“As you pray for mercy, sire, speak one word,” urged Bernardo, the trembling of his lips telling what he suffered. “Are father and mother dead?” “Both to me,” was the stern answer. “The mortal spark of life can never reanimate the soul dead in sin. Question me no more, audacious youth. And think not, because my blood runs in your veins that I will favour your ambition. Rather have I called in the stranger to occupy the throne. Now you know my mind. Were I dead, my spirit would stand as with a flaming sword to shut you out.” “Then sweeter far than life and honour and glory, come death!” exclaimed Bernardo, throwing up his arms. “From this day I am a desperate man. My sword is to me the staff of life; bloodshed and carnage the food on which I live. Come now over the grey heights of the mountains the Frankish host and I will meet them as never mortal did his country’s foes. Come, great Charlemagne and all your peers; iron-fisted Guarinos, good Ferragol, Oliver, Gayferos, and Roland, bravest of paladins. Come all. Despair, dishonour are the keen edges to the weapon which I draw for your destruction. An unknown knight, degraded from my place, I will leave a name behind me that shall be honoured as long as Spain cleaves the seas. Adieu, my lord,” turning to the king, “you have forgotten your duty to the land you rule, come to you inch by inch, bathed in Gothic blood. I, Bernardo del Carpio, the nameless outcast, go forth to defend it. You have planted a dagger in my heart not hecatombs of the enemy can draw forth. Adieu!” “Now stay, my boy,” cried the king, laying his hand on his shoulder as he turned to go. “Spite of the past, my heart warms to you. Take the lion of Leon and place it on your shield; and when men ask you by what right, answer, ‘By order of the King.’” At this moment the tempest seemed to have reached its climax; a loud and hollow reverberation, like the sound of a blow upon a brass timbrel, shook the palace to its foundations and the whole firmament pulsated with flame. But Bernardo heeded not: with his features locked in a cold, impassive silence, he passed out. CHAPTER XIX Bernardo Leads the Goths against Charlemagne The day is warm and genial, the landscape flushed with green, and such homely blossoms as hawthorne and elder, briony and honeysuckle, flourish in the fields. An immense plain spreads around, verdant with pastures, gardens and _huertas_ full of fruit-trees and clumps of planes and oaks, while across it, flung like a silver ribbon, flows the current of the Torio River. Hayfields, ploughed land, and squares of maize and yellowing rye, follow each other in its course, divided by groves and wooded hedgerows rich in roadside flowers--Canterbury bells, pink willow-wand, the humble star daisy, and the wild rose.