Fernando took one step toward her--another--and felt arms slender and flexible twining about his neck and a cold sensation on his burning lips, a kiss of snow--wavered, lost his footing and fell, striking the water with a dull and mournful sound.
The waves leaped in sparks of light, and closed over his body, and their silvery circles went widening, widening until they died away on the banks.
She was beautiful, beautiful with that beauty which turns a man dizzy; beautiful with that beauty which in no wise resembles our dream of the angels, and yet is supernatural; a diabolical beauty that the devil perchance gives to certain beings to make them his instruments on earth.
He loved her--he loved her with that love which knows not check nor bounds; he loved her with that love which seeks delight and finds but martyrdom; a love which is akin to bliss, yet which Heaven seems to cast on mortals for the expiation of their sins.
She was wayward, wayward and unreasonable, like all the women of the world.
He, superstitious, superstitious and valiant, like all the men of his time.
Both were natives of Toledo, and both had their homes in the city which saw their birth.
The tradition which relates this marvellous event, an event of many years since, tells nothing more of these two central actors.
I, in my character of scrupulous historian, will not add a single word of my own invention to describe them further.
One day he found her in tears and asked her:
She dried her eyes, looked at him searchingly, heaved a sigh and began to weep anew.
Then, drawing close to Maria, he took her hand, leaned his elbow on the fretted edge of the Arabic parapet whence the beautiful maiden was watching the river flow beneath, and again he asked her: “Why dost thou weep?”
The Tajo, moaning at the tower’s foot, twisted in and out amid the rocks on which is seated the imperial city. The sun was sinking behind the neighboring mountains, the afternoon haze was floating, a veil of azure gauze, and only the monotonous sound of the water broke the profound stillness.
Maria exclaimed: “Ask me not why I weep, ask me not; for I would not know how to answer thee, nor thou how to understand. In the souls of us women are stifling desires which reveal themselves only in a sigh, mad ideas that cross the imagination without our daring to form them into speech, strange phenomena of our mysterious nature which man cannot even conceive. I implore thee, ask me not the cause of my grief; if I should reveal it to thee, perchance thou wouldst reply with peals of laughter.”