Leucippus, who at this juncture was returned from his foreign mission, was met at once with the news of his sister's death and the strange wedlock of the old Duke. To the memory of Hidaspes he gave some tears. But these were swiftly swallowed up in his horror and detestation of the conduct of Bacha. In his first fury he resolved upon a full disclosure of all that had passed between him and his wicked step-mother. Again he thought, by killing Bacha, to rid the world of a monster. But tenderness for his father recalled him to milder counsels. The fatal secret, nevertheless, sat upon him like lead, while he was determined to confide it to no other. It took his sleep away, and his desire of food; and if a thought of mirth at any time crossed him the dreadful truth would recur to check it, as if a messenger should have come to whisper to him of some friend's death! With difficulty he was brought to wish their Highnesses faint joy of their marriage; and, at the first sight of Bacha, a friend was fain to hold his wrist hard to prevent him from fainting. In an interview which after, at her request, he had with her alone, the bad woman shamed not to take up the subject lightly; to treat as a trifle the marriage vow that had passed between them; and seeing him sad and silent, to threaten him with the displeasure of the Duke, his father, if by words or looks he gave any suspicion to the world of their dangerous secret. "What had happened," she said, "was by no fault of hers. People would have thought her mad if she had refused the Duke's offer. She had used no arts to entrap his father. It was Leucippus's own resolute denial of any such thing as a contract having passed between them which had led to the proposal."
The Prince, unable to extenuate his share of blame in the calamity, humbly besought her, that "since by his own great fault things had been brought to their present pass, she would only live honest for the future; and not abuse the credulous age of the old Duke, as he well knew she had the power to do. For himself, seeing that life was no longer desirable to him, if his death was judged by her to be indispensable to her security, she was welcome to lay what trains she pleased to compass it, so long as she would only suffer his father to go to his grave in peace, since he had never wronged her."
This temperate appeal was lost upon the heart of Bacha, who from that moment was secretly bent upon effecting the destruction of Leucippus. Her project was, by feeding the ears of the Duke with exaggerated praises of his son, to awaken a jealousy in the old man that she secretly preferred Leucippus. Next, by wilfully insinuating the great popularity of the Prince (which was no more indeed than the truth) among the Lycians, to instill subtle fears into the Duke that his son had laid plots for circumventing his life and throne. By these arts, she was working upon the weak mind of the Duke almost to distraction, when, at a meeting, concocted by herself between the Prince and his father, the latter taking Leucippus soundly to task for these alleged treasons, the Prince replied only by humbly drawing his sword, with the intention of laying it at his father's feet, and begging him, since he suspected him, to sheathe it in his own bosom, for of his life he had been long weary. Bacha entered at the crisis, and ere Leucippus could finish his submission, with loud outcries alarmed the courtiers, who, rushing into the presence, found the Prince, with sword in hand indeed, but with far other intentions than this bad woman imputed to him, plainly accusing him of having drawn it upon his father! Leucippus was quickly disarmed; and the old Duke, trembling between fear and age, committed him to close prison, from which, by Bacha's aims, he never should have come out alive but for the interference of the common people, who, loving their Prince, and equally detesting Bacha, in a simultaneous mutiny, arose and rescued him from the hands of the officers.
The court was now no longer a place of living for Leucippus, and, hastily thanking his countrymen for his deliverance, which in his heart he rather deprecated than welcomed, as one that wished for death, he took leave of all court hopes, and, abandoning the palace, betook himself to a life of penitence in solitudes.
Not so secretly did he select his place of penance, in a cave among lonely woods and fastnesses, but that his retreat was traced by Bacha; who, baffled in her purpose, raging like some she-wolf, dispatched an emissary of her own to destroy him privately.
There was residing at the court of Lycia at this time a young maiden, the daughter of Bacha by her first husband, who had hitherto been brought up in the obscurity of a poor country abode with an uncle, but whom Bacha now publicly owned, and had prevailed upon the easy Duke to adopt as successor to the throne in wrong of the true heir, his suspected son Leucippus.
This young creature, Urania by name, was as artless and harmless as her mother was crafty and wicked. To the unnatural Bacha she had been an object of neglect and aversion; and for the project of supplanting Leucippus only had she fetched her out of retirement. The bringing-up of Urania had been among country hinds and lasses; to tend her flocks or superintend her neat dairy had been the extent of her breeding. From her calling she had contracted a pretty rusticity of dialect, which, among the fine folks of the court, passed for simplicity and folly. She was the unfittest instrument for an ambitious design that could be chosen, for her manners in a palace had a tinge still of her old occupation, and to her mind the lowly shepherdess's life was best.
Simplicity is oft a match for prudence; and Urania was not so simple but she understood that she had been sent for to court only in the Prince's wrong, and in her heart she was determined to defeat any designs that might be contriving against her brother-in-law. The melancholy bearing of Leucippus had touched her with pity. This wrought in her a kind of love, which, for its object, had no further end than the well-being of the beloved. She looked for no return of it, nor did the possibility of such a blessing in the remotest way occur to her—so vast a distance she had imaged between her lowly bringing up and the courtly breeding and graces of Leucippus. Hers was no raging flame, such as had burned destructive in the bosom of poor Hidaspes. Either the vindictive God in mercy had spared this young maiden, or the wrath of the confounding Cupid was restrained by a Higher Power from discharging the most malignant of his arrows against the peace of so much innocence. Of the extent of her mother's malice she was too guileless to have entertained conjecture; but from hints and whispers, and, above all, from that tender watchfulness with which a true affection, like Urania's, tends the safety of its object—fearing even where no cause for fear subsists—she gathered that some danger was impending over the Prince, and with simple heroism resolved to countermine the treason.
It chanced upon a day that Leucippus had been indulging his sad meditations, in forests far from human converse, when he was struck with the appearance of a human being, so unusual in that solitude. There stood before him a seeming youth, of delicate appearance, clad in coarse and peasantly attire. "He was come," he said, "to seek out the Prince, and to be his poor boy and servant, if he would let him." "Alas! poor youth," replied Leucippus, "why do you follow me, who am as poor as you are?" "In good faith," was his pretty answer, "I shall be well and rich enough if you will but love me." And saying so, he wept. The Prince, admiring this strange attachment in a boy, was moved with compassion; and seeing him exhausted, as if with long travel and hunger, invited him into his poor habitation, setting such refreshments before him as that barren spot afforded. But by no entreaties could he be prevailed upon to take any sustenance; and all that day, and for the two following, he seemed supported only by some gentle flame of love that was within him. He fed only upon the sweet looks and courteous entertainment which he received from Leucippus. Seemingly he wished to die under the loving eyes of his master. "I can not eat," he prettily said, "but I shall eat to-morrow." "You will be dead by that time," said Leucippus. "I shall be well then," said he, "since you will not love me." Then the prince asked him why he sighed so: "To think," was his innocent reply, "that such a fine man as you should die, and no gay lady love him." "But you will love me," said Leucippus. "Yes, sure," said he, "till I die; and when I am in heaven I shall wish for you."—"This is a love," thought the other, "that I never yet heard tell of: but come, thou art sleepy, child; go in, and I will sit with thee." Then, from some words which the poor youth dropped, Leucippus, suspecting that his wits were beginning to ramble, said, "What portends this?"—"I am not sleepy," said the youth, "but you are sad. I would that I could do anything to make you merry. Shall I sing?" But soon, as if recovering strength,