lick the dust beneath His feet. Their plagues shall come in one day—death
and mourning and famine; and the word shall be fulfilled to them,
‘Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for
God hath avenged you on her.’” Then, with a sudden change of tone, and
growing pale,—“But I should not speak thus. I forget myself. Don José, I
have put my life into your hands. You will not betray me?”
José placed his hand in his.
“Do not I also hate the Spaniards?” he said. “But your words cut my heart
in two, like a sword. I thought I had grasped a strong hand to help my
people; and lo! it is but a dream—a shadow. There is no help for us, in
heaven or on earth.”
“Do not think so. The King will help you, if you come to Him.”
“How can I come to Him?”
“Has not the padre taught you to pray?”
“Surely. But what use in that? It is only speaking words. As well might
I speak to the spirits of my ancestors—and better, since they are my own
race: I know them.”
“And Him you do not know? Ask Him, Don José, to reveal Himself to you. He
loves you—died for you.”
So engrossed were José and Walter Grey in their conversation, that it
occurred to neither to observe the very unusual length to which the
matador seemed to be protracting his confession. Instead of wondering,
as they might well have done, at the delay, they felt like men suddenly
awakened from a dream, when the slight cane door of the partition was
thrown open, and the matador came forth. He looked, Walter thought, as
though he had been weeping; yet his brown cheek was flushed, his eyes
were bright with animation, and his bent form seemed for the time to have
regained the erect stateliness of youth.
José, for his part, did not spend a thought, scarcely even a glance, on
the matador. He had abundant occupation for his thoughts at home. Yet,
preoccupied as he was, the moment he saw Fray Fernando, he was struck by
a strange alteration in his appearance also. Bidding a hasty, though warm
and grateful, farewell to Walter Grey, he turned, full of affectionate
solicitude, to his adopted father.
The monk, however, put him aside with a gesture. He said “I will walk
down to the _San Cristofero_ with—_my friend_.”
XXIX.
After Many Days.
“Think! the shadow on the dial,
For the nature most undone,
Marks the passing of the trial,
Proves the presence of the sun.”
E. B. BROWNING.
Fray Fernando had not been unmoved by his interview with Walter Grey. The
young Englishman had avowed to him, frankly and fearlessly, that he had
been taught to confess his sins to God, and to Him alone. And yet, he
added, to such a man as Fray Fernando, who had shown him much kindness,
and who for years, and he doubted not for wisdom also, might be truly
called his father, he would not refuse, nay, he should be glad to make a
candid confession of his past misdeeds, which were many. Fray Fernando
thought this speech evinced some hopeful dispositions, but at the same
time great ignorance, if not wilful misunderstanding, of the true
nature of confession. He therefore essayed the necessary explanations;
and these in turn gave rise to numerous questions from Walter, most
respectfully and even deferentially worded, yet very difficult to answer
satisfactorily. Fray Fernando found it a hard task to prove the necessity
of confession and the virtue of penance. For Walter had been taught
controversy almost from his cradle, and did no discredit to the teaching.
More than once Fray Fernando had well-nigh lost patience with him;
but his utter helplessness, and the terrible penalties that hung
suspended over his head, moved the compassion of the friar, and made him
forbearing. And at last he succeeded in winning from the lips of the
Englishman the admission, that although his scruples as to some parts of
the doctrine and discipline of the Church were as yet unremoved, he was
desirous of receiving instruction upon these subjects. Professing himself
contented with this _for the present_, he agreed to postpone the ceremony
of confession to a future occasion; and in the meantime to allow Walter
to tell his story, not as penitent to priest, but as man to man.
The simple narrative, frankly and naturally told, was not without its
effect upon the monk. Of the horrors of the inquisitorial dungeon Walter
said little, almost nothing—and yet Fray Fernando shuddered. Good
Catholic as he had lived up to this hour, and thoroughly free, in thought
and word, from the stain of heresy, he still regarded the prisons of the
Holy Office with terror, not quite unmixed with a strange fascination.
Perhaps this was because his own faith was so far above suspicion, that
he could freely afford to pity the victims of heresy. Or perhaps it was
because his heart, or that of some one he loved, had once bled beneath
the relentless sword of St. Dominic.
But whatever he felt on the subject, he said nothing. He merely observed,
that a mark of divine grace had already been bestowed upon “Señor Valter”
(as he called Walter), in that he had been outwardly reconciled with the
Church; and he doubted not that He who had begun the good work would
complete it in due time. For his own part, he would use all his influence
with the authorities to obtain for his young friend ample opportunity of
receiving such instruction as might remove his scruples and promote his
edification in the faith. And with these words he dismissed him, and
summoned the matador.
For some minutes Fray Fernando sat in silence, pondering Walter’s case,
and scarcely heeding the poor man who stood before him, patiently
awaiting his pleasure. Looking up at last, he saw a tall, stooping,
emaciated figure, a face nearly as brown as José’s, thin gray hair, and
a long gray beard. “My friend,” he said compassionately, “I can see
that yours have been lengthened sufferings. But Holy Church is a tender
mother, who abandons not the most unfortunate or the most erring amongst
her children. I trust her consolations are not unwelcome to you.”
The matador, who, since he entered the apartment, had scarcely averted
his dark eyes for a moment from the face of the monk, made answer
instantly: “They are most welcome, reverend father.” The faith upon which
he lived was, in truth, the same as that of Walter Grey; but he had not
enjoyed the same opportunities of instruction. Those gleams of light that
had sufficed to illuminate this world and the next for him had come to
him from the Lutheran Church of Seville; and up to the last, the members
of that Church had been forced to continue in external communion with
Rome; nor, it seems, had the consciences of the greater number amongst
them reproached them for so doing. How could the poor galley-slave see
farther than his teachers, or attempt the task of bringing the articles
of his creed into logical consistency with each other. But if there was
some confusion in his head, there was no contradiction in his heart. He
knew that God had forgiven his sins for His Son’s sake; even though he
did kneel down meekly before Fray Fernando, and submit himself obediently
to all prescribed forms, taxing his memory to recall the most trivial
words and deeds recorded there, in the hope of receiving an absolution of
which he had no need.
But the substance of his confession caused Fray Fernando great surprise.
He felt like one who has prepared himself to drink a bitter potion to the
dregs, but finds the draught instead some rare old wine, fragrant with
the sunshine and the dews of the summers of long ago. It was no pleasant
task to hear the confessions usually made by the galley-slaves. But the
soul of this poor man seemed sensitive to the touch of sin, as polished
metal to the lightest sullying breath. He did not, like the others,
regard _his sins_ as so many debts, to be paid somehow or somewhere,
lest disagreeable consequences should follow. He had learned to look
upon _his sin_ as something which interposed an unwelcome cloud between
a reconciled Father and a loving child. Indeed, he spoke as one who knew
a secret, which, to say the truth, was as yet unrevealed even to his
earnest and conscientious father-confessor.
Fray Fernando listened with compassion and interest, not unmixed with a
strange kind of reverence. The very dialect in which the matador spoke
deepened the impression of his words. It was the soft liquid “Andaluz,”
which he himself, in his early days, had been accustomed to hear spoken
in his native city of Seville.
Willingly, and with slight penance imposed, he bestowed his absolution
and his blessing. And when the matador had risen from his knees, he said
to him, “Stay a minute,—I would willingly know something more of you. I
think you are not destitute of the grace of God, who giveth to all men as
He will.”
The matador, be it observed, had not in his confession revealed his real
name, or the crime for which he suffered. Such a revelation, though
usual, was not obligatory; unless it happened to be the penitent’s first
confession since the commission of the crime.
“God has been very good to me,” he answered quietly. “I am, moreover,
grateful to you for your kindness, holy father.”
“I have done little for you; I would willingly do more, if I knew how.
Something occurs to me at this moment. I have no doubt you are from the
old country? Probably a native of Seville?”
The matador bowed.
Fray Fernando checked some remark that rose to his lips, ere he said, “My
position here gives me many opportunities, did I care to use them, of
holding communication with Spain. It may be you have friends or relatives
yet living there to whom you would gladly send a letter. Can you write?”
“I could write once, your reverence; but my hands have held the oar too
long to hold the pen now.”
“I will then, if you wish it, write at your dictation.”
“I thank you, reverend father,” the matador answered, slowly and rather
doubtfully.
Fray Fernando rose to procure the necessary materials from the next room.
But the matador stayed him. “If you please, father,” he said with
hesitation, “I do not think—I do not know”—and he slowly raised his worn
right hand to his forehead, and held it there horizontally, lightly
touching his brow with its fingers.
Something in the slight action struck Fray Fernando. One whom he knew
long ago had been wont to use it. Exactly thus: the brow just touched,
not pressed; the eyes—dark, thoughtful eyes—not covered, but looking out,
as it were, a great way off. Of what was he dreaming? And why did the
patio of his father’s house at Seville, with everything it contained,
from his father’s portrait by Juan de las Roelas down to the least
ornament, rise suddenly before his eyes?—But this must not go on. With an
effort he dispelled the vision, and once more saw the matador standing
before him. “Consider what you wish to do, my friend,” he said kindly.
“I have considered, reverend father,” the matador answered, removing
his hand and looking earnestly at the monk, who felt every moment more
tormented by thronging memories of the past;—until at length there came
a flash of relieving thought—“Last night I must have dreamed some vivid
dream of my early home. Doubtless it is that which haunts me now, though
memory fails to recall it distinctly.”
Meanwhile, the matador was saying, “It seems to me that it is not well
to write. All those I knew think me dead long ago. Perhaps they are dead
themselves; for I have been in the galleys nigh upon twenty years.—No,
not quite—sixteen years last December. I had my sentence at Seville, in
the great _auto-da-fé_.”
“You are then a prisoner of the Holy Office?” Fray Fernando asked, with
a vague unaccountable feeling that his dream was coming back to him, and
that the scene in which he was acting was a part of it.
“Yes; I hope your reverence will not think the worse of me for that?”
“No; you have probably been drawn aside from the Faith by the subtleties
of some designing heretic?”
“That was not exactly my case, father. My crime was not heresy, but
daring resistance to the Holy Office.”
“How?” asked Fray Fernando, now thoroughly awake, and startled—nay,
alarmed. What if one, concerned in _that_ enterprise, were suddenly to
appear and, even in this remote corner of the world, to recognize—
The matador spoke again: “We essayed a desperate deed. We—for to _you_ I
fear not to confess all—we dared to attack the Triana itself.”
The blood forsook Fray Fernando’s cheek and lips as he questioned,—“_We!_
Who?”
The matador, embarrassed by the question, not only from the abrupt and
startling way in which it was proposed, but from the difficulty of
answering without naming names guarded by his loyal heart in sacred
silence, replied after a pause,—“I was the leader—I myself.”
“You!” exclaimed the monk, fastening his eyes upon him in amazement.
“_You!_—’Tis false.—’Tis not true!”
“Father, I am God’s free-man, though the king’s slave, and I speak the
truth as in His presence,” said the matador, with gentle dignity.
Fray Fernando was no longer pale, he was ghastly, and his lips trembled
as they faltered, “Your name?”
“At the service of your reverence—Melchior del Salto.”
As one possessed, Fray Fernando sprang from his seat, seized the poor
man’s arm, and in tones not loud, yet fierce and wild, exclaimed, “Man,
’tis false! You—whoever you are—you are _not_ Melchior del Salto—An evil
spirit takes the form to mock me—_He_ was burned to ashes at the stake.”
“On the faith and truth of a Christian man, Melchior del Salto stands
before you. But—but—”
It was the matador’s turn to tremble now and falter. When he spoke again
it was with low, imploring voice. “Father,” said he—“_Señor_—for Heaven’s
sake take off your hand—sit down—let me look you in the face.”
He need not have so entreated. The friar’s strength was failing through
intensity of emotion. He sank unconsciously into the seat. “I am losing
my reason,” he murmured. “What did you say?—Who are you?”
“I am Melchior del Salto, reprieved at the last moment, because their
reverences received information that it was another hand than his which
struck down Tomas Varguez that fatal night. And you—_you_?—Nay, señor,
not one word.—You are _Señor Don Alfonso_!”
“Melchior!—Brother risen from the dead!” exclaimed Fray Fernando; and
in another moment two hearts that had long been sundered were beating
against each other. Then they “lifted up their voices and wept.”
When words were possible, they were broken, faltering, inconsequent.
“Now I know why I loved you from the first,” Melchior del Salto murmured.
“I used to listen for the sound of your voice, to watch for the very
shadow of your cowl. But, ah, how altered,—señor, my brother!”
“Throughout these long years I believed my brother died for me—the death
of fire.”
“And _you_, instead, lost all for that brother’s sake.”
“Oh no; the crime for which I suffered was my own. And you, my
brother—you have suffered—how sorely! Sixteen years in the galleys!”
“God has not forsaken me. His goodness and mercy have followed me every
step of the way. Till now—at last—He has given me this great crowning
joy,—to see your face again!”
Thus they talked, and might have talked till midnight, had not the new
bell, recently brought from Spain for the church of Callao, rung out its
musical summons to prayer at the vesper hour.
Fray Fernando heard not the sound; but upon Melchior del Salto it had a
magical effect. It transformed him instantly into the galley-slave and
the matador. “Our hour is long past,” he said. “This must not be. The
Englishman will share the blame that is due to me. Besides, the privilege
another time may be withheld.”
The thought of sending back his newly-found brother to the cruel
slavery in which he had pined so long, seemed absolutely horrible to
Fray Fernando. Still, it was inevitable. They must part. Sorrowfully
acknowledging the necessity, he accompanied the two galley-slaves to the
_San Cristofero_, and excused them to the captain, taking upon himself
the blame of their late return. “I will see you to-morrow—early,” he
said, as he bade Melchior del Salto farewell.
XXX.
The Magic Stone.
“Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.”
PROV. xix. 6.
Fray Fernando’s thoughts were very busy during his five minutes’ walk
from the _San Cristofero_ to his own humble lodging. He came to the
determination that he would tell José everything that had happened.
He had great reliance on the Indian’s tact and skill in dealing with
those who held the destinies of the galley-slaves in their hands. But,
independently of this, his adopted son deserved his full confidence, and
he should have it.
“José,” he said, “I have something to tell you.”
José, at a moment’s notice, buried the treasures of new knowledge he had
just received from Walter Grey, and was longing to examine, in some deep
place within his heart, and stood prepared to listen.
“Do you remember the tale I told you in the tampu beside the Apurimac?”
asked the monk.
“Every word of it.”
“Shall I lose for ever your love and your reverence, José, if I confess
to you that the Don Alfonso of that tale stands before you now?”
José’s countenance showed no emotion; neither horror nor amazement,
not even surprise, was depicted there. It was, in fact, no more than
for a long time he had suspected. At first the suspicion brought keen
sorrow and perplexity to his loyal heart; but he had, fortunately, been
able of late to persuade himself that the patre was quite justified in
his resistance to Spanish cruelty and oppression. How he reconciled
this belief with his respect for the Catholic faith and the authorities
of the Church, it is impossible to say. But indeed there were so many
unreconciled contradictions in the mind of José, that this one might well
pass unnoticed amongst them.
He said very quietly, “I always knew that the patre was a noble amongst
his own people. And what did he, in fighting for the deliverance of the
oppressed, save to show himself the friend of the Poor—like a child of
the Sun?”
Then, in words few and broken by emotion, Fray Fernando told him the
strange sequel of the story. But, to his amazement, José listened with
cold incredulity. Was the patre quite sure that there was no mistake,
no delusion—that the galley-slave was in very truth the person he
represented himself to be?
Now, if the patre had told him that he had just been honoured with a
visit from the Virgin Mary, José would have received the communication
with the deepest reverence and the most unquestioning belief. For it
would then have been “a mystery of the Faith;” and José was in the habit
of divesting himself of his reason and common sense whenever he entered
the temple of the supernatural. Scarcely any marvel could be proposed to
him there to which he would hesitate to give implicit credence. But upon
the platform of this world and its affairs, and within what he considered
the legitimate domain of his reason, he was a shrewd and careful
investigator of facts. He inherited the practical ability of his fathers,
who were accustomed to decide hard cases, and to do justice and judgment
between man and man.
The half astonished, half angry Fray Fernando found he had no
alternative save to set his doubts at rest by a full and circumstantial
account of his interview with the matador.
This could hardly fail to convince the most sceptical; and once
convinced, José was ready to prove himself an invaluable ally.
“We will save him,” he said. “Spain is far away; Spaniards will do
anything for gold.”
Fray Fernando pondered. “But I have no gold,” he objected.
“I have,” José answered quietly. “Moreover, the time is favourable. The
Commandante has gone to Cuzco. Only the Capitano remains. He has his
price. Let me treat with him, patre. Nothing easier for him than to give
out that the men are dead.”
“The _men_?”
“Yes; the stake I mean to play for is the deliverance of both—the matador
and the Englishman.”
“For Heaven’s sake, José, beware what you do,” cried Fray Fernando in
alarm. “You will peril all. The Englishman is a prisoner of the Holy
Office.”
“So is the other.”
“Ay; but consider the difference. Melchior was condemned to the galleys
full sixteen years ago, in Spain. The matter was never known here; and
by this time is well-nigh forgotten everywhere. But Walter Grey—fresh in
every man’s mind and memory, and under the very eyes of their reverences
who pronounced his sentence!—No, no, José; unless you want to ruin us,
you must leave him alone.”
“Well, I can wait,” replied the imperturbable José. And rising from his
seat, he began to prepare their frugal supper.
But Fray Fernando could not eat. Out of the fulness of his heart he
talked to José of the former days, and of Melchior del Salto; until it
became absolutely necessary for him to attend to his evening devotions.
When these were over, José prevailed on him to lie down, and at least
endeavour to take some rest. Sleep was not possible to him; but it was
good to lie motionless in the dark on his mat, to think over the past and
the present, and to thank God for His great mercy.
José, when left alone, meditated for a little while on the patre’s
strange history, then disinterred his own treasure, and began to examine
it.
The bitter disappointment that he felt at first had by no means passed
away. He quite believed all that Walter Grey had told him. This, from
his point of view, was both natural and reasonable. His forefathers had
gone forth to propagate the worship of the Sun, as the best and purest
religion they knew. And yet that worship had not wholly satisfied the
more intelligent amongst them; and they had turned readily, nay, eagerly,
to the Spaniards as the depositaries of a more satisfying faith, which
they gladly learned from them. But José had had abundant cause to
suspect that the Spaniards were not what they professed to be, the chief
favourites of the true, invisible God, nor their kind of worship the most
acceptable that could be offered to Him. What more reasonable than to
suppose that the wise and powerful English, from whom he hoped so much,
would be better instructed?
But, granted that Walter’s words were true, what they revealed was still
“a mystery of the Faith,” and nothing more. And in far more educated
minds than José’s mist and mystery are closely allied. The hopes that had
seemed so real, so substantial, so near, were relegated at once to the
land of dreams and shadows. Hence the chill disappointment, the utter
helpless sadness, that settled down upon his soul.
After a long interval of desultory brooding, that did not deserve the
name of thought, he roused himself, trimmed the lamp Fray Fernando had
left lighted, and sat down to read over, yet once more, that sublime
psalm—the song of the King who should reign in righteousness.
With kindling eyes, and a beating heart, he followed the description of
what the King should be. Step by step his soul seemed lifted upwards,
until at last it reached the footstool of God Himself—“The Lord God of
Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.”
“‘Blessed be His holy name for ever,’” José read half aloud, “‘and
let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and amen!’ His
glory—whose? The great King’s? No, God’s—the God of Israel’s. And yet the
great King’s also, if Señor Hualter’s words be true—for He is God—God
and man—Sufferer, Saviour, Redeemer, King.” Thus for the first time, in
all its grandeur, the great Truth broke upon his mind. It was like the
uprising of the sun—a rapid tropical sunrise.
Would that King then, he questioned with himself, really come in
His glory, take the part of his people, and avenge them upon their
enemies, the cruel Spaniards? Might not this, after all, be possible?
And if so, what a vengeance His would be! José was neither merciless
nor bloodthirsty; he desired no wholesale massacres, no tortures. And
yet, as he sat there with the Breviary still open before him, a vivid
panorama rose before his eyes. He saw the great square of Cuzco filled
with Indians, mounted upon splendid horses, and carrying fire-breathing
clubs,—all guarding a grim scaffold draped with black, where a stately
Spaniard, with the features of the Viceroy Toledo, was about to bow his
haughty head beneath the fatal axe.
But a loud knocking at the outer door dispelled his vision into air. He
hastened to unbar it, and confronted a sunburnt mariner from the _San
Cristofero_.
At the same moment he became aware that his lamp was useless,—the day was
breaking.