CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
Without, a ruin, broken, tangled, cumbrous, Within, it was a little paradise, Where Taste had made her dwelling. Statuary, First-born of human art, moulded her images, And bade men. mark and worship. ANONYMOUS.
The Count of Paris and his lady attended the old man, whose advancedage, his excellence in the use of the French language, which he spoketo admiration,--above all, his skill in applying it to poetical andromantic subjects, which was essential to what was then termed historyand belles lettres,--drew from the noble hearers a degree of applause,which, as Agelastes had seldom been vain enough to consider as his due,so, on the part of the Knight of Paris and his lady, had it been butrarely conferred. They had walked for some time by a path whichsometimes seemed to hide itself among the woods that came down to theshore of the Propontis, sometimes emerged from concealment, and skirtedthe open margin of the strait, while, at every turn, it seemed guidedby the desire to select a choice and contrast of beauty. Variety ofscenes and manners enlivened, from their novelty, the landscape to thepilgrims. By the sea-shore, nymphs were seen dancing, and shepherdspiping, or beating the tambourine to their steps, as represented insome groups of ancient statuary. The very faces had a singularresemblance to the antique. If old, their long robes, their attitudes,and magnificent heads, presented the ideas which distinguish prophetsand saints; while, on the other hand, the features of the youngrecalled the expressive countenances of the heroes of antiquity, andthe charms of those lovely females by whom their deeds were inspired.But the race of the Greeks was no longer to be seen, even in its nativecountry, unmixed, or in absolute purity; on the contrary, they sawgroups of persons with features which argued a different descent.
In a retiring bosom of the shore, which was traversed by the path, therocks, receding from the beach, rounded off a spacious portion of levelsand, and, in some degree, enclosed it. A party of heathen Scythianswhom they beheld, presented the deformed features of the demons theywere said to worship--flat noses with expanded nostrils, which seemedto admit the sight to their very brain; faces which extended rather inbreadth than length, with strange unintellectual eyes placed in theextremity; figures short and dwarfish, yet garnished with legs and armsof astonishing sinewy strength, disproportioned to their bodies. As thetravellers passed, the savages held a species of tournament, as theCount termed it. In this they exercised themselves by darting at eachother long reeds, or canes, balanced for the purpose, which, in thisrude sport, they threw with such force, as not unfrequently to strikeeach other from their steeds, and otherwise to cause serious damage.Some of the combatants being, for the time, out of the play, devouredwith greedy looks the beauty of the Countess, and eyed her in such amanner, that she said to Count Robert,--"I have never known fear, myhusband, nor is it for me to acknowledge it now; but if disgust be aningredient of it, these misformed brutes are qualified to inspire it.""What, ho, Sir Knight!" exclaimed one of the infidels, "your wife, oryour lady love, has committed a fault against the privileges of theImperial Scythians, and not small will be the penalty she has incurred.You may go your way as fast as you will out of this place, which is,for the present; our hippodrome, or atmeidan, call it which you will,as you prize the Roman or the Saracen language; but for your wife, ifthe sacrament has united you, believe my word, that she parts not sosoon or so easy."
"Scoundrel heathen," said the Christian Knight, "dost thou hold thatlanguage to a Peer of France?"
Agelastes here interposed, and using the sounding language of a Greciancourtier, reminded the Scythians, (mercenary soldiers, as they seemed,of the empire,) that all violence against the European pilgrims was, bythe Imperial orders, strictly prohibited under pain of death.
"I know better," said the exulting savage, shaking one or two javelinswith broad steel heads, and wings of the eagle's feather, which lastwere dabbled in blood. "Ask the wings of my javelin," he said, "inwhose heart's blood these feathers have been dyed. They shall reply toyou, that if Alexius Comnenus be the friend of the European pilgrims,it is only while he looks upon them; and we are too exemplary soldiersto serve our Emperor otherwise than he wishes to be served."
"Peace, Toxartis," said the philosopher, "thou beliest thine Emperor."
"Peace thou!" said Toxartis, "or I will do a deed that misbecomes asoldier, and rid the world of a prating old man."
So saying, he put forth his hand to take hold of the Countess's veil.With the readiness which frequent use had given to the warlike lady,she withdrew herself from the heathen's grasp, and with her trenchantsword dealt him so sufficient a blow, that Toxartis lay lifeless on theplain. The Count leapt on the fallen leader's steed, and crying hiswar-cry, "Son of Charlemagne, to the rescue!" he rode amid the rout ofheathen cavaliers with a battle-axe, which he found at the saddlebow ofthe deceased chieftain, and wielding it with remorseless dexterity, hesoon slew or wounded, or compelled to flight, the objects of hisresentment; nor was there any of them who abode an instant to supportthe boast which they had made. "The despicable churls!" said theCountess to Agelastes; "it irks me that a drop of such coward bloodshould stain the hands of a noble knight. They call their exercise atournament, although in their whole exertions every blow is aimedbehind the back, and not one has the courage to throw his windlestrawwhile he perceives that of another pointed against himself."
"Such is their custom," said Agelastes; "not perhaps so much fromcowardice as from habit, in exercising before his Imperial Majesty. Ihave seen that Toxartis literally turn his back upon the mark when hebent his bow in full career, and when in the act of galloping thefarthest from his object, he pierced it through the very centre with abroad arrow."
"A force of such soldiers," said Count Robert, who had now rejoined hisfriends, "could not, methinks, be very formidable, where there was butan ounce of genuine courage in the assailants."
"Mean time, let us pass on to my kiosk," said Agelastes, "lest thefugitives find friends to encourage them in thoughts of revenge."
"Such friends," said Count Robert, "methinks the insolent heathensought not to find in any land which calls itself Christian; and if Isurvive the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre, I shall make it my firstbusiness to enquire by what right your Emperor retains in his service aband of Paynim and unmannerly cut-throats, who dare offer injury uponthe highway, which ought to be sacred to the peace of God and the king,and to noble ladies and inoffensive pilgrims. It is one of a list ofmany questions which, my vow accomplished, I will not fail to put tohim; ay, and expecting an answer, as they say, prompt and categorical."
"You shall gain no answer from me though," said Agelastes to himself."Your demands, Sir Knight, are over-peremptory, and imposed under toorigid conditions, to be replied to by those who can evade them." Hechanged the conversation, accordingly, with easy dexterity; and theyhad not proceeded much farther, before they reached a spot, the naturalbeauties of which called forth the admiration of his foreigncompanions. A copious brook, gushing out of the woodland, descended tothe sea with no small noise and tumult; and, as if disdaining a quietercourse, which it might have gained by a little circuit to the right, ittook the readiest road to the ocean, plunging over the face of a loftyand barren precipice which overhung the sea-shore, and from thence ledits little tribute, with as much noise as if it had the stream of afull river to boast of, to the waters of the Hellespont.
The rock, we have said, was bare, unless in so far as it was clothedwith the foaming waters of the cataract; but the banks on each sidewere covered with plane-trees, walnut-trees, cypresses, and other kindsof large timber proper to the East. The fall of water, always agreeablein a warm climate, and generally produced by artificial means, was herenatural, and had been chosen, something like the Sibyl's temple atTivoli, for the seat of a goddess to whom the invention of Polytheismhad assigned a sovereignty over the department around. The shrine wassmall and circular, like many of the lesser temples of the rusticdeities, and enclosed by the wall of an outer court. After
itsdesecration, it had probably been converted into a luxurious summerretreat by Agelastes, or some Epicurean philosopher. As the building,itself of a light, airy, and fantastic character, was dimly seenthrough the branches and foliage on the edge of the rock, so the modeby which it was accessible was not at first apparent amongst the mistof the cascade. A pathway, a good deal hidden, by vegetation, ascendedby a gentle acclivity, and prolonged by the architect by means of a fewbroad and easy marble steps, making part of the original approach,conducted the passenger to a small, but exquisitely lovely velvet lawn,in front of the turret or temple we have described, the back part ofwhich building overhung the cataract.