Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay

"Luis hath admitted all, Señora; inconstant he hath never been, though he may have had his weaknesses."

"'Tis a hard lesson to learn, child, even in this stage of thy life," said the queen, gravely; "but it would have been harder were it deferred until the nearer tenderness of a wife had superseded the impulses of the girl. Thou hast heard the opinions of the learned; there is little hope that the Princess Ozema can long survive."

"Ah! Señora, 'tis a cruel fate! To die among strangers, in the flower of her beauty, and with a heart crushed by the weight of unrequited love!"

"And yet, Mercedes, if heaven open on her awaking eyes, when the last earthly scene is over, the transition will be most blessed; and they who mourn her loss, would do wiser to rejoice. One so youthful and so innocent; whose pure mind hath been laid bare to us, as it might be, and which we have found wanting in nothing beside the fruits of a pious instruction, can have little to apprehend on the score of personal errors. All that is required for such a being, is to place her within the covenant of God's grace, by obtaining the rite of baptism, and there is not a bishop of the church that could depart with brighter hopes for the future."

"That holy office is my lord archbishop about to administer, as I hear, Señora."

"That somewhat dependeth on thee, daughter. Listen, and be not hasty in thy decision, which may touch on the security of a human soul."

The queen now related to Mercedes the romantic request of Ozema, placing it before her listener in terms so winning and gentle, that it produced less surprise and alarm than she herself had anticipated.

"Doña Beatriz hath a proposal that may, at first, appear plausible, but which reflection will not sanction. Her design was to cause the count actually to wed Ozema" – Mercedes started, and turned pale – "in order that the last hours of the young stranger might be soothed by the consciousness of being the wife of the man she idolized; but I have found serious objections to the scheme. What is thy opinion, daughter?"

"Señora, could I believe – as lately I did, but now do not – that Luis had such a preference for the princess as might lead him, in the end, to the happiness of that mutual affection without which wedlock must be a curse instead of a blessing, I would be the last to object; nay, I think I could even beg the boon of your Highness on my knees, for she who so truly loveth can only seek the felicity of its object. But I am assured the count hath not the affection for the Lady Ozema that is necessary to this end; and would it not be profane, Señora, to receive the church's sacraments under vows that the heart not only does not answer to, but against which it is actually struggling?"

"Excellent girl! These are precisely my own views, and in this manner have I answered the marchioness. The rites of the church may not be trifled with, and we are bound to submit to sorrows that may be inflicted, after all, for our eternal good; though it be harder to bear those of others than to bear our own. It remaineth only to decide on this whim of Ozema's, and to say if thou wilt now be married, in order that she may be baptized."

Notwithstanding the devotedness of feeling with which our heroine loved Luis, it required a strong struggle with her habits and her sense of propriety to take this great step so suddenly, and with so little preparation. The wishes of the queen, however, prevailed; for Isabella felt a deep responsibility on her own soul, in letting the stranger depart without being brought within the pale of the church. When Mercedes consented, she despatched a messenger to the marchioness, and then she and her companion both knelt, and passed near an hour together, in the spiritual exercises that were usual to the occasion. In this mood, did these pure-minded females, without a thought to the vanities of the toilet, but with every attention to the mental preparations of which the case admitted, present themselves at the door of the royal chapel, through which Ozema had just been carried, still stretched on her couch. The marchioness had caused a white veil to be thrown over the head of Mercedes, and a few proper but slight alterations had been made in her attire, out of habitual deference to the altar and its ministers.

About a dozen persons, deemed worthy of confidence, were present, already; and just as the bride and bridegroom were about to take their places, Don Ferdinand hastily entered, carrying in his hand some papers which he had been obliged to cease examining, in order to comply with the wishes of his royal consort. The king was a dignified prince; and when it suited him, no sovereign enacted his part more gracefully or in better taste. Motioning the archbishop to pause, he directed Luis to kneel. Throwing over the shoulder of the young man the collar of one of his own orders, he said —

"Now, arise, noble sir, and ever do thy duty to thy Heavenly Master, as thou hast of late discharged it toward us."

Isabella rewarded her husband for this act of grace by an approving smile, and the ceremony immediately proceeded. In the usual time, our hero and heroine were pronounced man and wife, and the solemn rites were ended. Mercedes felt, in the warm pressure with which Luis held her to his heart, that she now understood him; and, for a blissful instant, Ozema was forgotten, in the fulness of her own happiness. Columbus had given away the bride – an office that the king had assigned to him, though he stood at the bridegroom's side himself, with a view to do him honor, and even so far condescended as to touch the canopy that was held above the heads of the new-married couple. But Isabella kept aloof, placing herself near the couch of Ozema, whose features she watched throughout the ceremony. She had felt no occasion for public manifestations of interest in the bride, their feelings having so lately been poured out together in dear and private communion. The congratulations were soon over, and then Don Ferdinand, and all but those who were in the secret of Ozema's history, withdrew.

The queen had not desired her husband, and the other attendants, to remain and witness the baptism of Ozema, out of a delicate feeling for the condition of a female stranger, whom her habits and opinions had invested with a portion of the sacred rights of royalty. She had noted the intensity of feeling with which the half-enlightened girl watched the movements of the archbishop and the parties, and the tears had forced themselves from her own eyes, at witnessing the struggle between love and friendship, that was portrayed in every lineament of her pale, but still lovely countenance.

"Where cross?" Ozema eagerly demanded, as Mercedes stooped to fold the wasted form of the young Indian in her arms, and to kiss her cheek. "Give cross – Luis no marry with cross – give Ozema cross."

Mercedes, herself, took the cross from the bosom of her husband, where it had lain near his heart, since it had been returned to him, and put it in the hands of the princess.

"No marry with cross, then," murmured the girl, the tears suffusing her eyes, so as nearly to prevent her gazing at the much-prized bauble. "Now, quick, Señora, and make Ozema Christian."

The scene was getting to be too solemn and touching for many words, and the archbishop, at a sign from the queen, commenced the ceremony. It was of short duration; and Isabella's kind nature was soon quieted with the assurance that the stranger, whom she deemed the subject of her especial care, was put within the covenant for salvation that had been made with the visible church.

"Is Ozema Christian now?" demanded the girl, with a suddenness and simplicity, that caused all present to look at each other with pain and surprise.

"Thou hast, now, the assurance that God's grace will be offered to thy prayers, daughter," answered the prelate. "Seek it with thy heart, and thy end, which is at hand, will be more blessed."

"Christian no marry heathen? – Christian marry Christian?"

"This hast thou been often told, my poor Ozema," returned the queen; "the rite could not be duly solemnized between Christian and heathen."

"Christian marry first lady he love best?"

"Certainly. To do otherwise would be a violation of his vow, and a mockery of God."

"So Ozema think – but he can marry second wife – inferior wife – lady he love next. Luis marry Mercedes, first wife, because he love best – then he marry Ozema, second wife – lower wife – because he love next best – Ozema Christian, now, and no harm. Come, archbishop; make Ozema Luis' second wife."

Isabella groaned aloud, and walked to a distant part of the chapel, while Mercedes burst into tears, and sinking on her knees, she buried her face in the cloth of the couch, and prayed fervently for the enlightening of the soul of the princess. The churchman did not receive this proof of ignorance in his penitent, and of her unfitness for the rite he had just administered, with the same pity and indulgence.

"The holy baptism thou hast just received, benighted woman," he said, sternly, "is healthful, or not, as it is improved. Thou hast just made such a demand, as already loadeth thy soul with a fresh load of sin, and the time for repentance is short. No Christian can have two wives at the same time, and God knoweth no higher or lower, no first or last, between those whom his church hath united. Thou canst not be a second wife, the first still living."

"No would be to Caonabo – to Luis, yes. Fifty, hundred wife to dear Luis! No possible?"

"Self-deluded and miserable girl, I tell thee no. No – no – no – never – never – never. There is such a taint of sin in the very question, as profaneth this holy chapel, and the symbols of religion by which it is filled. Ay, kiss and embrace thy cross, and bow down thy very soul in despair, for" —

"Lord Archbishop," interrupted the Marchioness of Moya, with a sharpness of manner that denoted how much her ancient spirit was aroused, "there is enough of this. The ear thou wouldst wound, at such a moment, is already deaf, and the pure spirit hath gone to the tribunal of another, and, as I trust, a milder judge. Ozema is dead!"

It was, indeed, true. Startled by the manner of the prelate – bewildered with the confusion of ideas that had grown up between the dogmas that had been crowded on her mind, of late, and those in which she had been early taught; and physically paralyzed by the certainty that her last hope of a union with Luis was gone, the spirit of the Indian girl had deserted its beautiful tenement, leaving on the countenance of the corpse a lovely impression of the emotions that had prevailed during the last moments of its earthly residence.

Thus fled the first of those souls that the great discovery was to rescue from the perdition of the heathen. Casuists may refine, the learned dilate, and the pious ponder, on its probable fate in the unknown existence that awaited it: but the meek and submissive will hope all from the beneficence of a merciful God. As for Isabella, she received a shock from the blow that temporarily checked her triumph at the success of her zeal and efforts. Little, however, did she foresee, that the event was but a type of the manner in which the religion of the cross was to be abused and misunderstood; a sort of practical prognostic of the defeat of most of her own pious and gentle hopes and wishes.

CHAPTER XXXI

"A perfect woman, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright,
With something of an angel light."

    Wordsworth.
The lustre that was thrown around the voyage of Columbus, brought the seas into favor. It was no longer deemed an inferior occupation, or unsuited to nobles to engage in enterprises on its bosom; and that very propensity of our hero, which had so often been mentioned to his prejudice in former years, was now frequently named to his credit. Though his real connection with Columbus is published, for the first time, in these pages, the circumstance having escaped the superficial investigations of the historians, it was an advantage to him to be known as having manifested what might be termed a maritime disposition, in an age when most of his rank and expectations were satisfied with the adventures of the land. A sort of fashion was got up on behalf of the ocean; and the cavalier who had gazed upon its vast and unbroken expanse, beyond the view of his mother earth, regarded him who had not, much as he who had won his spurs looked down upon him who had suffered the proper period of life to pass without making the effort. Many of the nobles whose estates touched the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, fitted out small coasters – the yachts of the fifteenth century – and were met following the sinuosities of the glorious coasts of that part of the world, endeavoring to derive a satisfaction from a pursuit that it seemed meritorious to emulate. That all succeeded who attempted thus to transfer the habits of courts and castles to the narrow limits of xebecs and feluccas, it would be hazarding too much to assert; but there is little doubt that the spirit of the period was sustained by the experiments, and that men were ashamed to condemn that, which it was equally the policy and the affectation of the day to extol. The rivalry between Spain and Portugal, too, contributed to the feeling of the times; and there was soon greater danger of the youth who had never quitted his native shores, being pointed out for his want of spirit, than that the adventurer should be marked for his eccentric and vagrant instability.

In the meanwhile, the seasons advanced, and events followed, in their usual course, from cause to effect. About the close of the month of September, the ocean, just without that narrow and romantic pass that separates Europe from Africa, while it connects the transcendent Mediterranean with the broader wastes of the Atlantic, was glittering with the rays of the rising sun, which, at the same time, was gilding the objects that rose above the surface of the blue waters. The latter were not numerous, though a dozen different sails were moving slowly on their several courses, impelled by the soft breezes of the season. Of these, our business is with one alone, which it may be well to describe in a few general terms.

The rig of the vessel in question was latine, perhaps the most picturesque of all that the ingenuity of man has invented as the accessory of a view, whether given to the eye by means of the canvas, or in its real dimensions and substance. Its position, too, was precisely that which a painter would have chosen as the most favorable to his pencil, the little felucca running before the wind, with one of its high pointed sails extended on each side, resembling the pinions of some enormous bird that was contracting its wings as it settled toward its nest. Unusual symmetry was apparent in the spars and rigging; while the hull, which was distinguished by lines of the fairest proportions, had a neatness and finish that denoted the yacht of a noble.

The name of this vessel was the "Ozema," and she carried the Count of Llera with his youthful bride. Luis, who had acquired much of the mariner's skill, in his many voyages, directed the movements in person, though Sancho Mundo strutted around her decks with an air of authority, being the titular, if not the real patron of the craft.

"Ay – ay – good Bartolemeo, lash that anchor well," said the last, as he inspected the forecastle, in his hourly rounds; "for fair as may be the breezes, and mild as is the season, no one can know what humor the Atlantic may be in, when it fairly waketh up. In the great voyage to Cathay, nothing could have been more propitious than our outward passage, and nothing savor more of devils incarnate, than the homeward. Doña Mercedes maketh an excellent sailor, as ye all may see; and no one can tell which way, or how far, the humor of the conde may carry him, when he hath once taken his departure. I tell ye, fellows, that glory and gold may alight upon ye all, any minute, in the service of such a noble; and I hope none of ye have forgotten to come provided with hawk's-bells, which are as remarkable for assembling doblas, as the bells of the Seville cathedral are for assembling Christians."

"Master Mundo," called out our hero, from the quarter-deck, "let there be a man sent to the extremity of the fore-yard, and bid him look along the sea to the north and east of us."

This command interrupted one of Sancho's self-glorifying discourses, and compelled him to see the order executed. When the seaman who was sent aloft, had "shinned" his way to the airy and seemingly perilous position he had been told to occupy, an inquiry went up from the deck, to demand what he beheld.

"Señor Conde," answered the fellow, "the ocean is studded with sails, in the quarter your Excellency hath named, looking like the mouth of the Tagus, at the first of a westerly wind."

"Canst thou tell them, and let me know their numbers?" called out Luis.

"By the mass, Señor," returned the man, after taking time to make his count, "I see no less than sixteen – nay, now I see another, a smaller just opening from behind a carrack of size – seventeen, I make them in all."

"Then are we in season, love!" exclaimed Luis, turning toward Mercedes with delight – "once more shall I grasp the hand of the admiral, ere he quitteth us again for Cathay. Thou seemest glad as myself, that our effort hath not failed."

"That which gladdeneth thee, Luis, is sure to gladden me," returned the bride; "where there is but one interest, there ought to be but one wish."

"Beloved – beloved Mercedes – thou wilt make me every thing thou canst desire. This heavenly disposition of thine, and this ready consenting to voyage with me, will be sure to mould me in such a way that I shall be less myself than thee."