The doctor and Edric willingly assented and repaired to their new abode, completely puzzled by what seemed to them the extraordinary and inconsistent character of the King.
Under this gay, laughing exterior, however, Roderic hid a sound penetrating mind, and a firm determined spirit; whilst, though no one enjoyed more to ridicule occasionally the foibles of his subjects, no one knew better how to check them, and bring them back instantly to their proper stations, if they ventured a hair's breadth beyond the limits he prescribed to them. He had thus the art to make himself feared as well as loved, and to rule his subjects despotically, though he never spoke to them without a smile.
Such as I have described him, it may be easily imagined Roderick was not long in winning the affections of his new friends, and he, in his turn, was equally delighted with them. The noble, generous, and inquiring spirit of Edric exactly accorded with his own; and the follies of the learned doctor afforded him never-ceasing amusement, whilst Edric, delighted to meet with a companion who could understand and sympathize with his feelings, felt happier than he had been for years; and the learned doctor, proud of being admitted to the intimacy of such a man as Roderick, declared all his troubles were repaid, and that he now considered himself as the most fortunate of mortals.
The Spanish nobility were daily collecting round the Irish King. To one of the most distinguished of these, the Duke of Medina Celina, Roderick was particularly anxious to introduce Edric. For this purpose, therefore, as soon as the army of Roderick returned to his head quarters at Cadiz, where the duke had remained, the friends went together to pay him a visit.
Edric was exceedingly interested by this call. The duke's family consisted only of himself and his grand-daughter, the Princess Zoe, but the appearance of both was excessively striking. The duke was a blind old man with white flowing hair and a long silvery beard, clad with almost patriarchal simplicity; whilst Zoe, who sate closely by his side, and seemed devoted to his comfort, was beauty itself. Exquisitely lovely, however, as her features were, they excited rather pain than pleasure in the mind of the beholder, from their excessive paleness. Her dress was simple: a robe of black silk fitted tight to her slender shape, and her jet black hair was simply braided on her forehead, and confined in a net behind.