So saying he alighted. Soon they scoop’d Amid loose-lying sand a hasty grave, And levell’d over it the easy soil. Father, said Roderick, as they journey’d on, Let this thing be a seal and sacrament Of truth between us: Wherefore should there be Concealment between two right Gothic hearts In evil days like ours? What thou hast seen Is but the first fruit of the sacrifice, Which on this injured and polluted soil, As on a bloody altar, I have sworn To offer to insulted Heaven for Spain, Her vengeance and her expiation. This Was but a hasty act, by sudden wrong Provoked: but I am bound for Cordoba, On weighty mission from Visonia sent, To breathe into Pelayo’s ear a voice Of spirit-stirring power, which like the trump Of the Arch-angel, shall awake dead Spain. The northern mountaineers are unsubdued; They call upon Pelayo for their chief; Odoar and Urban tell him that the hour Is come. Thou too, I ween, old man, art charged With no light errand, or thou wouldst not now Have left the ruins of thy master’s house. Who art thou? cried Siverian, as he search’d The wan and wither’d features of the King. The face is of a stranger, but thy voice Disturbs me like a dream. Roderick replied, Thou seest me as I am, ... a stranger; one Whose fortunes in the general wreck were lost, His name and lineage utterly extinct, Himself in mercy spared, surviving all; ... In mercy, that the bitter cup might heal A soul diseased. Now, having cast the slough Of old offences, thou beholdest me A man new-born; in second baptism named, Like those who in Judea bravely raised Against the Heathèn’s impious tyranny The banner of Jehovah, Maccabee; So call me. In that name hath Urban laid His consecrating hands upon my head; And in that name have I myself for Spain Devoted. Tell me now why thou art sent To Cordoba; for sure thou goëst not An idle gazer to the Conqueror’s court.