"You will not pronounce such a sentence on your son?" returned Louis, seeing the distemper of his mind, and praying inwardly, while he sought to soothe, and to turn him to better feelings. "You gave me birth, and you will not leave me to die, without having received your forgiveness for all my unintentional offences."
"Louis de Montemar!" cried the Duke, "virtuous son of an angel I shall never behold! There is no death in your breast; no need of forgiveness from earth or heaven! But your father!--Shudder while you touch him, for hell is already in his bosom."
Ripperda's face was again buried in his hands. That once godlike figure shook as under the last throes of dissolution; and before his anguished son could form his pious hopes into any words of consolation, a slave appeared for a moment at the curtain of the door. The act of prostration, holding out a sealed packet to Martini, and vanishing again, seemed comprised in less than a second. Martini knew the writing to be that of a friend of his own, in the suite of Adelmelek; and, aware of some pressing danger from the abrupt entrance of the slave, he broke the seal. He read, that the late Emperor being deposed, Adelmelek was advancing to Tetuan, to threaten it with destruction; or to allow it to purchase its ransom by an instant surrender of its Basha. This sacrifice being made, the offending Aben Humeya would be put to an ignominious death; and so the laws of Mahommed should be appeased, and an exemplary warning set up to all foreign invaders of the rights and honours of true Mussulmen.
Without preface, Martini communicated this information to those present. He no longer feared the execution of such threats, but felicitated his master on the arrival of the Marquis de Montemar, who would himself defend his father's life from these ungrateful Moors.
"And was it my death you feared?" asked the Duke, gloomily looking up from his position, and bracing his nerves at this seeming summons to renewed action. "Were it to be found, I would seek it; but there is no death for me. Torn from this murderous world by violence, or sapped by the consuming hand of corporeal pain, neither can give me rest."
"Yes, my father," gently rejoined Louis, "there is rest in the grave when--"