Kitabı oku: «Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 2», sayfa 13
“For the love of God, believe me!” pleads Morales, again pressing on the Conde, no muscle of whose face had changed.
“That my enemies are below I do not doubt,” he replies, “but that they are sent by the king, no voice but his own shall convince me.”
“Then, my dear master, we must defend you. Call our slender garrison together, and man the walls with their crossbows.”
No reply comes. Gotor hastily turns towards the door, but the impetuous Morales is before him. The heavy panels turn on their hinges, the lock closes loudly in the silence, and Luna is again alone.
What could those devoted servants do against the strong force under Conde de Zuniga? A few crossbows were discharged, some swords were drawn. Morales fell wounded, Gotor was taken prisoner, and the besieged were overpowered.
Zuniga, furious at the opposition, appeared on the platform in front of the castle gate clad in a complete suit of dark armour greaved with steel, wearing his visor down, preceded by a herald bearing the red and yellow flag of Spain.
“In the name of Don Juan, King of Castile and Leon,” cries the herald. “Oh, hear, hear him. I, Don Alfonso de Zuniga, leading the armies of the king, command Don Alvarez de Luna, Constable of Castile and Leon, instantly to surrender his person for trial on the charge of foul murder, or the castle of Portello shall be consigned to the flames. Lord High Constable, I call on you, in the king’s name, to answer.”
“I am here to reply to the Conde de Zuniga,” answers Luna, appearing under the arch of a Gothic window over the gallery, with the same dignity of presence as if he were receiving him as a guest. A blind confidence in his power over the king still possesses him, and, besides, to his haughty spirit, the humiliation of submission to his enemies is bitterer than death.
“Answer me also. What mean you, Don Alfonso de Zuniga, by besieging my castle?”
A tone of offended dignity is in his voice, but he does not condescend to any other expression.
“I come on a warrant from the king,” answers Zuniga, displaying a parchment which he hands to the herald, who holds it up extended on a lance.
“The king!” cries Luna, with more passion than he has yet shown. “It is a lie! This is some foul scheme to trap me into your hands.”
“Look at that document,” cries Zuniga, chafing under the insolent bearing of the constable, and as the sun, which has now risen, shines upon the rocky platform on which they stand before the castle, the brilliant colours of “the castle and the lion,” are plainly displayed emblazoned on the sheet. “If you submit,” continues Zuniga, advancing to where Luna stands at the casement, “such respect as your rank entitles you to is guaranteed; I swear it on the honour of a Castilian. My orders are to conduct you to Valladolid in honourable custody, and to demand your sword.”
“Take my life with it, if you list!” cries Luna, in a voice of bitter anguish, “if my lord and master has in truth given me into your hands.”
The one desire of Luna was to obtain an interview with the king. Well did he estimate his craven and helpless nature and that, if once admitted to his presence, the long supremacy he had exercised over him would at once return. The queen was equally determined that so dangerous an interview should not take place. It was the influence of the moment which always decided Don Juan, if any decision he ever had at all.
“I will not admit the Conde de Luna to my presence,” was his answer to the messengers sent to Burgos.
“Nor has such a traitor the right to ask it,” added the queen – who now habitually took part in the Council of State – standing behind him, her dark eyes flashing fire.
Three long days passed within the noble hall with the artesonado ceiling, where Luna was confined in the Casa de las Argollas (the iron links), still entire and standing in the Plaza Viega of Valladolid – three days of terrible suspense, yet with the absolute assurance that Don Juan would relent. He had been guilty of no crime; he deserved no punishment from the master he had so faithfully served. His arrogant nature was maddened under the delay, but he suppressed the expression of his indignation until he should stand face to face with the king.
The long hours passed, no message came. Then, yielding to the alarm of the friends who had gathered round him, he wrote that historic letter, each word of which has come down to us.
“Forty-five years of my life, King Don Juan, have been passed in your service; nor have I ever heard a word of complaint from your lips. The favours you have showered on me were greater than my deserts, and certainly more than my desire. To my prosperity one thing was wanting —caution. In the days when you loved me I should have retired from court and enjoyed in an honourable retreat the well-earned proofs of your munificence.
“But I was either too generous or presumptuous, and I continued to lead the state as long as I deemed my sovereign needed me. In this, O King of Castile, I was myself deceived.”
So completely had Don Juan’s heart at this time been hardened against him, that, resolute for once, instead of a reply, the trial of the High Constable was decided on. The crimes of which he was accused were many. First, the assassination of the Conde de Vivars; then vague charges of embezzlement of the royal revenues, of having possessed himself by magic of the will of the king and of his late queen; of being a tyrant, without specifying any act of tyranny, and of usurping the royal authority, without stating on what occasion.
So irregular and illegal were the conditions of the tribunal, composed of accusers and judges, that it went far toward proving not only his innocence, but a preconceived conclusion against him. He was condemned to death.
Still he could not be brought to believe in his danger. When the sentence was read to him, he bowed his grand head, covered with the glossy curls, and was silent. A defiant smile parted his lips, as, roused from his usual apathy, his eyes travelled slowly round from one to the other of his judges.
Had not a fortune-teller predicted he should die in Cadahalso, the name of one of his fiefs? And he was now in prison in Valladolid! But he forgot that, in Spanish, Cadahalso also means scaffold, and that on the scaffold he was condemned to die.
He was condemned, but the warrant of death had not yet been signed by the king; at any time he might revoke it. The queen knew this and watched him.
The fatal paper lay on a table in his retiring-room, untouched. Long Don Juan contemplated it in silence, absorbed in more gloomy reflections than he had ever felt before.
He imagined he was alone, but the queen, who never left him, was concealed behind the arras.
Poor helpless, foolish sovereign! the atrocity of the act bewildered him. A confusion of ideas troubled his spirit. As he gazed, the letters stood out as if in characters of blood before his eyes.
What! he told himself, as he cast sad glances upon the paper, and pang after pang of real sorrow shot from his inmost soul – the death of Luna, whom he had loved when yet a little child, and his firm hand upheld his tottering steps! The man in whom he had placed implicit trust and whose genius left to him only the luxury, not the cares, of sovereignty. Luna, the brave, the poetic knight, whose romantic career had fired his fancy with the enthusiasm of a second Cid! Luna, his favourite, friend, the support of his throne! The touch of his familiar hand seemed to grasp his own! The superb majesty of his presence became tangible to him as he paced up and down the apartment, a prey to a waking vision, called up by the vivid image of his life. The constable! Always the constable! Where was he? Would he answer to his call, and make his life pleasant to him as heretofore? For a moment he forgot the existence of the queen. Her blandishments and pleadings faded away as a mist before the sun. His weak mind, unable to battle with such a tumult of ideas, recalled no reason why his great minister should not be before him. There, opposite, on the seat where he had sat so many years, and raised his sonorous voice to comfort him. Dead! Condemned! Impossible! It was an evil dream. His hand was already outstretched to rend the parchment, the sight of which had caused him such agitation, and by swift messengers to recall him to his side, when Queen Isabel stood before him.
“What! my dear lord!” she cried, in that melodious voice which she never allowed to reach his ears but as a harmony, laying her hand upon his as she spoke and drawing him from the table where the sentence lay, “can it be true that you hesitate, when my safety and that of the nation are at stake?”
In a confused silence he listened.
Attired in long robes of deepest mourning, which set off the luscious brilliance of her complexion, she looked the ideal embodiment of woe. Her large eyes were dull and veiled as she turned them imploringly on the king, her whole being expressed the most poignant grief. Isabel was perhaps the handsomest woman of her time, and, as such, bequeathed it to her great daughter, Isabella of Aragon. She was at least the most subtle. She knew that as long as Luna lived, the king might escape her at any moment.
Impulsively she grasped both his hands, she laid her cheeks next to his. Thus they stood for awhile; his arms clasped around her in a fervid embrace. What beauty, what devotion was hers! Could he pain this transcendent creature? These tears which lay on her eyelids like roseate dew he could kiss off, but no further cause must be given her to shed them.
“Oh, Juan!” she whispered, her words reaching his ears like ineffable sighs, “why will you spare the criminal whose death I desire? Why will you support a wretch whom every noble in your kingdom would see in his grave? Your very crown is in danger! Your son is in revolt! Your cousin, the Infante of Aragon, favours him; the King of Navarre – ”
At the detested name of Navarre and his cousin of Aragon, who were both, in this troubled and odious reign, continually conspiring against him, the king gave a great start. Such energy as he possessed suddenly came back to him.
“If you could prove that, my Reina!” he cried, every feature in his face working with passion.
“I can! I can!” she answered; “the proofs are in my possession.” Then, gently drawing him towards the table, on which lay the fatal document, she placed a pen in his hand. “Sign, Juan,” she said, “for the sake of my unborn child!”
Even at that moment his hand trembled so violently that he could scarcely form the letters of his name.
The scaffold was erected in the Plaza Mayor, in the centre of the city of Valladolid, where so many autos-da-fé came afterwards to be celebrated under Philip II.
A large crucifix was placed in front of the stage, upon which was spread a carpet of black velvet. The block and axe were there, but partially concealed by the tall figure of the executioner, masked and robed in scarlet.
From the moment he had received the intimation of his doom, the fortitude and composure of the constable inspired respect even among his enemies. With an unmoved countenance he met the high officers of state at the door of the apartment he occupied in the Casa de las Argollas, and listened to the sentence of death and the enumeration of the crimes which were laid to his charge.
Not a word passed his lips. He might have been a statue of stone but for a sad, tranquil smile, and the grave courtesy of the salute with which he returned the reverences of the judges.
Now the trumpets sounded their shrill note, the clarion answered, and the procession marched forward. First the parti-coloured herald with his gay cap and tabard, rehearsing in a loud voice the reasons for which the High Constable was to suffer. A body of men-at-arms followed in two ranks, marching to the sound of muffled drums.
The constable himself next, mounted on a mule. He wore high-heeled shoes with diamond buckles and an ample Castilian mantle reaching to his chin. By his side rode his confessor.
The multitude which thronged the city to see this extraordinary sight was immense; not only Valladolid and Burgos, but from all the burghs and villages about for fifty miles.
As the people gazed open-eyed at the fall of the Master of Castile, much as he was detested in life, murmurs of compassion were heard on every side, as, with an air of dignified leisure, he dismounted, and slowly ascended the steps of the scaffold.
Arrived at the summit, he stood for a moment lost in thought as his eyes ranged over the sea of faces uplifted to his, surging like the troubled action of the waves. The stone colonnade which still surrounds the Plaza was crammed; in every window, terrace, mirador, and balcony, the eager countenances of massed-up spectators seemed to clothe the walls.
Raising his plumed hat for a moment from his head, he scanned the multitude come to see him die. In front of the scaffold stood his enemy, Don Enrique, Infante of Aragon, whose efforts to depose Don Juan he had for years successfully combated. Around him gathered a group of nobles of the queen’s party.
“Tell my master and yours, Don Juan the the king,” he said, speaking in a clear voice, addressing himself to the Infante, “that he may find the crown fit better on his brow now that I am gone, who made it too heavy for him.” Then turning to his page Morales, convulsed with grief, who had followed him to the scaffold, bearing on his arm, neatly folded, a scarlet cloak to cover his body after decapitation, his lofty bearing softened and his voice trembled as he spoke: “Alas! my poor boy, you, who owe me nothing, weep for me; and my master the king, who owes me so much gratitude, desires nothing but my death!”
He then took off his hat, which he handed to Morales, together with a ring, placing it on his finger. His face was perfectly serene and his clustering curls hung upon his broad shoulders, scented and tended as carefully as heretofore.
Standing in front of the platform, the crimson figure of the executioner backing him, the whole multitude was moved to pity, and notable sounds of lamentation rent the air.
That this public testimony of sympathy gratified him exceedingly, the smile that lighted up his face plainly showed. He placed his hand on his heart and again saluted the vast assembly. “No manner of death brings shame,” he said, “if supported with courage. Nor can the end of life be deemed premature when it has been passed at the head of the state with probity and wisdom. I wish the King of Castile a happy life, and his people the same prosperity I brought to them.”
He then examined the block on which his head was to be laid, loosened the lace ruff about his throat, smoothed back his hair from his neck, and took a black ribbon from his vest, which he handed to the executioner to bind his hands.
After praying very fervently before the crucifix, repeating the words of his confessor aloud, he stood up.
“I am ready,” he said; “begin!” And with a movement full of grandeur, he knelt, rested his head on the block, and at one stroke it was severed from the body.
This took place early in June in the year 1453; nor have Spanish historians ever decided whether his condemnation was justified or not. Few instances occur which present an elevation and a fall so extraordinary and sudden. But it must be remembered that few ministers had up to that time displayed such high gifts for government, joined to an arrogance and ostentation that were in themselves a crime.
Twelve months after, 1454, Don Juan II. ended his long and feeble reign of forty-eight years. Politically, he was an odious king; the deed he had been brought to commit failed to tranquillise the kingdom and will ever be a blot upon his name.
Even in death, she for whose sake he did it – his beloved Isabel, the mother of his son Alfonso and of his daughter Isabel – is beside him. Within the Carthusian Cartuja de Miraflores they lie, two miles from Burgos, on the plain, in one of the most magnificent alabaster monuments of the ornate Gothic style. The variety and richness of the carving are unique; there are nothing like it in florid Spain. The recumbent figures are in robes of state, guarded by sixteen sculptured lions. Doña Isabel wears a high open-worked gown under a coif. In front are the royal arms on an escutcheon elaborately worked, and wonderful niches at the sides are filled with subjects from the Bible. Death more superbly guarded is nowhere else to be seen than in this record of a weak but artistic king.
CHAPTER XXII
Enrique IV. el Impotente
THE court is at Segovia, that ancient city perched among the romantic passes of the Guadarramas, north of Madrid, said to have been founded by Hercules. The famous Roman bridge, or aqueduct, one of the wonders of Spain, and borne as the city’s shield, joining into the ancient walls at a length of 937 feet.
Although they agree in nothing else, Enrique el Quarto, like his father, loved this quaint Gothic town.
Undutiful and disorderly as a son, he made a bad king. Indolent, licentious, and ignorant, he despised learning and cultivation of all kinds, and was by far the worst of the illegitimate Trastamares, on whom, as has been said, a curse for the murder of Don Pedro really seemed to rest.
Nothing they undertook answered, and it might be said of them, “their names were written in water.” Yet, not to be too hard on Enrique, it must be allowed he so far redeemed himself from the nullity of his father as to lead his armies bravely in the usual campaigns against Navarre and Aragon, besides undertaking a ten years’ crusade against the Moors, authorised by Pope Calixtus III.; in all which, so long as he was assisted by the friends and advisers of his amiable father, his incapacity was concealed, but his later campaigns were unfortunate because fought alone. Nor could his love of pomp and splendid attendance blind his subjects to the fact that his court was a very sink of debauchery.
It seems strange, too, that Don Enrique, who, as Prince of the Asturias, had for years stormed against favouritism, now fell into the same fault himself. Not with such a master of men as the Condestable de Luna, but with an obscure and needy adventurer, called Don Beltrano de las Cuevas, with no merit whatever but his skill in deceiving him.
The court is at Segovia. At this moment Don Beltrano is crossing the Sala de Ricebimento in the Alcazar, a Gothic Moresque apartment, with lofty raftered ceiling and cornices of dark oak, the sides splendidly gilt, setting off rows of royal shields and bandieros.
He is a striking-looking man of robust proportions, with a florid face of that full sensual type so little seen among the thin-featured Spaniards.
His love of display is apparent by the rich surcoat of satin and brocade he wears, cut in the latest mode and glittering with jewels, a plumed hat placed defiantly on one side of his head.
But you must not call him by his vulgar name of Beltrano, drunkard, dicer, and reveller, but Sua Grandeza el Conde de Ledesma, by favour of the King, or, more correctly speaking, of the Queen. You must also pay a certain attention to him, upstart and braggart as he is, because it was through his agency that the dynasty of Castile came to be merged in that of Aragon, in the person of Isabel the great Queen, wife of Ferdinand of Aragon, and by her marriage constituting the union of the future kingdom of Spain.
As he passes with a step full of importance across the motes of sunshine striking on the marble pavement from the historic window out of which the late king, Don Juan, was let fall, as a child, by a lady of the court, who lost her head for her carelessness, the vulgar showiness of his dress is in conspicuous contrast to the soberly habited grandees of the old school.
All the court, who are awaiting the arrival of the king, draw back respectfully to make way for him. The alguazils and ballesteros salute him with reverence, and pages doff their plumed caps as he pauses for a moment under the effigies of the early kings of Castile and Leon ranged on either side, life size, mounted on mimic horses, armed, like their masters, in plates of steel.
“Ese, es el Conde de Ledesma,” is buzzed about in whispers of approbation, the great man himself affecting not to notice the stir he makes, but fixing his eyes on a group near the door, who take no notice of him. That they are persons of distinction is evident from the badges they wear and the large attendance of pages and esquires and jefes.
As the count passes, he draws himself up and casts on them a supercilious glance of defiance, at once returned with smiles of scorn and derision.
“Here comes that wretch,” the tallest of them is saying, no other than Don Pedro Giron, Grand Master of Calatrava.
“Vile parasite!” exclaims another.
“Hush! hush! my Lord of Benevente,” says a third; “keep silence, I pray you, until the right moment comes.”
“The unmannerly cur!” mutters the Lord of Benevente, as Ledesma disappears into the presence chamber. “He never saluted us. Are we, the greatest ricoshombres of Spain, absolute in our freedom, and with the right of life and death, to be insulted by such an upstart? If the queen can spare him [at this there is a general laugh], he will doubtless take command in the crusade against the Moors, and be packed off with a bevy of mistresses and mummers to amuse the king. Castile has fallen under the rule of favourites with a vengeance! The Conde de Luna was a hidalgo, but this fellow is a low impostor.”
“A vile shame!” exclaims another Marqués de Villena, who, with his uncle Carillo, Archbishop of Toledo, is again to be found conspiring in this court as in that of “El Enfermo.”
“Presently it will be our turn,” says the Conde de Palencia. “Don Enrique is unworthy, and the queen – well, I do not wish to use foul language, but there is only one word to designate her. We are all agreed as to the birth of the Beltraneja, your graces.” The other two bow, and he continues: “A worn-out voluptuary and eight years of sterility require faith in a miracle in favour of our noble king which he does not inspire. She was christened by the public, as soon as she was born, ‘Beltraneja,’ after her real father. Don Enrique insists on her succession, to exclude his brother and sister. Why this imposture has been tolerated so long I cannot understand.”
“Such vice is disgusting; the palace is nothing but a brothel!” exclaims the fiery Pimentel, Lord of Benevente, ever impatient and outspoken, one of the most powerful lords in the kingdom, with broad lands in the north and an ancient castle within the confines of Leon. “Where is our national honour? The king has forfeited our allegiance. For the sake of a miserable bastard he keeps his sister, Doña Isabel, shut up in the fortress here.”
Now the Spaniard is of a silent nature, reserved and proud. His passions are violent and deep; but once aroused he stops at nothing and is capable of extraordinary cruelty and revenge. For one in the exalted position of Pimentel to speak thus of his sovereign, the scandal of his life must be outrageous.
“These are but words, my lord,” is the stern answer of Juan Pacheco, Marqués de Villena, the crafty intriguer all through this reign as his namesake was in that of Enrique el Enfermo, and not a whit behind Pimentel in ancient descent, dating from the Moors. He was the man who fought the duel where, asi cuenta la historia, he defied three antagonists, as is still to be seen in marble on his tomb in the Parral at Segovia. His commanding presence and haughty bearing imposed even on the impetuous Pimentel. Old in intrigue and conspiracy, he passed by mere threats as empty sound profiting nothing. “You know your remedy,” he continues; “all the disaffected are convened to meet at the palace of my uncle, the Archbishop of Toledo, come to Segovia for that purpose. Your graces will not fail?”
“We will not fail,” is the answer.
The place appointed for the secret council-chamber was within the precincts of the Cathedral, in the cloisters, where life-like statues of prophets and kings quaintly sculptured stand beside the Gothic arches; Abraham and St. Jaime, and San Fernando holding a ring, and his consort, Doña Beatrix.
The night was dark, and the muffled figures enveloped in ample mantles passed unnoticed through the door with the beautiful triptych carved over it.
In a dark room, lined with a mosaic of wood, with gold pendants on the roof, and lit up with massive silver candelabra, stands the Archbishop of Toledo, dismissed from his office of Minister to make way for Ledesma. This enemy of El Impotente is a man in the prime of life, as turbulent, fierce, and haughty as any feudal baron, his dark eyes sunk deeply in his head, bright with the power of intellect, and unerring and piercing; his ecclesiastical robe hanging loosely about his figure – very different from the dignified churchman who headed the banquet at which the young King Enrique sang as a wandering minstrel.
Prominent among the nobles who arrive is the Conde de Santilana, in the prime of life, with that soldierly bearing so noticeable in Spain among all who hold military command; Giron, Master of Calatrava, bland and mild, but withal shrewd and acute, as behoves one in his prominent position; Pimentel, Lord of Benevente, with strongly cut features on which many a wrinkle has gathered, not from age, but from the headlong impetuosity of his character, which has aged him before his time; the Grand Admiral of Castile, with a weather-beaten face, showing that he has lived a life of exposure; the Condes de Haro, Palencia, and Alba, besides prelates and ricoshombres, all men of commanding eminence in the kingdom.
But one of the number is yet wanting, the archconspirator, Villena, who, although bearing the name of one of the regents, is of quite a different form. He is in reality the leading spirit of them all, a man tormented by the love of power, to attain which he is willing to meet, unmoved, peril, or even death, with the silent constancy of a Spaniard.
No one hates Ledesma more than Villena, who, like the archbishop, was displaced for his sake; no one has more influence over those assembled here, not even the warlike archbishop, armed as for heaven and earth.
As Villena enters, the importance of his mission is impressed upon every movement as he hastens to salute the exalted company, who rise as he appears, with the utmost expression of formal courtesy, then reseat themselves as he takes his seat at the council table beside them.
“Lords of Castile and Leon,” he says, in a full, clear voice, as he rises to speak under the deep shadow of a deep-chiselled altar at his back, “my words shall be short, but my purpose will be long. Let none imagine that private vengeance for the affront put on me by the king, as also on my kinsman, the archbishop, actuates my mind. The existence of the state is at stake. I have a proposal to make.”
“Speak!” comes from all sides.
“I need not tell you, Grandezas, Prelates, and Ricoshombres, that the infatuation of the king blinds him even to his personal dishonour. The only redress lies in two courses, the dismissal and exile of Don Beltrano, or his own dethronement. Since the birth of the child, not issued from the blood of the Trastamares, but the ‘Beltraneja,’ the spurious offspring of Ledesma and the Queen, measures must be taken to insure the rightful succession to his young brother. In her cradle this young offspring of adultery was proclaimed Princess of the Asturias and successor to the throne, and is already affianced to the Duc de Guienne, son of Louis XI. of France. No time is to be lost.”
“And if Don Enrique will not agree to either of these proposals?” asks the quick-tongued Lord of Benevente.
“Then,” replies Villena, with an icy smile, drawing himself up to his full height, “he must be dethroned, and the Infante Alfonso, whom he keeps under observation along with his sister, Doña Isabel, proclaimed king in his place.”
Spite of the esteem in which Villena was held, this audacious proposal staggered the assembly. Many voices were heard in opposition, and amongst much confusion each illustrious noble spoke his mind.
“Peace, my lords!” cried Villena, his tall figure dominating the rest. “I speak in my own name and in that of the Archbishop of Toledo; we old ministers of the throne and councillors of state are agreed. Never was a nation sunk to so low an ebb. The rule of Don Alvarez de Luna was glory to it. The proclamation of the Beltraneja as heir has brought matters to a crisis. It is rumoured among those about him that Don Enrique was so anxious for the birth of a child, that, knowing his own incapacity, he has himself connived at this dishonour. Be that as it may, if the king is incapable of guarding his own honour, we will defend it for him.”
The marquess spoke with passion. Loud acclamations followed his words. The position was so plain, the risk so degrading to a chivalrous people. Had this child, whom all knew to be a bastard, not been born, the insolence of the favourite might have been tolerated, the licentious life of the Queen Juana of Portugal passed unreproved; but in the desperate effort to foist his daughter on the throne, Ledesma had, like a bad player, over-reached himself.
Of the two children of Juan II., by his second queen, the charming Isabel of Portugal, Don Alfonso and Doña Isabel, both were popular in Castile.
All the assembled nobles had not the courage to follow Villena in his bold course, which, if unsuccessful, might bring ruin to them and their families as rebels to their king. All could not reckon on the favour of Don Alfonso, if set at liberty and proclaimed Prince of the Asturias, on which the scheming brain of the marquess counted as the plot. But a sufficient number joined with him. The ardent spirit of the Lord of Benevente, that young warrior of the north, was gained before the archbishop had spoken, who, seeing the hesitation of many, now rose slowly from his chair.
