eful alike to Christian and
Moor, but yet I am no deluded wretch, that will stoop to swerve from the
path he has once resolved to follow."

"Calm thy temper, Alagraf," said Caneri, interposing; "I meant not to
offend thee, and if I have, I pray thy indulgence: thou art sensible of
the friendship which unites us; it is from the zeal of that friendship,
that I continually urge the questions which thou seemest to avoid. Great
must be the nature of thy sufferings, and powerful the motive which
provokes such unusual signs of emotion; yet surely some consolation
might be found in trusting thy secret to the bosom of a comrade."

The renegade remained silent for a few minutes; then, as if suddenly
adopting a fresh resolution--

"Caneri," he said, "oft has thine officious zeal, or weak curiosity,
fatigued my ears with repeated questions that are daggers to my soul. I
will now satisfy thy craving; yes, I will unravel the mystery that hangs
around my head. By this concession I may perhaps acquire the right to
brood over my wrongs and misfortunes undisturbed and unmolested in
future.

"Caneri," he continued, "all the calamity which is now the portion of
the man that stands before thee--all the struggles, the racking throes
that torture this seared breast, arise from one solitary cause--the
offspring of one crime, and of that crime the unhappy victim who suffers
by it is innocent. The rites of religion never blessed my mother's
bridal bed, and I was born a thing despised, looked down upon by the
proud ones of the land, pointed at by the urchins, and even taunted by
the beggar as he went his rounds. But nature, that made me a thing to be
contemned, gave me no feelings congenial to such a state. I was endowed
with sentiments more noble, and greater powers of mind than those who
affected to spurn me. I know not my father, nor was I ever anxious to
learn a name to me so full of misery, and which could claim no other
token from his child than a malediction. This much I learnt--that my
parent was a nobleman; but what unnatural cruelty could induce him to
abandon his offspring, I never was able to determine. I was brought up a
retainer in the house of the sire of my bitter foe, Don Lope Gomez
Arias, where I was subjected to indignities at which my proud nature
revolted, whilst the obscurity of my birth powerfully contributed to
exasperate those feelings already too much excited by repeated
contumelies and scorn. Wherever I turned my ey