THE SHADOW OF THE DESTROYER
The Abbot of Montblanch, Don Baltasar Varela, was supposed to be
occupied in prayer and meditation. But in common with many of his
abbatical brethren, he employed his leisure with quite other matters.
Many have been the jests levelled at the higher clergy of the Church of
Rome, rich, cloistered, and celibate, in their relations to the other
sex.
But all such jests, good against even certain holy popes of Rome and
their nephews, fell harmless against the triple brass of the reputation
of Don Baltasar, present head of the great Monastery of Montblanch.
Things might be whispered against the practice of divers of the brethren
of the Order. But out of the sphere of his immediate jurisdiction, Don
Baltasar concerned himself not with other men's matters.
"To his own God he standeth or falleth," quoth Don Baltasar, and washed
his hands of the responsibility.
But there were one or two offences which Don Baltasar did not treat in
this manner, and of these anon.
Meantime the Abbot talked with his confessor, and in the security of his
chamber was another man to the genial host, the liberal and well-read
churchman, the courteous man of the world who had listened so
approvingly to the wild talk of Rollo the Scot, and so condescendingly
clinked glasses with Brother Hilario, the rich young recruit who had
come from his native province to support the cause of _el Rey Absoluto_,
Don Carlos V. of Spain.
The chamber itself was different. It contained one chair, plain and rude
as that of any anchorite, in which the Abbot sat, a stool for the father
confessor, a pallet bed, a rough shelf with half a dozen worn volumes
above it, two great books with locked clasps of metal--these composed
the entire furniture of the chamber of one of the most powerful princes
of Holy Church in the world.
"It is no use, Anselmo," said the Abbot, gravely toying with the clasp
of one of the open books, in which a few lines of writing were still
wet, "after all, we are but playing with the matter here. The cure lies
elsewhere. We may indeed keep our petty bounds intact, sheltering within
a dozen of leagues not one known unfaithful to the true King, and the
principles of the Catholic religion; but we do not hold even Aragon with
any certainty. The cities whelm us in spite of ourselves. Zaragoza
itself is riddled with sedition, rottenly Jacobin to the core!"
"An accursed den of thieves!" said the gloomy monk. "God will judge it
in His time!"
"Doubtless--doubtless. I most fully agree!" said the Abbot, softly, "but
meantime it is His will that we use such means as we have in our hands
to work out the divine ends. It is well known to you that there is one
man who is driving this estate of Spain to the verge of a devil's
precipice."
With a look of dark shrewdness the priest dropped his head closer to his
superior's ear.
"Mendizabal," he said, "Mendizabal, the Jew of Madrid, the lover of
heretic England, the overgrown cat's-paw of the money-brokers, the
gabbler of the monkeys' chatter called 'liberal principles,' the evil
councillor of a foolish queen."
"Even so," sighed the Abbot. "To such God for a time grants power to
scourge His very elect. Great is their power--for a time. They flourish
like a green bay tree--for a time. But doth not the Wise Man say in the
Scripture, 'Better is wisdom than many battalions, and a prudent man
than a man of war'? You and I, father, must be the prudent men."
"But will not our brave Don Carlos soon rid us of these dead dogs of
Madrid?" said the Confessor. "What of his great generals Cabrera and El
Serrador? They have gained great victories. God has surely been with
their arms!"
The Prior shrugged his shoulders with a slight but inconceivably
contemptuous movement, which indicated that he was weary of the father's
line of argument.
"Another than yourself, Anselmo, might mistake me for a scoffer when I
say that in this matter we must be our own Don Carlos, our own
generals--nay, our own Providence. To be plain, Carlos V.--that blessed
and truly legitimate sovereign, is a donkey; Cabrera, a brave but cruel
_guerrillero_ who will get a shot through him one fine day, as all these
gluttons for fighting do!--The rest of the generals are even as Don
Carlos, and as for Providence--well, believe me, reverend father, in
these later days, even Providence has left poor Spain to fend for
herself?"
"God will defend His Church," said the Confessor solemnly.
"But how?" purred the Abbot. "Will Providence send down three legions of
angels to sweep the Nationals from sea-board to sea-board, from Alicante
even to Pontevedra?"
"I, for one, place neither bounds nor limits upon the Divine power!"
said the dark monk, sententiously.
"Well, then, I do," answered the Prior; "those of common sense, and of
requiring us who are on earth to use the means, the commoner and the
more earthly the better."
The monk bowed, but did not again contradict his superior. The latter
went on--
"Now I have received from a sure hand in Madrid, one of us and devoted
to our interests, an intimation that so soon as the present Cortes is
dissolved, Mendizabal means to abolish all the convents in Spain, to
seize their treasures and revenues, turn their occupants adrift, and
with the proceeds to pay enough foreign mercenaries to drive Don Carlos
beyond the Pyrenees and end the war!"
During this speech, which the Prior delivered calmly, tapping the lid of
his golden snuff-box and glancing occasionally at the Father Confessor
out of his unfathomable grey eyes, that gloomy son of the Church had
gradually risen to his full height. At each slow-dropping phrase the
expression of horror deepened on his countenance, and as the Abbot
ended, he lifted his right arm and pronounced a curse upon Mendizabal,
such as only the lips of an ex-inquisitor could have compassed, which
might have excited the envy of Torquemada the austere, and even caused
a smile of satisfaction to sit upon the grim lips of San Vicente Ferrer,
scourge of the Jews.
The Prior heard him to the end of the anathema.
"_And then_?" he said, quietly.
The dark monk stared down at his chief, as he set placidly fingering his
episcopal ring and smiling. Was it possible that in such an awful crisis
he remained unmoved?
"The day of anathemas is over," he said; "the power of words to loose or
to bind, so far as the world is concerned, is departed. But steel can
still strike and lead kill. We must use means, Father Anselmo, we must
use means."
"_I_ will be the means--_I_, Anselmo, unworthy son of Holy Church--with
this dagger I will strike the destroyer down! Body and soul I will send
him quick to the pit! I alone will go! Hereby I devote myself!
Afterwards let them rend and torture me as they will. I fear not; I
shall not blench. I, Anselmo, who have seen so many--shall know how
to comport myself!"
"Hush!" said the Abbot, for the first time seriously disturbed, and
looking over his shoulder at the curtained door, "moderate your voice
and command yourself, father. These things are not to be spoken of even
in secret. The Jew of Madrid shall die, because he hath risen up against
the Lord's anointed; but your hand shall not drive the steel!"
"And why, Baltasar Varela?" said the dark priest, "pray tell me why you
claim the right to keep me from performing my vow?"
"Let that tell you why!" said the Prior with severity. And without
rising, so circumscribed was his chamber, he reached down the small
wall-mirror, which he used when he shaved, and handed it to the Father
Confessor. "Think you, would a countenance like that have any chance of
being allowed into the ante-rooms of the Prime Minister?"
"I would disguise myself," said the priest.
The Prior smiled. "Yes," he said, "and like a _sereno_ in plain clothes,
look three times the monk you are with your frock upon you! No, no,
Anselmo; Holy Church has need of you, but she does not require that you
should throw your life away uselessly."
He motioned the Confessor to a seat, and passed him his snuff-box open,
from which the dark monk took a pinch mechanically, his lips still
working, like the sea after a storm, in a low continuous mutter of Latin
curses.
"I have found my instruments," said the Prior. "They are within the
walls of the Abbey of Montblanch at this moment. And we have just two
months in which to do our business."
The Father Confessor, obeying the beckoning eyebrow of his superior,
inclined his ear closer, and the Prior whispered into it for some
minutes. As he proceeded, doubt, hope, expectation, certainty, joy,
flitted across the monk's face. He clasped his hands as the Abbot
finished.
"God in His Heaven defend His poor children and punish the
transgressor!"
"Amen," said the Abbot, a little dryly; "and we must do what we can to
assist Him upon the earth."