A flag of truce arrived from Adelmelek. It offered preliminaries of peace in the name of the Emperor; while the vindictive Hadge accused the defeated Aben Humeya of all the reciprocal outrages committed during the present campaign.
Santa Cruz inquired the fate of the late Basha.
"He fled from the field of battle," replied the Moor, "and has not yet been heard of."
"Your information is false," returned the Marquis; "I myself saw him streaming with wounds and insensible, borne out of his consuming camp by a party of your own countrymen."
"I speak on the word of my commander," replied the Moor.
"You must bring me better evidence of his truth," rejoined the Marquis, "before I trust him. Return this day week to Ceuta; and, as he dissembles or fairly represents the last act of his fallen rival, I shall shape the terms my Sovereign may empower me to make to your Emperor."
Santa Cruz was not long in receiving ample credentials from the court at Seville for all he might wish to do in re-establishing the Spanish interest in Barbary. At Seville, as in Ceuta, it was believed that the Duke de Ripperda had expiated his crimes with his life; and, in answer to the evidence which Santa Cruz transmitted, of the inextinguishable loyalty of the Marquis de Montemar, the King issued a new edict, granting him the restitution of all his late father's hereditary honours and possessions. But there was a clause in this munificent investiture. The future Duke de Ripperda must avow himself of the Roman Catholic communion.
The re-opened wounds of Louis were just cicatrized; and he was leaning over the table on which he was writing to his friends in England, when the Marquis entered with the official letter from the King. He read it aloud. At the end of the catalogue of the Ripperda territories and titles, before he opened on the clause, Santa Cruz paused.
"De Montemar," said he, with solemnity, "hard trial has separated the gold from the dross in your heart; and you will not esteem the last title with which your King would invest you, the least honourable,--a true Christian!"
He then read the condition: "That all these restitutions should be ratified by the royal seal, on the day that the Cardinal-resident at Madrid should witness the baptism of Louis, Duke of Ripperda, into the bosom of the Church of Rome."