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Page 66
* * * * *
The Grand Prior of Minorca wasted gradually away under this constant
remorse of conscience, and this horrible incubus. He died some time
after having revealed the preceding particulars of his case, evidently
the victim of a diseased imagination.
The above relation has been rendered, in many parts literally, from the
French memoir, in which it is given as a true story: if so, it is one of
those instances in which truth is more romantic than fiction.
* * * * *
LEGEND OF
THE ENGULPHED CONVENT.
BY GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT.
At the dark and melancholy period when Don Roderick the Goth and his
chivalry were overthrown on the banks of the Guadalete, and all Spain
was overrun by the Moors, great was the devastation of churches and
convents throughout that pious kingdom. The miraculous fate of one of
those holy piles is thus recorded in one of the authentic legends of
those days.
On the summit of a hill, not very distant from the capital city of
Toledo, stood an ancient convent and chapel, dedicated to the invocation
of Saint Benedict, and inhabited by a sisterhood of Benedictine nuns.
This holy asylum was confined to females of noble lineage. The younger
sisters of the highest families were here given in religious marriage to
their Saviour, in order that the portions of their elder sisters might
be increased, and they enabled to make suitable matches on earth, or
that the family wealth might go undivided to elder brothers, and the
dignity of their ancient houses be protected from decay. The convent was
renowned, therefore, for enshrining within its walls a sisterhood of the
purest blood, the most immaculate virtue, and most resplendent beauty,
of all Gothic Spain.
When the Moors overran the kingdom, there was nothing that more
excited their hostility than these virgin asylums. The very sight of a
convent-spire was sufficient to set their Moslem blood in a foment, and
they sacked it with as fierce a zeal as though the sacking of a nunnery
were a sure passport to Elysium.
Tidings of such outrages committed in various parts of the kingdom
reached this noble sanctuary and filled it with dismay. The danger
came nearer and nearer; the infidel hosts were spreading all over the
country; Toledo itself was captured; there was no flying from the
convent, and no security within its walls.
In the midst of this agitation, the alarm was given one day that a great
band of Saracens were spurring across the plain. In an instant the whole
convent was a scene of confusion. Some of the nuns wrung their fair
hands at the windows; others waved their veils and uttered shrieks from
the tops of the towers, vainly hoping to draw relief from a country
over-run by the foe. The sight of these innocent doves thus fluttering
about their dove-cote, but increased the zealot fury of the whiskered
Moors. They thundered at the portal, and at every blow the ponderous
gates trembled on their hinges.
The nuns now crowded round the abbess. They had been accustomed to look
up to her as all-powerful, and they now implored her protection. The
mother abbess looked with a rueful eye upon the treasures of beauty
and vestal virtue exposed to such imminent peril. Alas! how was she to
protect them from the spoiler! She had, it is true, experienced many
signal inter-positions of providence in her individual favor. Her early
days had been passed amid the temptations of a court, where her virtue
had been purified by repeated trials, from none of which had she escaped
but by a miracle. But were miracles never to cease? Could she hope that
the marvelous protection shown to herself would be extended to a
whole sisterhood? There was no other resource. The Moors were at the
threshold; a few moments more and the convent would be at their mercy.
Summoning her nuns to follow her, she hurried into the chapel; and
throwing herself on her knees before the image of the blessed Mary, "Oh,
holy Lady!" exclaimed she, "oh, most pure and immaculate of virgins!
thou seest our extremity. The ravager is at the gate, and there is none
on earth to help us! Look down with pity, and grant that the earth may
gape and swallow us rather than that our cloister vows should suffer
violation!"
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