word, addressing himself in very fair Castilian to Fray Fernando and to
José:—“Señor Walter Grey, as doubtless you are already aware, is the only
son of his mother, and she is a widow. You also know, probably, in what
manner he left his home, and why.”
“That,” Walter again interposed, and in English, “I have not shrunk from
telling these my friends, humbling and painful as was the confession.
Yet,” he added, with crimsoned cheek, “for the sake of others who are
here present, I repeat it now. Allured by vain dreams of gold and glory,
I selfishly and wickedly forgot all that I should most have remembered—my
mother, my duty, my God.”
“That is but one side of the story, and not too fairly put either,” said
the captain. “Sir Thomas, obey orders, and speak out without fear or
favour. Let these, our Spanish friends, know that it was not altogether
through Master Walter’s own demerit that he proved a runagate.”
Sir Thomas resumed his interrupted discourse in Spanish:—“The captain
desires me to inform you that he considers himself the person most to
blame for the fact of Señor Walter’s flight, which took place from his
father’s house in London.”
“_You_ to blame, Cousin George! No—a thousand times, no!” Walter cried;
but there was a look in the bronzed face of the sea-captain that warned
him to be silent, and to hear the rest.
“The captain says,” continued the patient narrator, “that although he was
well aware of his young kinsman’s passion for the seaman’s life, he yet
took no pains either to win or to keep his friendship and confidence.
On the contrary, he treated him with scorn, as a child, a book-worm,
a landlubber; though all the time in his heart he envied his superior
bearing. He rather made-believe to despise him, lest he should be
despised by him. At last they had an open quarrel; and a very foolish,
childish quarrel it looks now.”
“So it was, on my part,” was Walter’s commentary.
“Worse on mine,” said the captain. Then, in his eagerness, quite
forgetful of the effect of the confusion of tongues, he finally discarded
the chaplain’s mediation, and spoke in his own language and his own
person:—“Cousin Walter, I mocked and taunted you, and that bitterly. I
was sorry a moment afterwards, as I tell you now. I need tell no man
whether I was sorry when I knew you were gone—driven from us, likely
enough, by those angry words. I laid the sin from that moment at my
own door. And your letter, which you wrote to your mother from the
_English Merchantman_, only made matters worse with me. Had I not been
as blind as a mole, I could have guessed what was likely to happen, and
might have hindered it. But I said nothing to any man; and a few days
after, we weighed anchor, and off with us to the Turkish seas. A man
is apt to forget things, knocking about the world, as I have done from
my childhood. Yet, should I reach the age of the patriarchs that lived
before the Flood, never—never shall I forget my last home-coming. The
_English Merchantman_ touched London Quay a matter of three days before
us. She brought home that tale about you, left on the deck of the Spanish
ship—whether living or dead, no man knew for certain. If you had seen
my father’s face when he told it to me! Woman’s tears are bad enough—and
neither my mother nor Lilias spared theirs—but man’s grief is worse to
see. And my father blamed himself; though, indeed, _he_ was blameless
in the matter. All made their minds up at once that you were dead. But,
for my part, I never thought so. And by-and-by I learned what made me
certain you were not. My mother went to yours, to comfort her in her
sore anguish. When she came back to us, these were her words: ‘My sister
lives, because she hopes and prays still.’ Then I took my resolution.
Straightway I arose, and went to my father, and told him everything.
‘Father,’ I said, ‘I drove Walter away. Therefore I should peril goods
and life to end this horrible suspense, and bring back—himself, if
it may be; if not, certain tidings of him. Do not withhold me. It is
borne in upon me that I should do this thing.’ But he shook his head,
and with deep anguish told me, what he hoped the sorrowing mother knew
not yet—the frightful claim of the Inquisition. His best hope was your
death. As for your rescue, no wilder dream could enter the imagination
of man. ‘Still,’ I pleaded, ‘in any wise let me go. Wild dreams come
true sometimes. At all events, my heart burns within me. I must needs
fight the Spaniards—and avenge him, if I cannot deliver him; or I will
die.’ Then he said,—Walter, you know how good, how generous he is. And
you also, my friends,”—glancing round the table—“you know him well. This
was the outcome of all: I went to Kent, Walter, and I saw your mother
face to face.” Here, for a moment, George Noble’s voice trembled; and the
blunt, simple frankness of his manner was almost swept away by a rising
tide of emotion. “No; I cannot tell you what she said to me. But this I
will say,” he added reverently. “When a woman’s tender heart is bowed to
the will of God, He puts a strength and calmness there of which we men
could not dream unless we saw it; and we are better men all our lives for
having seen it once.
“At last, I laid my hand in hers, and I said, ‘Mother, if he lives,
I will bring him back to you, God helping me.’ How I came to promise
that, without fear or faltering, dead against all human probability of
fulfilment, to this hour I know not. The words seemed put into my mouth;
I could not but speak them. I knew she knew _the worst_; and whether
or not my rash promise gave her any comfort, I could scarcely tell.
But you all know, comrades, a promise is a promise. If a man cannot
redeem it, he can die in the effort; and death wipes all scores out. So
I sold my share in the _Royal Tudor_; and it brought me a goodly sum,
for God had prospered us. We bought the _Sea Snake_, then almost ready
for the Spanish Main. My father helped largely therein; and, moreover,
invested a share for my brother James, who must needs go out with me.
These gentlemen, my friends, have shares also. We were chartered for the
Pacific, to get sandal-wood.”
“Ay, sandal-wood, to be sure!—and _nothing_ else!” It was young James
Noble who spoke, glancing round the board with a significant smile.
“Hold thy tongue, lad!” said Captain Noble. “Nothing else that matters
now,—especially in the presence of these honourable gentlemen;” and he
looked at Fray Fernando and José.
“Who, as our captain seems to have forgotten, do not understand a word he
has been saying for the last ten minutes,” said the chaplain.
“Indeed, I did forget,” said Captain George Noble, looking disconcerted.
“Prithee, Sir Thomas, ask them to pardon me. Say to them what I would say
in their own tongue, if I could. We owe it to their Christian charity
that Cousin Walter was kept alive until deliverance came to him. But for
them, he tells us, he would have sunk long ago under his bitter and cruel
bondage. Thanks, first to God, from whom all goodness comes; then to
these, His servants—‘This our brother was dead, and is alive again; was
lost, and is found.’”
Sir Thomas Hartfield interpreted what was said to Fray Fernando and José.
But the hearty clasping of hands and drinking of healths that followed,
with true British cheering, needed no interpreter.
One word more in Spanish was addressed to the strangers, and this time
it was Walter Grey who spoke. “I have told Cousin George, and all our
friends here present, that you are truly one with us in faith and hope.
You will come with us to England? And as surely as friends, homes,
welcomes await us there, so surely all these are yours as much as they
are ours.”
With glistening eye and quivering lip Fray Fernando thanked him, and
accepted his offer, for himself and for José.
XLIII.
Foam of the Sea.
“Ask’st thou my home? My pathway wouldst thou know,
When from thine eye my floating shadow passed?”
SCHILLER.
It was night—glorious tropical night—surely “not made for slumber.”
There was no moon, but her place was well supplied by the soft radiance
of large luminous stars—Argo in the zenith, the Southern Cross near the
horizon, while, far away towards the north, “the stars of the Great
Bear shone with almost fearful magnitude.”[55] Nor was the deep that
lieth under less marvellous for glory and for beauty than the sky that
stretched above. Beneath the vessel’s keel burned a sheet of living fire,
kindled by mysterious phosphoric lights. Jets of flame—blue, and red, and
purple—flashed out here and there; while a shoal of dolphins, sporting
about the ship, cut the waves in long circling lines, that gleamed and
sparkled with prismatic hues.
Two, perhaps three, were enjoying this sight from the deck of the _Sea
Snake_. Fray Fernando and Walter Grey sat together, now talking in low
quiet words, now silent, but always in true communion each with the
other. A little further off José stood, leaning against a mast, either
wrapped in his own thoughts or sharing those of his friends.
The strength of all three had been sorely wasted by previous sufferings;
but quiet of mind, fresh sea air, and unbounded care and kindness from
every one on board the English ship, were gradually restoring them. Even
Fray Fernando, whose recovery had at first been looked on as more than
doubtful, both by others and by himself, was now improving day by day.
A little while ago José,—who, as ever, waited upon him with the most
devoted love,—said to him, his dark face glowing with thankful joy, “I
knew it, patre, from the very hour they rescued us; you will not die, but
live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Only his limbs, enfeebled and
well-nigh crippled by long confinement, had not yet regained, if ever
they would regain, their former strength and activity. Two or three turns
up and down the deck were still abundant exercise for him.
And now Walter Grey was pouring into his sympathizing ear a detailed
description of the quiet English home, “among the rose-hung lanes of
Kent,” that would, he hoped, be his home also. He was confident that his
mother and Fray Fernando would thoroughly understand and admire each
other. He could talk and think of that mother now, not indeed without
deep penitence for his wrong-doing, but without the aching remorseful
pain, the great shadow of doubt and dread, which had lain on his heart so
long. He thanked God for keeping alive her hope for him throughout those
sad years. For he knew that, with her, hope meant prayer; and he believed
that, but for the prayers which, like unseen angels, kept guard about
him, he would not now be sitting on the deck of the _Sea Snake_ a free
and thankful man, but dead long ago in his despair and anguish.
Something of this he even ventured to hint to Fray Fernando; for in
starlight much may be spoken that the glare of day would frighten into
silence.
“Yes,” Fray Fernando answered, after a thoughtful pause, “I do rejoice,
Walter, at the prospect of seeing your happy English home. If a measure
of strength is given back to me—and I begin to think God means to give
it—He will find work for His servant, with whom He hath ever dealt so
graciously, beneath the stars of the northern hemisphere, as well as
under the Southern Cross—and for my José too.”
“Ah! as to that,” said Walter, in a lighter tone, but very heartily, “Don
José Viracocha Inca will be a great hero amongst us. We shall never keep
such a wonder in our quiet home. The Queen and the Court will rob us of
him all too quickly.”
At that moment the captain’s loud, cheerful voice was heard from the
fore-deck, “Cousin Walter, I want you here.”
Walter rose, saying to Fray Fernando, “I will come back as soon as I can.”
When he was gone, José came slowly forward and stood before the monk.
“Patre,” he said, and his voice was low and sorrowful,—“patre, listen to
me.”
“My son, what is it?” Fray Fernando questioned, startled by his tone.
“My father, be patient with me. I have that to say which wrings my
heart.” Here he paused; then, suddenly pointing to the luminous waters,
he exclaimed, “Look there, patre!” A sportive dolphin had described a
larger circle than usual; it burned for a moment, a diamond ring of
flashing foam, then faded quickly away. “Viracocha is but the foam of the
sea. He comes and goes like that.”
“I do not understand you, José. What are you talking of?” asked the
bewildered Fray Fernando.
“My father, if Christ the King were now to call your son and servant to
His home, instead of yours, would you not give him up?”
Fray Fernando trembled and grew very pale. “What mean these strange
words?” he faltered. “Are you ill?”
“No, patre.”
“I know well you have suffered, and far more than you would ever
acknowledge. But surely life is coming back to you, as it is to me. Is it
not so? Speak to me, José—my son José!” There was anguish in his tone.
“Yes, patre, life is coming back to me; and with life, a message from my
King. Patre, patre,—I know not how to tell that message. Yet, woe is me
if I withhold it—if I fail to obey!”
“A message! What message, José?”
“‘Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath
done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.’”
Fray Fernando started—shuddered, as if an arrow on an errand of death had
suddenly pierced his heart.
“José, you may be deceived—mistaken,” he said hurriedly. “When first did
you feel or fancy this?”
“Patre, when I lay in the dark hold of the _Trionfo_, He stooped from
His golden throne, looked with pitying eye upon my great anguish for
my people, and gave me rest and peace. Even with that peace came that
message first. But I only smiled in my heart, and said to Him, ‘Inca,
thou knowest all. I would speak for Thee if I could, but Thou art calling
me instead to die for Thee.’ But when He took us both out of the horrible
pit, gave me the dying charge of Don Francisco Solis to deliver, and then
restored you to life, I heard his voice again.—Patre, it is just this way
with me. In my sore hunger and thirst He reached me, with His own right
hand, golden fruit from the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the
nations. I ate, and thirst and hunger passed away. I was satisfied. But
within the golden fruit the seed lies hid; and he who eats the fruit must
needs plant the seed. That charge is laid upon him.”
“And you would leave me, José?” The words were quiet, but depths of
tenderness,—of anguish,—of entreaty, lay veiled beneath them.
José’s dusky countenance grew pale, and his steadfast lip trembled.
Unconsciously he wrung his hands together in the bitter pain of his
heart. “Had the King asked my life,” he said with deep emotion, “it were
given readily. Now, He asks more. But He cannot ask too much—not too
much!” After a pause he added, in a more natural voice, “Still, I have no
right to make my burnt-offering of that which belongs to another man. Nor
would He accept such. Wherefore, patre, if you—you who bought me, you who
own me—if you forbid me to do this thing, I yield, and I go with you to
England.”
Fray Fernando’s heart leaped to his lips. The dreaded separation averted,
José his—his altogether, his for ever—all for one word! And yet, sorely
as he longed to do it, he _could not_ speak that word. He dared not.
At last he said, evasively, “I scarcely understand yet what it is you
purpose.”
“Patre, in a few days the _Sea Snake_ must put in at a place on the
coast of the mainland known to the captain, to take in water for the
long voyage. Thence I can make my way back to my own country and my
own people, and give them the message that burns on my heart and on my
lip—the message of love from their King and mine.”
“And travel first many hundred leagues through unknown lands, filled with
barbarous tribes? José! José! you will never reach Peru alive.”
“Haply yes; haply no. Alike in either case it is well with me.”
“And then,” Fray Fernando continued with anxious haste, “even suppose
you do, there are the priests and friars. You will be hunted down as a
heretic.”
José smiled, and pointed to the waves beneath them. “The white men know
as little what we talk and think among ourselves as we know the thoughts
of God’s innocent creatures down yonder,” he said. “Once with my people,
I am safe. But for _you_, patre—” His voice faltered, died away.
After a long pause he resumed, stretching out his right hand,—“Yet,
if you are willing to send me forth on this service, and bid me
God-speed,—take this hand of mine in yours.”
There was a struggle in Fray Fernando’s heart. Not long if measured by
time,—not five minutes’ work, perhaps. Yet he was years older when it
ended. He took the thin brown hand in his and pressed it. “God’s will be
done in thee and me,” he said firmly.
“Amen,” José murmured, and turned to go. But turning back, he added,
the trembling of his voice kept under by an iron will, “Patre, I think
that on the happy shores of the good land beyond the sea, God will make
His promise true to you, who have left all for His sake—‘an hundredfold
now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and
children, and lands.’”
Far away on the other side of the world, in a region José never knew,
stands a wild mountain famed in song. Near its summit is a lonely rock,
consecrated by a strange legend. It is said that he who dares to sleep
upon it will be found at daybreak with life extinct;—with reason fled
for ever;—or else endowed with the matchless gift of song, heir to the
poet’s immortal crown. There are lonely places of conflict to which
souls are sometimes led, not unlike the rock of Cader Idris. Sore is the
peril of madness—of despair, which means death; but if God answers His
servant from the secret place of thunder, and with His own right hand
upholds and delivers him, he will come down from that mountain with face
transfigured, and lips baptized with living fire. It is to such God gives
His messages. And those messages they must needs deliver, or die.
Days and nights glided by, noiselessly and all too swiftly,—until at
last there came a day unlike any before or after. A day “much to be
remembered,” marked evermore in Fray Fernando’s calendar, though not with
white.
All through its sultry hours the sun blazed down upon the grimy hull
of the _Sea Snake_, lying moored in a quiet bay. Dense woods of lofty
smooth-stemmed palms with fan like feathery crowns, and luxuriant
thick-leaved ceibas, met the pebbly beach, and fringed the bay on either
side; while the one bold headland of granite that formed its southern
extremity stood out into the sea, bare and bleak, save for a solitary
cluster of graceful cocoa-palms that crowned its summit. Already it is
late in the afternoon. The last water-cask has been rolled on board; the
last loiterer has come back from the woods with his spoil of cocoa-nuts
and bananas. The wind is favourable; the sails are set; soon the shores
of the New World will glimmer and fade away beneath the eyes that watch
them from the deck of the _Sea Snake_. If it were only on this fair earth
that watching loving eyes must look their last!
Every one on board, from the captain to the cabin-boy, has wrung the
brown hand of José, and prayed God to speed him on his way. And more than
one manly eye has glistened through unaccustomed tears at his earnest,
simple words of grateful farewell. Walter Grey he has embraced, with a
fervent “God be with thee, true friend.”
And now, as he stands for the last time on the deck of the English ship,
all see him—but he sees only one.
Yet once more he turns to Fray Fernando, kneels at his feet—“My father,
bless thy son.”
Fray Fernando raises him, folds him in his arms—“God’s best blessings
rest on thee, now and ever—my son—my son!” Heart beats against heart, lip
burns against lip, in one long passionate embrace. But the end must be.
“We shall meet—yet,” Fray Fernando murmurs.
“When they come from the East and from the West to the feast of the great
King,” José answered. Then the white-robed figure descended the ship’s
side, entered the little boat, and was rowed on shore. There were others
besides Fray Fernando who could not see for tears how it disappeared into
the forest.
But by-and-by, as the ship sailed leisurely along under the headland,
José Viracocha was seen once more. Beneath the tall graceful palms, the
feathery fringes of their great leaves quivering in the evening breeze,
and the crimson-tinted clouds of sunset glowing over them, he stood, a
statue of bronze, his dark hair floating loose as he waved his scarlet
cap in parting salutation.
“Child of the Sun—Child of Light! God guard and keep thee, until one day
He set us both in His light together!” Fray Fernando prayed weeping.
But the sun set; the ship sailed on; the cocoa-palms, the rocky headland,
the forest-clad shore faded into distance, and were seen no more. And
with them passed away the Foam of the Sea. Never more, except in dreams,
did those dark wistful eyes look into Fray Fernando’s, or that beloved
voice breathe any song or legend from the “lengua del Inca” into his
listening ear. Never more on earth.
XLIV.
Old England Again.
“Waft, waft, ye winds, His story:
And you, ye waters, roll,
Till, like a sea of glory,
It spreads from pole to pole.
Till o’er our ransomed nature
The Lamb for sinners slain,
Redeemer, King, Creator,
In bliss returns to reign.”
HEBER.
Once more we revisit the old manor-house in Kent. It is the evening
hour. The great hall no longer looks gloomy and cheerless, for a noble
wood-fire blazes and crackles on the hearth, lamps are lighted, and
servants are passing to and fro, placing bread and meat and ale upon a
board spread with snowy drapery. And soon the family take their seats
around it. A tall fair-haired man presides, wearing a cassock and Geneva
bands—the Reverend Walter Grey, known far and near as a faithful shepherd
of souls and true servant of his divine Master. Opposite sits his pretty,
useful, loving wife, Dame Lilias—after the fashion of those times still
often called Dame Lilias Noble. There are two fair children, glowing with
health and happiness, and just now clinging lovingly to a gray-haired
lady, whose thoughtful chastened face wears that look, rarely seen, but
unmistakable, of one who has passed through suffering into peace,—who
has trod the great water-floods upheld by a Saviour’s hand, and ever
afterwards retains the memory of that touch. Lastly, there sits beside
Walter Grey a man whom certainly “no one could have passed without
remark.” His dress is plain, and might be taken for that of an English
merchant or yeoman; but southern suns have browned his cheek and kindled
the fire that burns in his dark eye. His frame is worn; health has never
quite returned since that long agony in the hold of the Spanish ship, yet
enough is left to him for much labour in the cause dearest to his heart.
Here he is only an honoured guest; his home lies far away, amidst the din
and smoke of that great city whither come the exiles from foreign lands
to whose wants of soul and body he delights to minister.
On this occasion Fray Fernando has come down to Kent to be present at the
baptism of Walter’s third and youngest child, for whom he has promised to
answer at the font.
One absorbing topic fills all hearts to-night, and would have filled all
mouths, but for tender consideration for the feelings of the Spanish
guest. It was the year 1588—the glorious year of “England’s Salamis.”
Scarcely has one moon run her course since “the great Armada, boastfully
called ‘Invincible,’ was, by thirty of Her Majesty’s ships of war and
a few of our own merchants, beaten and jostled together, even from the
Lizard in Cornwall—first to Portland, from Portland to Calais, and from
Calais driven with squibs from their anchors, were chased out of sight
of England, round about Scotland and Ireland.”[56] Even now, as then,
England has good reason to give thanks for the result of that conflict.
And even now, as then, England ascribes the glory, not to her gallant
navy or her stout merchantmen, not to the brave hearts and hands of her
dauntless sons, but to Him, and Him alone, who was unto her “a strong
tower from the face of her enemies,” and who “blew with His wind, and
they were scattered.”