THE RISE OF ISKANDER - Ibiblio

epose. The daughter of Hunniades, first humbling herself before the altar of the Virgin, and offering her
gratitude for all the late mercies vouchsafed unto her, and then bidding a word of peace to her host and
her companion, withdrew to her hard-earned couch, soon was buried in a sleep as sweet and innocent as
herself.
13.6 But repose fell not upon the eye-lids of Nicæus in spite of all labours. The heart of the Athenian
Prince was distracted by two most powerful of passions -- Love and Jealousy -- and when the Eremite,
pointing out to his guest his allotted resting-place, himself retired to his regular and simple slumbers,
Nicæus quitted the cavern, and standing upon the bank of the river, gazed in abstraction upon the rushing
waters foaming in the moonlight. The Prince of Athens, with many admirable qualities, was one of those
men who are influenced only by their passions, and who, in the affairs of life, are invariably guided by
their imagination instead of their reason. At present all thought and feeling, all considerations, and all
circumstances, merged in the overpowering love he entertained for Iduna, his determination to obtain her
at all cost and peril, and his resolution that she should never again meet Iskander, except as the wife of
Nicæus. Compared with this paramount object, the future seemed to vanish. The emancipation of his
country, the welfare of his friend, even the maintenance of his holy creed, all those great and noble
objects for which, under other circumstances, he would have been prepared to sacrifice his fortune and
his life, no longer interested or influenced him; and while the legions of the Crescent were on the point of
pouring into Greece to crush that patriotic and Christian cause over which Iskander and himself had so
often mused, whose interests the disinterested absence of Iskander, occasioned solely by his devotion to
Nicæus, had certainly endangered, and perhaps, could the events of the last few hours be known, even
sacrificed, the Prince of Athens resolved, unless Iduna would consent to become his, at once to carry off
the daughter of Hunniades to some distant country. Nor indeed, even with his easily excited vanity, was
Nicæus sanguine of obtaining his purpose by less violent means. He was already a rejected suitor, and
under circumstances which scarcely had left hope. Nothing but the sole credit of her chivalric rescue
could perhaps have obtained for him the interest in the heart of Iduna which he coveted. For while this
exploit proffered an irresistible claim to her deepest gratitude, it indicated also, on the part of her
deliverer, the presence and possession of all those great qualities, the absence of which in the character
and conduct of her suitor, Iduna had not, at a former period, endeavoured to conceal to be the principal
came of his rejection. And now, by the unhappy course of circumstances, the very deed on which he
counted, with sanguine hope, as the sure means of his success, seemed as it were to have placed him in
a more inferior situation than before. The constant society of his mistress had fanned to all its former
force and ardour, the flame which, apart from her, and hopeless, he had endeavoured to repress; while,
on the other hand, he could not conceal from himself, that Iduna must feel that he had played in these
rest proceeding but a secondary part; that all the genius and all the generosity of the exploit rested with
Iskander, who, after having obtained her freedom by so much energy, peril, sagacity and skill, had
secured it by a devoted courage which might shame all the knights of Christendom; perhaps, too, had
secured it by his own life.
13.7 What if Iskander were no more? It was a great contingency. The eternal servitude of Greece,
and the shameful triumph of the Crescent, were involved, perhaps, in that single event. And could the
possession of Iduna compensate for such disgrace and infamy? Let us not record the wild response of
passion.
13.8 It was midnight ere the restless Nicæus, more exhausted by his agitating reverie than by his
previous exertions, returned into the cavern, and found refuge in sleep from all his disquietudes.
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