banks of the Tagus, and overlooked by a
tower, which contained a portion of Don Rodrigo's apartments, exposed to
view, more than accorded either with etiquette or with her intention,
the symmetry of her form. King Rodrigo, who, favoured by the concealment
of a window-blind, had been watching the whole scene, became suddenly
enamoured of her, and resolved to obtain a return of his passion; but,
after finding every effort useless, and his object unattainable, he at
length employed violence.

Every circumstance of this story is corroborated, as far as is possible
in the present time, by the position of the localities, the known
customs of the period, and the character of King Roderick. But the
historian Mariana, to show the minuteness and triumph of research, on
which he has founded his relation, quotes the young lady's own version
of the affair; in fact, no less interesting a document than her letter
to her father, then in Africa, disclosing the insult offered to the
family. The following is the translation of this portentous dispatch. A
_billet-doux_ pregnant with greater events never issued from the boudoir
of beauty and innocence.

"Would to Heaven, my lord and father!--Would to Heaven the earth had
closed over me, before it fell to my lot to write these lines, and with
such grievous news to cause you sadness and perpetual regret! How many
are the tears that flow while I am writing, these blots and erasures are
witnesses. And yet if I do not immediately, I shall cause a suspicion
that not only the body has been polluted, but the soul likewise blotted
and stained with perpetual infamy. Would I could foresee a term to our
misery!--Who but yourself shall find a remedy for our misfortunes? Shall
we delay, until time brings to light that which is now a secret, and
the affront we have received entail on us a shame more intolerable than
death itself? I blush to write that which I am bound to divulge. O
wretched and miserable fate! In a word, your daughter--your blood, that
of the kingly line of the Goths, has suffered from King Rodrigo,--to
whose care, alas! she was entrusted like the sheep to the wolf,--a most
wicked and cruel affront. It is for you, if you are worthy the name of a
man, to cause the sweet draught of our ruin to become a deadly poison to
his life; nor to leave unpunished the mockery and insult he has cast on
our line and on our house."

Don Julian, who, as some say, was of royal descent, and a relative, no