The Two Captains | Page 5

he was very
passionate and bold; that not the slightest danger threatened her in the
matter, because he loved and honored her above everything, but that his
wrath would vent itself all the more furiously upon me. You can readily
understand, my noble comrade, that I could not help proving my
contempt of all personal danger by following Lucila more closely than
ever, and singing nightly serenades beneath her flower- decked
windows till the morning star began to be reflected in the sea. This very
night Lucila's husband sets out at midnight for Madrid, and from that
hour I will in every way avoid the street in which they live; until then,
however, as soon as it is sufficiently dark to be suitable for a serenade,
I will have love-romances unceasingly sang before his house. It is true I
have information that not only he but Lucila's brothers are really to
enter upon a quarrel with me, and it is for this reason, Senor, that I have
requested you to bear me company with your good sword in this short
expedition."
Heimbert seized the Spaniard's hand as a pledge of his readiness,
saying as he did so, "To show you, dear sir, how gladly I will do what
you desire of me, I will requite your confidence with confidence, and
will relate a little incident which occurred to me in this city, and will
beg you after midnight also to render me a small service. My story is
short, and will not detain us longer than we must wait before the
twilight has become deeper and more gloomy.
"On the day after we arrived here I amused myself with walking in the

beautiful gardens with which the place abounds. I have now been long
in these southern lands, but I cannot but believe that the dreams which
transport me nightly back to my German home are the cause for my
feeling everything here so strange and astonishing. At all events, every
morning when I wake I wonder anew, as if I were only just arrived. So
I was walking then, like one infatuated, among the aloe trees, which
were scattered among the laurels and oleanders. Suddenly a cry
sounded near me, and a slender girl, dressed in white, fled into my arms,
fainting, while her companions dispersed past us in every direction. A
soldier can always tolerably soon gather his senses together, and I
speedily perceived a furious bull was pursuing the beautiful maiden. I
threw her quickly over a thickly planted hedge, and followed her
myself, upon which the beast, blind with rage, passed us by, and I have
heard no more of it since, except that some young knights in an
adjacent courtyard had been making a trial with it previous to a
bull-fight, and that it was on this account that it had broken so furiously
through the gardens.
"I was now standing quite alone, with the fainting lady in my arms, and
she was so wonderfully beautiful to look at that I have never in my life
felt happier than I then did, and also never sadder. At last I laid her
down on the turf, and sprinkled her angelic brow, with water from a
neighboring little fountain. And so she came to herself again, and when
she opened her bright and lovely eyes I thought I could imagine how
the glorified spirits must feel in heaven.
"She thanked me with graceful and courteous words, and called me her
knight; but in my state of enchantment I could not utter a syllable, and
she must have almost thought me dumb. At length my speech returned,
and the prayer at once was breathed forth from my heart, that the sweet
lady would often again allow me to see her in this garden; for that in a
few weeks the service of the emperor would drive me into the burning
land of Africa, and that until then she should vouchsafe me the
happiness of beholding her. She looked at me half smiling, half sadly,
and said, 'Yes.' And she has kept her word and has appeared almost
daily, without our having yet spoken much to each other. For although
she has been sometimes quite alone, I could never begin any other topic

but that of the happiness of walking by her side. Often she has sung to
me, and I have sung to her also. When I told her yesterday that our
departure was so near, her heavenly eyes seemed to me suffused with
tears. I must also have looked sorrowful, for she said to me, in a
consoling tone, 'Oh, pious, childlike warrior! one may trust you as one
trusts an angel.' After midnight, before the morning dawn breaks for
your departure, I give you leave to take farewell