guardian angels, than thy person is watched by thy pro
tectors."

"And can it be necessary, Luis, when thou art the danger
apprehended ?"

" Do they think I shall carry thee off, like some Moorish
girl borne away on the crupper of a Christian knight's sad
dle, and place thee in the caravel of Colon, that we may
go in search of Prestor John and the Great Khan, in com
pany ?"

" They may think thee capable of this act of madness,
dear Luis, but they will hardly suspect me."

" No, thou art truly a model of prudence in all matters
that require feeling for thy lover."

" Luis !" exclaimed the girl, again ; and this time un
bidden tears started to her eyes.

" Forgive me, Mercedes dearest, dearest Mercedes ; but
this delay and all these coldly cruel precautions make me
forget myself. Am I a needy and unknown adventurer,
that they treat me thus, instead of being a noble Castilian
knight !"

" Thou forgettest, Luis, that noble Castilian maidens are
not wont to see even noble Castilian cavaliers alone, and,
but for the gracious condescension of Her Highness, and
the indulgence of my guardian, who happeneth to be thy
aunt, this interview could not take place."

"Alone! And dost thou call this being alone, or any
excessive favour on the part of Her Highness, when thou
seest that we are watched by the eye, if not by the ear ? I
fear to speak above my breath, lest the sounds should dis
turb that venerable lady's meditations !"

As Luis de Bobadilla uttered this, he glanced his eye at
the f gure of the duena of his mistress, whose person was
visible through an open door, in an adjoining room, where
the good woman sate, intently occupied in reading certain
homilies.

"Dost mean my poor Pepita," answered Mercedes,
laughing ; for the presence of her attendant, to whom she
had been accustomed from infancy, was no more restraint
on her own innocent thoughts and words, than would have



MEKCEDES OF CASTILE. 157

proved a reduplication of herself, had such a thing been
possible. " Many have been her protestations against this
meeting, which she insists is contrary to all rule among
noble ladies, and which, she says, would never have been
accorded by my poor, sainted, mother, were she still
living."

"Ay, she hath a look that is sufficient of itself to set
every generous mind a-tilting with her. One can see envy
of thy beauty and youth, in every wrinkle of her unami-
able face."

" Then little dost thou know my excellent Pepita, who
envieth nothing, and who hath but one marked weakness,
and that is, too much affection, and too much indulgence,
for myself."

" I detest a duena ; ay, as I detest an Infidel !"

" Senor," said Pepita, whose vigilant ears, notwithstand
ing her book and the homilies, heard all that passed, " this
is a common feeling among youthful cavaliers, I fear ; but
they tell me that the very duena who is so displeasing to
the lover, getteth to be a grateful object, in time, with the
husband. As my features and wrinkles, however, are so
disagreeable to you, and no doubt cause you pain, by
closing this door the sight will be shut out, as, indeed, will
be the sound of my unpleasant cough, and of your own
protestations of love, Senor Knight."

This was said in much better language than was com
monly used by women of the duena's class, and with a
good-nature that seemed indomitable, it being completely
undisturbed by Luis's petulant remarks.

" Thou shalt not close the door, Pepita," cried Mercedes,
blushing rosy red, and springing forward to interpose her
own hand against the act. " What is there that the Conde
de Llera can have to say to one like me, that thou mayest
not. hear ?"

" Nay, dear child, the noble cavalier is about to talk of
love !"

"And is it thou, with whom the language of affection is
so uncommon, that it frighteneth thee ! Hath thy discourse
been of aught but love, since thou hast known and cared
forme?"

VOL. I 14



158 MEBCEDES OF CASTILE.

" It augureth badly for thy suit, Senor," said Pepita,
smiling, while she suspended the movement of the hand
that was about to close the door, " if Dona Mercedes
thinketh of your love as she thinketh of mine. Surely,
child, thou dost not fancy me a gay, gallant young noble,
come to pour out his soul at thy feet, and mistakest my
simple words of affection for such as will be likely to flow
from the honeyed tongue of a Bobadilla, bent on gaining
his suit with the fairest maiden of Castile V

Mercedes shrunk back, for, though innocent as purity
itself, her heart taught her the difference between the lan
guage of her lover and the language of her nurse, even
when each most expressed affection. Her hand released its
hold of the wood, and unconsciously was laid, with its
pretty fellow, on her crimsoned face. Pepita profited by
her advantage, and closed the door. A smile of triumph
gleamed on the handsome features of Luis, and, after he had
forced his mistress, by a gentle compulsion, to resume the
seat from which she had risen to meet him, he threw him
self on a stool at her feet, and stretching out his well-turned
limbs in an easy attitude, so as to allow himself to gaze
into the beautiful face that he had set up, like an idol,
before him, he renewed the discourse.

" This is a paragon of duenas," he cried, " and I might
have known that none of the ill-tempered, unreasonable
school of such beings, would be tolerated near thy person.
This Pepita is a jewel, and she may consider herself estab
lished in her office for life, if, by the cunning of this Ge
noese, mine own resolution, the queen's repentance, and
thy gentle favour, I ever prove so lucky as to become thy
husband."

" Thou forgettest, Luis," answered Mercedes, trembling
even while she laughed at her own conceit, " that if the
husband esteemeth the duena the lover could not endure,
that the lover may esteem the duena that the husband may
be unwilling to abide."

"Peste! these are crooked matters, and ill-suited to the
straight-forward philosophy of Luis de Bobadilla. There
is one thing only, which 1 can, or do, pretend to know, out
of any controversy, and that I am ready to maintain in the



MERCEDES OF CASTILE. 159

face of all the doctors of Salamanca, or all the chivalry
of Christendom, that of the Infidel included ; which is,
that thou art the fairest, sweetest, best, most virtuous, and
in all things the most winning maiden of Spain, and that
no other living knight so loveth and honoureth his mistress
as I love and honour thee !"

The language of admiration is ever soothing to female
ears, and Mercedes, giving to the words of the youth an
impression of sincerity that his manner fully warranted,
forgot the duena and her little interruption, in the delight
of listening to declarations that were so grateful to her
affections. Still, the coyness of her sex, and the recent date
of their mutual confidence, rendered her answer less open
than it might otherwise have been.

" I am told," she said, " that you young cavaliers, who
pant for occasions to show your skill and courage with
the lance, and in the tourney, are ever making some such
protestations in favour of this or that noble maiden, in
order to provoke others like themselves to make counter
assertions, that they may show their prowess as knights,
and gain high names for gallantry."

" This cometh of being so much shut up in Dona Bea-
triz's private rooms, lest some bold Spanish eyes should
look profanely on thy beauty, Mercedes. We are not in
the age of the errants and the troubadours, when men
committed a thousand follies that they might be thought
weaker even than nature had made them. In that age,
your knights discoursed largely of love, but in our own
they feel it. In sooth, I think this savoureth of some of the
profound morality of Pepita !"

" Say nought against Pepita, Luis, who hath much be
friended thee to-day, else would thy tongue, and thine eyes
too, be under the restraint of her presence. But that which
thou termest the morality of the good duena, is, in truth,
the morality of the excellent and most noble Dona Bea-
triz de Cabrera, Marchioness of Moya, who was born a
lady of the House of Bobadilla, I believe."

" Well, well, I dare to say there is no great difference
between the lessons of a duchess and the lessons of a du
ena, in the privacy of the closet, when there is one like
thee, beautiful, and rich, and virtuous, to guard. They say



160 MERCEDES OF CASTILE.

you young maidens are told that we cavaliers are so many
ogres, and that the only way to reach paradise is to think
nought of us but evil, and then, when some suitable mar
riage hath been decided on, the poor young creature is sud
denly alarmed by an order to come forth and be wedded to
one of these very monsters."

" And, in this mode, hast thou been treated ! It would
seem that much pains are taken to make the young of the
two sexes think ill of each other. But, Luis, this is pure
idleness, and we waste in it most precious moments ; mo
ments that may never return. How go matters with Colon
and when is he like to quit the court ?"

" He hath already departed ; for having obtained all he
hath sought of the queen, he quitted Santa Fe, with the
royal authority to sustain him in the fullest manner. If
thou hearest aught of one Pedro de Munos, or Pero Gu
tierrez, at the court of Cathay, thou wilt know on whose
shoulders to lay his follies."

" I would rather that thou should'st undertake this voy
age in thine own name, Luis, than under a feigned appella
tion. Concealments of this nature are seldom wise, and
surely thou dost not undertake the enterprise" the tell-tale
blood stole to the cheeks of Mercedes as she proceeded
" with a motive that need bring shame."

" 'T is the wish of my aunt ; as for myself, I would put
thy favour in my casque, thy emblem on my shield, and let
it be known, far and near, that Luis of Llera sought the
court of Cathay with the intent to defy its chivalry to
produce as fair or as virtuous a maiden as thyself."

" We are not in the age of errants, sir knight, but in
one of reason and truth," returned Mercedes, laughing,
though every syllable that proved the earnest and entire
devotion of the young man went directly to her heart,
strengthening his hold on it, and increasing the flame that
burnt within, by adding the fuel that was most adapted to
that purpose " we are not in the age of knights-errant,
Don Luis de Bobadilla, as thou thyself hast just affirmed ;
but one in which even the lover is reflecting, and as apt to
discover the faults of his lady-love, as to dwell upon her
perfections. I look for better things from thee, than to hear
that thou hast ridden through the highways of Cathay,



MERCEDES OP CASTILE. 161

defying to combat, and seeking giants, in order to exalt my
beauty, and tempting others to decry it, if it were only out
of pure opposition to thy idle boastings. j\h ! Luis, thou
art now engaged in a most truly noble enterprise, one that
will join thy name to those of the applauded of men, and
which will form thy pride and exultation in after-life, when
the eyes of us both shall be dimmed by age, and we shall
look back with longings to discover aught of which to be
proud."

It was thrice pleasant to the youth to hear his mistress,
in the innocence of her heart, and in the fulness of her
feelings, thus uniting his fate with her own ; and when she
ceased speaking, all unconscious how much might be indi
rectly implied from her words, he still listened intently, as
if he would fain hear the sounds after they had died on
his ear.

" What enterprise can be nobler, more worthy to awaken
all my resolution, than to win thy hand !" he exclaimed,
after a short pause. " I follow Colon with no other ob
ject ; share his chances, to remove the objections of Dona
Isabella ; and will accompany him to the earth's end,
rather than that thy choice should be dishonoured. Thou
art my Great Khan, beloved Mercedes, and thy smiles and
affection are the only Cathay I seek."

" Say not so, dear Luis, for thou knowest not the no
bility of thine own soul, nor the generosity of thine own
intentions. This is a stupendous project of Colon's, and
much as I rejoice that he hath had the imagination to con
ceive it, and the heart to undertake it in his own person, on
account of the good it must produce to the heathen, and
the manner in which it will necessarily redound to the glory
of God, still I fear that I am equally gladdened with the
recollection that thy name will be for ever associated with
the great achievement, and thy detractors put to shame
with the resolution and spirit with which so noble an end
will have been attained."

" This is nothing but truth, Mercedes, should we reach
the Indies ; but, should the saints desert us, and our project
fail, I fear that even thou would'st be ashamed to confess
an interest in an unfortunate adventurer who hath returned
without success, and thereby made himself the subject of
14*



162 MERCEDES OF CASTILE.

sneers and derision, instead of wearing the honourable dis
tinction that thou seemest so confidently to expect."

" Then, Luis de Bobadilla, thou knowest me not," an
swered Mercedes, hastily, and speaking with a tender
earnestness that brought the blood into her cheeks, gradu
ally brightening the brilliancy of her eyes, until they shone
with a lustre that seemed almost supernatural " then, Luis
de Bobadilla, thou knowest me not. I wish thee to share
in the glory of this enterprise, because calumny and cen
sure have not been altogether idle with thy youth, and
because I feel that Her Highness's favour is most easily
obtained by it ; but, if thou believest that the spirit to en
gage with Colon was necessary to incline me to think
kindly of my guardian's nephew, thou neither understandest
the sentiments that draw me towards thee, nor hast a just
appreciation of the hours of sorrow I have suffered on thy
account."

" Dearest, most generous, noble-hearted girl, I am un
worthy of thy truth, of thy pure sincerity, and of all thy
devoted feelings ! Drive me from thee, at once, that I may
ne'er again cause thee a moment's grief."

" Nay, Luis, thy remedy, I fear me, would prove worse
than the disease that thou would'st cure," returned the beau
tiful girl, smiling and blushing as she spoke, and turning
her eloquent eyes on the youth in a way to avow volumes
of tenderness. " With thee must I be happy, or unhappy,
as Providence may will it ; or miserable without thee."

The conversation now took that unconnected, and yet com
prehensive cast, which is apt to characterize the discourse
of those who feel as much as they reason, and it covered
more interests, sentiments, and events, than our limits will
allow us to record. As usual, Luis was inconsistent, jea
lous, repentant, full of passion and protestations, fancying
a thousand evils at one instant, and figuring in his imagina
tion a terrestrial paradise at the next ; while Mercedes was
enthusiastic, generous, devoted, and yet high-principled,
self-denying, and womanly ; meeting her ardent suitor's
vows with a tenderness that seemed to lose all other consi
derations in her love, and repelling with maiden coyness,
and with the dignity of her sex, his rhapsodies, whenever
they touched upon the exaggerated and indiscreet,



MERCEDES OF CASTILE. 163

The interview lasted an hour, and it is scarce necessary
to say that vows of constancy, and pledges never to marry
another, were given, again and again. As the time for
separating approached, Mercedes opened a small casket
that contained her jewels, and drew forth one which she
offered to her lover as a gage of her truth.

" I will not give thee a glove to wear in thy casque at
tourneys, Luis," she said, " but I offer this holy symbol,
which may remind thee, at the same moment, of the great
pursuit thou hast before thee, and of her who will wait its
issue with doubts and fears little less active than those of
Colon himself. Thou need'st no other crucifix to say thy
paters before, and these stones are sapphires, which thou
knowest are the tokens of fidelity a feeling that thou
may'st encourage as respects thy lasting welfare, and
which it would not grieve me to know thou kept'st ever
active in thy bosom when thinking of the unworthy giver
of the trifle."

This was said half in melancholy, and half in lightness
of heart, for Mercedes felt at parting, both a weight of sor
row that was hard to be borne, and a buoyancy of the very
feeling to which she had just alluded, that much disposed
her to smile ; arid it was said with those winning accents
with which the youthful and tender avow their emotions,
when the heart is subdued by the thoughts of absence and
dangers. The gift was a small cross, formed of the stones
she had named, and of great intrinsic value, as well as
precious from the motives and character of her who
offered it.

" Thou hast had a care of my soul, in this, Mercedes,"
said Luis, smiling, when he had kissed the jewelled cross
again and again " arid art resolved if the sovereign of
Cathay should refuse to be converted to our faith, that we
shall not be converted to his. I fear that my offering will
appear tame and valueless in thine eyes, after so precious
a boon."

" One lock of thy hair, Luis, is all I desire. Thou
knowest that I have no need of jewels."

" If I thought the sight of my bushy head would give
thee pleasure, every hair should quit it, and I would sail
from Spain with a poll as naked as a priest's, or even an



164 MERCEDES OF CASTILE.

Infidel's ; but the Bobadillas have their jewels, and a Bo-
badilla's bride shall wear them : this necklace was my
mother's, Mercedes ; it is said to have once been the pro
perty of a queen, though none have ever worn it who will
so honour it as thou."

" I take it, Luis, for it is thy offering and may not be
refused ; and yet I take it tremblingly, for I see signs of
our different natures in these gifts. Thou hast chosen the
gorgeous and the brilliant, which pall in time, and seldom
lead to contentment ; while my woman's heart hath led me
to constancy. I fear some brilliant beauty of the East
would better gain thy lasting admiration than a poor Cas-
tilian maid who hath little but her faith and love to recom
mend her !"

Protestations on the part of the young man followed, and
Mercedes permitted one fond and long embrace ere they
separated. She wept on the bosom of Don Luis, and at
the final moment of parting, as ever happens with woman,
feeling got the better of form, and her whole soul con
fessed its weakness. At length Luis tore himself away
from her presence, and that night he was on his way to
the coast, under an assumed name, and in simple guise ;
whither Columbus had already preceded him.



CHAPTER XI.

"But where is Harold? Shall I then forget
To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave?
Little reck'd he of all that men regret ;
No loved-one now in feign'd lament could rave ;
No friend the parting hand extended gave
Ere the cold stranger pass'd to other climes."

BYRON.

THE reader is not to suppose that the eyes of Europe
were on our adventurers. Truth and falsehood, inseparable
companions, it would seem, throughout all time, were not






MERCEDES OF CASTILE. 165

then diffused over the land by means of newspapers,
with mercenary diligence ; and it was only the favoured
few who got early intelligence of enterprises like that in
which Columbus was engaged. Luis de Bobadilla had,
therefore, stolen from court unnoticed, and they who carne
in time to miss his presence, either supposed him to be on
a visit to one of his castles, or to have gone forth on an
other of those wandering tours which were supposed to be
blemishes on his chivalry and unworthy of his birth. As
for the Genoese himself, his absence was scarcely heeded,
though it was understood among the courtiers generally,
that Isabella had entered into some arrangement with him,
which gave the adventurer higher rank and greater advan
tages than his future services would probably ever justify.
The other principal adventurers were too insignificant to
attract much attention, and they had severally departed for
the coast without the knowledge of their movements ex
tending far beyond the narrow circles of their own ac
quaintances. Neither was this expedition, so bold in its
conception and so momentous in its consequences, destined
to sail from one of the more important ports of Spain ; but
orders to furnish the necessary means had been sent to a
haven of altogether inferior rank, and which would seem
to have possessed no other recommendations for this par
ticular service, than hardy mariners, and a position without
the pass of Gibraltar, which was sometimes rendered haz
ardous by the rovers of Africa. The order, however, is
said to have been issued to the place selected, in conse
quence of its having incurred some legal penalty, by which
it had been condemned to serve the crown for a twelve
month with two armed caravels. Such punishments, it
would seem, were part of the policy of an age in which
navies were little more than levies on sea-ports, and when
fleets were usually manned by soldiers from the land.

Palos de Moguer, the place ordered to pay this tribute
for its transgression, was a town of little importance, even at
the close of the fifteenth century, and it has since dwindled
to an insignificant fishing village. Like most places that
are little favoured by nature, its population was hardy and
adventurous, as adventure was then limited by ignorance.
It possessed no stately caracks, its business and want of



166 MERCEDES OF CASTILE.

opulence confining all its efforts to the lighter caravel and
the still more diminutive felucca. All the succour, indeed,
that Columbus had been able to procure from the two
crowns, by his protracted solicitations, was the order for
the equipment of the two caravels mentioned, with the
additional officers and men that always accompanied a
royal expedition. The reader, however, is not to infer from
this fact any niggardliness of spirit, or any want of faith,
on the part of Isabella. It was partly owing to the ex
hausted condition of her treasury, a consequence of the
late war with the Moor, and more, perhaps, to the expe
rience and discretion of the great navigator himself, who
well understood that, for the purposes of discovery, vessels
of this size would be more useful and secure than those
that were larger.

On a rocky promontory, at a distance of less than a
league from the village of Palos, stood the convent of La
Rabida, since rendered so celebrated by its hospitality to
Columbus. At the gate of this building, seven years be
fore, the navigator, leading his youthful son by the hand,
had presented himself, a solicitor for food in behalf of the
wearied boy. The story is too well known to need repeti
tion here, and we will merely add that his long residence
in this convent, and the firm friends he had made of
the holy Franciscans who occupied it, as well as among
others in their vicinity, were also probably motives that
influenced him in directing the choice of the crown to this
particular place. Columbus had not only circulated his
opinions with the monks, but with the more intelligent
of the neighbourhood, and the first converts he made in
Spain were at this place.

Notwithstanding all the circumstances named, the order
of the crown to prepare the caravels in question, spread
consternation among the mariners of Palos. In that age,
it was thought a wonderful achievement to follow the land,
along the coast of Africa, and to approach the equator.
The vaguest notions existed in the popular mind, concerning
those unknown regions, and many even believed that by
journeying south it was possible to reach a portion of the
earth where animal and vegetable life must cease on ac
count of the intense heat of the sun. The revolutions of



MERCEDES OF CASTILE. 167

the planets, the diurnal motion of the earth, and the causes
of the changes in the seasons, were then profound myste
ries even to the learned ; or, if glimmerings of the truth
did exist, they existed as the first rays of the dawn dimly
and hesitatingly announce the approach of day. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the simple-minded and unlettered
mariners of Palos viewed the order of the crown as a sen
tence of destruction on all who might be fated to obey it.
The ocean, when certain limits were passed, was thought
to be, like the firmament, a sort of chaotic void ; and the
imaginations of the ignorant had conjured up currents and
whirlpools that were believed to lead to fiery climates and