_DEATH FOR ARBUES DE EPILA._
The days went by; the days of that year, 1485: and still the hideous
spectacles of the Auto da Fé continued to be witnessed with shame and
anguish by the inhabitants of Saragossa. Still the cry of the tortured
victims ascended up to heaven, and still Arbues de Epila lived in his
case of mail.
Those were busy, agitating days for Spain. The war with Granada was
still in progress. King Ferdinand was much exercised in mind with
various jealousies connected with French affairs, and, more than
all important for future ages, the Queen's confessor, Ferdinand di
Talavera, together with a council of self-sufficient pedants and
philosophers, was taking into consideration that request of the
Genoese, Christopher Colon, or, as we call him, Columbus, to be
provided with such an equipment of ships, men, and necessary stores, as
should enable him to find and found countries hitherto unheard of, and
only thought of, most people declared, by crack-brained dreamers.
"Besides," finally decided Talavera and his sage council, with pompous
absurdity; "besides, if there were nothing else against this scheme,
such as the convex figure of the globe, for instance, which, of course,
would prevent vessels ever getting back again, up the side of the
world, once they got down, there was the impudence of the suggestion.
It was presumptuous in any person to pretend that he alone possessed
knowledge superior to all the rest of the world united."
And such impertinent presumption was certainly not to be encouraged
in an "obscure Genoese pilot." And so, for that while, after weary
waiting, and the weary hope deferred that maketh the heart sick,
Columbus and his splendid plans were dismissed. But this result was not
arrived at until four years after the months with which we are, for the
minute, more immediately concerned; and so to return to the thread of
our narrative, and to add yet further--and still the men of Saragossa
gathered into secret bands, discussing rather by tokens, than by words,
the unspeakable cruelties that were being committed in their midst, and
the proposed destruction of their arch-instigator, Arbues de Epila.
All was ripe at length for the fulfilment of the fatal plot; fatal,
alas, not only to the Inquisitor, but to his murderers also, and to
many and many another wholly innocent of the crime.
All day long Don Alonso, Don Miguel, Don James of Navarre, with the
rest of the conspirators, many of them with the noblest blood of Aragon
flowing in their veins, watched with a fierce, hungry eagerness for the
moment in which to strike the blow. The hours wore on, the evening
came. In low-breathed murmurs one and another rekindled their own
fury, or revived the flagging courage of a companion, by recalling the
generosity of character, the blameless life, of some friend or relative
snatched out of life by this barbarous persecution.
Night fell over the city of Saragossa, and gradually the conspirators
stealthily, silently drew round about the walls of the cathedral. It
was approaching midnight. The fierce persecutor of his fellow-men was
on his knees before the great altar of the cathedral, on his knees
before Him who has said, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice."
Arbues knelt there in the flood of brightness from the lighted altar,
and his enemies gathered up around him in the gloomy shadows of the
surrounding darkness. Suddenly there was a muffled shout--a cry. He
raised his head;--too late,--escape was impossible. Already the arm and
hand were streaming with blood that had signed so many warrants for the
torture and death of others. Then came the fatal blow.
[Illustration: Arbues knelt there in a flood of brightness from the
lighted altar. Suddenly there was a muffled shout--a cry. He raised his
head;--too late,--escape was impossible.]
A dagger shone, gleaming red with life-blood, in the light, from the
back of the victim's neck, in the flesh of which its point was firmly
embedded.
Who gave that final thrust none knew but the giver. Only Don Miguel,
who stood by in the fierce crush and _melée_, heard the words hissed
out as the deadly weapon was darted forth:
"So dies the fiend, Arbues de Epila!"
And he, too, cast a hasty glance beside him, as Montoro de Diego had
done when those words were uttered behind his ear in the Auto da Fé
crowd some weeks ago.
But Montoro de Diego had found no one at his elbow but an innocent,
wide-eyed child; and Don Miguel only found a crowd of terrified,
cringing priests, who with pallid faces and trembling limbs bore off
the dying superior to his own apartments, where he lingered two days,
blindly giving thanks to God that he had been accepted as a martyr in
His cause!
"The enemy of our liberty, our honour, our security is dead," muttered
Don Alonso in fierce triumph to Montoro de Diego, as he sought
temporary shelter from the dangers of pursuit in his friend's palace.
But Don Diego shook his head with prophetic sadness as he answered:
"May the Holy Virgin grant that you have not called down worse evils
upon our unhappy city!"
All too soon his fears were realized. The Church was offended, and the
sovereigns, at the assassination of the great Inquisitor, and terrible
was the vengeance wreaked far and wide upon all who had been, or were
supposed to have been, implicated in the impious deed. Hundreds upon
hundreds of people died, by torture, in the dungeons, at the stake,
by persecutions innumerable, and starvation; and the whole province
of Aragon was still further cruelly humiliated in the persons of its
nobles, who were condemned in crowds to do penance in the Autos da Fé.
Don Alonso and Don Miguel were hanged instead of burned, not in mercy,
but in sign of greater infamy, and that they might feel themselves
ground to the very dust by the intense degradation of their punishment.
And Don Diego did not escape the general ruin of his friends.
The heat of the search for victims had somewhat abated, when the
covetous desires of one of the members of the Inquisition turned upon
the possessions of the wealthy nobleman.
A path to the coveted riches was soon found. Montoro de Diego's words
were suddenly remembered that he uttered on the night of Don Philip's
death--"If Don Philip die others will die with him." On these words
he was condemned, first to lingering months in a loathsome dungeon,
then to death; and his young wife was driven forth from the gates of
Saragossa in widowed penury and despair. The second Montoro de Diego
was born a beggar and fatherless, but he had the brave, upright spirit
of his father in him for his portion; and with his fortunes our tale
is, for the future, concerned.