from the garrison, and the advanced posts of the Moresco camp. The Spaniards had been beaten in with loss; and in short, so universal a panic prevailed in the garrison, no confidence could be put in its steadiness in case of an attack. The consequence was already seen, in the audacity with which Aben Humeya was opening his trenches; and until Santa Cruz arrived, De Blas was in nightly dread of an attempt being made to storm the town. To prevent this, he suggested the advantage of the new troops surprising the Moors by an immediate sally.

Prior to Aben Humeya having taken up this position, the Count continued to say, he had reduced the whole of the rebellious Bashas to the obedience of their Emperor. Their leader Muley Hamet, had extended his flight from the hilly country, to the deserts of Taffilet; and Abdallah, that very morning, had sent a deputation of his royal brothers to invest Aben Humeya, with the dignity of Basha of Tetuan; and to present him with a new banner, on which was embroidered:—

"Proceed! to exceed is no longer possible!"

Santa Cruz replied to the urgency of de Blas for an immediate attack, that he had orders from his sovereign to act with peculiar circumspection. He must communicate with the Moorish general; and to do this with the necessary knowledge, he must have time to make his military observations, and to estimate their relative strength.

In the course of these investigations, in the prosecution of which Santa Cruz was always attended by Louis, the group of observation mounted on a redoubt far to the front in the Spanish lines. The Marquis contemplated with his glass the order, and scientific precision with which the enemy's works were advancing. The Count de Blas stood near him, and expatiated with much heat, on the probable effects of the new discipline introduced into the Moorish army by its present chief.

"But these European tactics" cried he, "are engrafted on a true barbarian soil. One flag of truce, that I ventured to dispatch merely to gain time, was fired on in its return; and in attempting to make good its retreat, a party of the enemy rushed from behind yon epaulement to the left, and took the whole troop to a man. One who made his escape, informed me, the proud Aben Humeya chose to take offence at some want of official reverence in the Spanish officer's manner of quitting the camp; and that the moment he was told of it, he ordered him to be pursued and taken; and at the same time denounced a similar fate on all who should henceforward presume to bear any Spanish flag within reach of his lines."

While the Governor was speaking, a squadron of Moors turned that very side-work, and presented themselves on the plain, glittering in all the splendid array of the Basha's peculiar suite. In the midst of the groupe, which immediately parted to short distances, Louis beheld an august figure. De Blas instantly proclaimed it to be Aben Humeya. In that clear atmosphere, no glass was necessary to note an object just without the reach of musquet shot; and to observe this, Louis's whole soul was in his eye.

At sight of the Basha, the acclamations of the Moors in the trenches were loud and incessant. He was mounted on a black horse, whose rich caparisons seemed to vie with the habit of its rider. The dress of the new Mussulman was loose of blue and gold tissue over a yellow caftan embroidered with gold. His belt, and the arms which stuck in it, were studded with jewels; and a splendid cymetar hung at his side. His turban was crested with a large jewelled crescent and heron plume. And the bridle in his hand sparkled with brilliant studs; while the magnificent housings of his horse, almost touched the ground. Aben Humeya rode forward, and again the air was rent with shouts. He bowed his head, and at the motion of his hand, the whole was respectfully silent. A flourish of wind instruments succeeded, and his suite began to play their evolutions before him, in all the various exercises of the lance and dart.

Louis could not mistake the demeanor of his father. But all this supremacy over the rest of mankind in personal dignity and grace, seemed to his virtuous son, only a garment of mockery to the fallen spirit within. It was horrible in his eyes, and he turned silently from the vociferous observations of de Blas.

That same evening Santa Cruz ordered a flag of truce to be in readiness for the Moorish camp at day-break. At the mention of so dangerous an expedition, every motion was arrested amongst the class of officers who were usually selected for that duty. None spoke. But Santa Cruz neither addressed any, nor looked on any; for the forlorn hope on this enterprize was already chosen.

When Louis came in the morning for his last orders, he found the Governor with his General, remonstrating on the madness of exposing so distinguished a young man as the Marquis de Montemar, in so perilous a hazard. Santa Cruz repeated to his young friend, all the intimidating representations of De Blas, who added there was not a man in the garrison, who did not shrink from being his escort.

Louis bowed gratefully to the implied solicitude of the Count; but answered the Marquis, by requesting to have the white flag delivered to him, when he would go alone. To hamper him with cowards, Santa Cruz thought would only invite danger; and he put the flag into his hand.

Louis left the gates, with no other companion than his courage and his faith. Santa Cruz's anxious eye watched the desperate adventure. The works were crowded in every part, to witness his progress and reception. At a given spot, he halted to unfurl his white banner. Again he shot forward, waving its staff before him, to be seen by the Moorish out-posts as he advanced within their fire. A hundred turbans emerged from the nearest trenches:—while a yell of such horrid import burst from every mouth, that his horse started back on his haunches, with a strange noise from its nostrils fully descriptive of surprize and terror. Nothing, however checked its rider. He struck his spurs into the animal, and resumed his onward speed at the moment the savage cries from below were echoed by a thousand voices from the works above;—a volley of musquetry was discharged, and Louis was lost in the smoke, from the eyes of them who watched on the walls of Ceuta. It cleared away; and the resolute bearer of the flag was yet seen galloping towards the camp. Another volley succeeded, and the plain was again obscured: vengeance alone occupied the breasts of the men upon the Spanish lines. Their courage revived with their indignation; and rushing without command from a salley port, they charged fiercely towards the point of their revenge. At sight of this sortie, a similar detachment issued from the gates of the camp. The horse of Louis was transfixed by two balls; and lay struggling on the ground. He had extricated himself from the dying animal, and was risen from its side, just as the salley-port of Ceuta opened to rescue or avenge him. When on foot, the broken ground in the plain concealed his advance to his friends until he rejoined them, and mounted a horse presented to him by his faithful Lorenzo.

This circumstance being discerned by Santa Cruz, who stood on the redoubt, the sortie was recalled, and Louis, with the troop, re-entered the garrison.

The implacable fury of this second breach of the received laws of war, inflamed the Spaniards with the most vehement indignation. There was no name, opprobrious to a man and a soldier, which they did not lavish on the fierce Aben Humeya.

Louis withdrew to the quarters of Santa Cruz. His resolution was taken; and he only awaited his sanction, to put it in execution that very night. To go by stealth into the Moorish camp, and depend on providence for conducting him to the presence of his father.

The Marquis would not hear him to an end. He regarded this last act, of firing upon a single man, as so base a proof of Ripperda's apostacy from honour as well as from religion, that he no longer retained a hope of his return to duty:—

"No, de Montemar," said he, "we must now let that alone for ever. You would only lose yourself, without recovering him."

"I should lose myself indeed," replied he, "were I to abandon the only purpose for which I came to this country; the only purpose for which, I believe my life is lengthened. He will not imbrue his hands in the blood of his own son; and, who in that camp, will dare to touch the man, of whom he will say—Let his life be protected!"

"This is delusion, de Montemar. He has abandoned his God. He has trampled on his honour. And, with these facts, there is no reasonable hope."

"My hope may be beyond reason; but it is not against it," replied he. "Grant me the means to fulfil my resolution; and, I dare promise myself, that you will, see me again."

"Never," returned Santa Cruz, "the blood of rashness shall never be on my head. Leave me now, and we will discourse of more rational projects to-morrow."

Louis obeyed. But that morrow might never occur to him. When he withdrew it was to pursue his determination. That night, alone, and unassisted, to seek the presence of his father.