He resolved to go. If he returned at all, he would be back at the

Castello before any increased apprehension would be felt; if it were the

will of God that he should never return, the Jesuit fathers would

undertake the care of Lauretta and his child.

He confessed and received the Sacrament at the Church of the Gesu, in

the Chapel of St. Ignatio, in the clear morning light, kneeling upon the

cold brilliant marble floor. It was the last day of July, very early,

and the Church was swept and garnished for the great festival of the

Saint. Inglesant did not wait for the saddened festival, but left Rome

immediately that the early mass was done.

*CHAPTER XIV.*

When Inglesant had passed the Pontine Marshes, and had come into the

flowery and wooded country about Mola, where the traveller begins to

rejoice and to delight his eyes, he found this beautiful land little

less oppressive than the dreary marshes he had left. The vineyards

covered the slopes, and hung their festoons on every side. The citron

and jasmin and orange bloomed around him; and in the cooler and more

shady walks flowers yet covered the ground, in spite of the heat. The

sober tints of the oaks and beeches contrasted with the brilliant orange

groves and vineyards, and, with the palms and aloes, offered that

variety which usually charms the traveller; and the distant sea, calm

and blue, with the long headlands covered with battlements and gay

villas, with plantations and terraces, carried the eye onward into the

dim unknown distance, with what is usually a sense of delightful desire.

But as Inglesant rode along, an overpowering sense of oppression and

heaviness hung over this beautiful land. The heat was intense; no rain

nor dew had fallen for many weeks. The ground in most places was scored

and hard, and the leaves were withered. The brooks were nearly dry, and

the plantations near the roads were white with dust. An overpowering

perfume, sickly and penetrating, filled the air, and seemed to choke the

breath; a deadly stillness pervaded the land; and scarcely a human form,

either of wayfarer or peasant, was to be seen.

At the small towns near to Naples every form of life was silent and

inert. Inglesant was received without difficulty, as he was going

towards Naples; but he was regarded with wonder, and remonstrated with

as courting certain death. He halted at Aversa, and waited till the

mid-day heat was passed. Here, at last, there seemed some little

activity and life. A sort of market even appeared to be held, and

Inglesant asked the host what it meant.

"When the plague first began in Naples, signore," he said, "a market was

established here to supply the city with bread, fresh meat, and other

provisions. Officers appointed by the city came out hither, and

conveyed it back. But, as the plague became more deadly, most of those

thus sent out never returned to the city, in spite of the penalties to

which such conduct exposed them. Since the plague spread into the

country places, the peasants have mostly ceased to bring their produce;

but what little is brought you see here, and one of the magistrates is

generally obliged to come out from Naples to receive it."

"Is the city suffering from famine, then?" asked Inglesant.

"The city is like hell itself, Signore il Cavaliere," replied the host.

"They tell me that he who looks upon it will never be able to sleep

peacefully again. They lie heaped together in the streets, the dying

and the dead. The hospitals are choked with dead bodies, so that none

dare go in. They are blowing up masses of houses, so as to bury the

bodies under the ruins with lime and water and earth. Twenty thousand

persons have died in a single day. Those who have been induced to touch

the dead to cart them away never live more than two days."

"The religious, and the physicians, and the magistrates, then, remain at

their posts?" said Inglesant.

The host shrugged his shoulders.

"There is not more to be said of one class than another," he said;

"there are cowards in all. Many of the physicians fled; but, on the

other hand, two strange physicians came forward of their own accord, and

offered to be shut up in the Sancta Casa Hospital. They never came out

alive. Many of the religious fled; but the Capuchins and the Jesuits,

they say, are all dead. Most of the Franciscan Friars are dead, and all

the great Carmelites. They run to all houses that are most infected,

and to those streets that are the most thronged with putrefied bodies,

and into those hospitals where the plague is hottest; and confess the

sick and attend them to their last gasp; and receive their poisonous

breath as though it were the scent of a rose."

"But is no attempt made to bury the dead?"

"They are letting out the galley slaves by a hundred at a time," replied

the host; "they offer freedom and a pension for life to the survivors,

but none do survive. Fathers and mothers desert their own children;

children their parents; nay, they throw them out into the streets to

die. What would you have?"

The host paused, and looked at Inglesant curiously, as he sat drinking

some wine.

"Have you a lady-love in Naples, signore?" he said at last; "or are you

heir to a rich man, and wish to save his gold?"

"I am leaving wife and child," replied Inglesant, bitterly, "to seek a

man whom I hate, whom I shall never find under the heaps of dead. You

had better say at once that I am mad. That is nearest to the truth."

The host looked at him compassionately, and left the room.

In the cool of the evening Inglesant rode through the deserted

vineyards, and approached the barriers. On the way he met some few

foot-passengers, pale and emaciated, trudging doggedly onwards. They

were leaving death behind them, but they saw nothing but misery and

death elsewhere. They took no notice of Inglesant as they passed. Many

of them, exhausted and smitten with the disease, sank down and died by

the wayside. When he arrived at the barriers, he found them deserted,

and no guard whatever kept. He left his horse at a little osteria

without the gate, which also seemed deserted. There was hay in the

stable, and the animal might shift for himself if so inclined.

Inglesant left him loose. As he entered the city, and passed through

the Largo into the Strada Toledo, the sight that met his eyes was one

never to be forgotten.

The streets were full of people,--more so, indeed, than is usual even in

Naples; for business was at a stand, the houses were full of infection,

and a terrible restlessness drove every one here and there. The stately

rows of houses and palaces, and the lofty churches, looked down on a

changing, fleeting, restless crowd,--unoccupied, speaking little,

walking hither and thither with no aim, every few minutes turning back

and retracing their steps. Every quarter of an hour or thereabouts a

confused procession of priests and laymen, singing doleful and

despairing misereres, and bearing the sacred Host with canopy and

crosses, came from one of the side streets, or out of one of the

churches, and proceeded along the Strada. As these processions passed,

every one prostrated themselves, with an excess and desperate

earnestness of devotion, and many followed the host; but in a moment or

two those who knelt or those who followed rose or turned away with

gestures of despair or distraction, as though incapable of sustained

action, or of confidence in any remedy. And at this there could be no

wonder, since this crowd of people were picking their way amid a mass of

dead corruption on every side of them under their feet. On the stone

pavement of the stately Strada, on the palace stairs, on the steps

before the churches, lay corpses in every variety of contortion at which

death can arrive. Sick people upon beds and heaps of linen--some

delicate and costly, some filthy and decayed--lay mingled with the dead;

they had been turned out of the houses, or had deserted them to avoid

being left to die alone; and every now and then some one of those who

walked apparently in health would lie down, stricken by the heat or by

the plague, and join this prostrate throng, for whom there was no longer

in this world any hope of revival.

This sight, which would have been terrible anywhere, was unutterably

distressing and ghastly in Naples, the city of thoughtless pleasure and

of reckless mirth,--a city lying under a blue and cloudless sky, by an

azure sea, glowing in the unsurpassable brilliancy and splendour of the

sun. As this dazzling blue and gold, before which all colours pale,

made the scene the most ghastly that could have been chosen as the

theatre for such an appalling spectacle, so, among a people child-like

and grotesque, seducing the stranger into sympathy with its delight--a

people crowned with flowers, and clothed in colours of every shade, full

of high and gay spirits, and possessed of a conscience that gives no

pain--this masque and dance of death assumed an aspect of intolerable

horror. Naples was given over to pantomime and festival, leading dances

and processions with Thyrsis and garlands, and trailing branches of

fruit. The old Fabulag and farce lingered yet beneath the delicious sky

and in the lovely spots of earth that lured the Pagan to dream that

earth was heaven. The poles and scaffolds and dead flowers of the last

festival still lingered in the streets.

In this city, turned at once into a charnel-house,--nay, into a hell and

place of torment,--the mighty, unseen hand suddenly struck down its

prey, and without warning seized upon the wretched conscience, all

unprepared for such a blow. The cast of a pantomime is a strange sight

beneath the glare and light of mid-day; but here were quacks and nobles,

jugglers and soldiers, comic actors and "filosofi," pleasure seekers and

monks, gentry and beggars, all surprised as it were, suddenly, by the

light and glare of the death angel's torch, and crowded upon one level

stage of misery and despair.

Sick and dizzy with horror, and choked with the deadly smell and

malaria, Inglesant turned into several osteria, but could find no host

in any. In several he saw sights which chilled his blood. At last he

gave up the search, and, weary as he was, sought the hospitals. The

approaches to some of these were so blocked up by the dead and the dying

who had vainly sought admission, that entrance was impossible. In

others the galley slaves were at work. In every open spot of ground

where the earth could be disturbed without cutting off the water pipes

which ran through the city, trenches had been dug, and the bodies which

were collected from the streets and hospitals were thrown hastily into

them, and covered with lime and earth. Inglesant strayed into the

"Monte della Misericordia," which had recently been cleared of the dead.

A few sick persons lay in the beds; but the house seemed wonderfully

clean and sweet, and the rooms cool and fresh. The floors were soaked

with vinegar, and the place was full of the scent of juniper, bay

berries, and rosemary, which were burning in every room. It seemed to

Inglesant like a little heaven and he sank exhausted upon one of the

beds. They brought him some wine, and presently the Signore di Mauro,

one of the physicians appointed by the city, who still remained bravely

at his post, came and spoke to him.

"I perceive that you are a stranger in Naples, and untouched by the

disease," he said. "I am at a loss to account for your presence here.

This house is indeed cleared for a moment, but it is the last time that

we can expect help. The supply of galley slaves is failing, and when it

stops entirely, which it must in a few days, I see nothing in the future

but the general extirpation of all the inhabitants of this fated city,

and that its vast circumference, filled with putrefaction and venom,

will afterwards be uninhabitable to the rest of mankind."

This doleful foreboding made little impression upon Inglesant, who was,

indeed, too much exhausted both in mind and body to pay much attention

to anything.

"I am come to Naples," he said faintly, "in search of another; will you

let me stay in this house to-night? I can find no one in the inns."

"I will do better for you than that," said the good physician; "you

shall come to my own house, which is free from infection. I have but

one inmate, an old servant, who, I think, is too dry and withered a

morsel even for the plague. I am going at once."

Something in Inglesant's manner probably attracted him, otherwise it is

difficult to account for his kindness to a stranger under such

circumstances.

They went out together. Inglesant by chance seemed to be about to turn

into another and smaller street--the physician pulled him back hurriedly

with a shudder.

"Whatever you do," he said in a whisper, "keep to the principal

thoroughfares. I dare not recollect--the most heated imagination would

shrink from conceiving--the unutterable horrors of the bye-streets."

Picking their way among the dead bodies, which the slaves, with

handkerchiefs steeped in vinegar over their faces, were piling into

carts, the two proceeded down the Strada.

Inglesant asked the physician how the plague first began in Naples.

"It is the terrible enemy of mankind," replied the other--he was rather

a pompous man, with all his kindness and devotion, and used long

words--"that walks stained with slaughter by night. We know not whence

it comes. Before it are beautiful gardens, crowded habitations, and

populous cities; behind it unfruitful emptiness and howling desolation.

Before it the guards and armies of mighty princes are as dead men, and

physicians are no protection either to the sick or to themselves. Some

imagine that it comes from the cities of the East; some that it arises

from poverty and famine, and from the tainted and perishing flesh, and

unripe fruits and hurtful herbs, which, in times of scarcity and dearth,

the starving people greedily devour to satisfy their craving hunger.

Others contend that it is inflicted immediately by the hand of God.

These are mostly the priests. When we have puzzled our reason, and are

at our wit's end through ignorance, we come to that. I have read

something in a play, written by one of your countrymen--for I perceive

you are an Englishman--where all mistakes are laid upon the King."

They were arrived by this time at the physician's house, and were

received by an old woman whose appearance fully justified her master's

description. She provided for Inglesant's wants, and prepared a bed for

him, and he sank into an uneasy and restless sleep. The night was

stiflingly hot, suppressed cries and groans broke the stillness, and the

distant chanting of monks was heard at intervals. Soon after midnight

the churches were again crowded; mass was said, and thousands received

the Sacrament with despairing faith. The physician came into

Inglesant's room early in the morning.

"I am going out," he said; "keep as much as possible out of the

churches; they spread the contagion. The magistrates wished to close

them, but the superstitious people would not hear of it. I will make

inquiries, and if any of the religious, or any one else, has heard your

friend's name, I will send you word. I may not return."

Shortly after he was gone, the crowd thronging in one direction before

Inglesant's window caused him to rise and follow. He came to one of the

slopes of the hill of Santo Martino, above the city. Here a crowd,

composed of every class from a noble down to the lowest lazzaroni, were

engaged, in the clear morning light, in building a small house. Some

were making bricks, some drawing along stones, some carrying timber. A

nun had dreamed that were a hermitage erected for her order the plague

would cease, and the people set to work, with desperate earnestness, to

finish the building. By the wayside up the ascent were set empty

barrels, into which the wealthier citizens dropped gold and jewels to

assist the work. As Inglesant was standing by, watching the work, he

was accosted by a dignified, highly bred old gentleman, in a velvet coat

and Venice lace, who seemed less absorbed in the general panic than the

rest.

"This is a strange sight," he said; "what the tyranny of the Spaniards

was not able to do, the plague has done. When the Spaniard was storming

the gates the gentlemen of the Borgo Santa Maria and the lazzaroni

fought each other in the streets, and the gentlemen avowed that they

preferred any degree of foreign tyranny to acknowledging or associating

with the common people. With this deadly enemy not only at the gates

but in the very midst of us, gentlemen and lazzaroni toil together

without a thought of suspicion or contempt. The plague has made us all

equal. I perceive that you are a stranger. May I ask what has brought

you into this ill-fated city at such a time?"

"I am in search of my relation, il Cavaliere di Guardino," replied

Inglesant; "do you know such a name?"

"It seems familiar to me," replied the old gentleman. "Have you reason

to suppose that he is in Naples?"

Inglesant said that he had.

"The persons most likely to give you information would be the Signori,

the officers of the galleys. They would doubtless be acquainted with

the Cavaliere before the plague became so violent, and would know, at

any rate, whether it was his intention to leave Naples or not. The

galleys lie, as you know, moored together there in the bay, and many

other ships lie near them, upon which persons have taken refuge who

believe that the plague cannot touch them on the water--an expectation

in which, I believe, many have been fatally deceived."

Inglesant thanked the gentleman, and inquired how it was that he

remained so calm and unconcerned amidst the general consternation.

"I am too old for the plague," he replied; "nothing can touch me but

death itself. I am also," he continued with a peculiar smile, "the

fortunate possessor of a true piece of the holy Cross; so that you see I

am doubly safe."

Inglesant went at once to the harbour, musing on the way on these last

words, and wondering whether they were spoken in good faith or irony.

The scenes in the streets seemed more terrible even than on the

preceding day. The slaves were engaged here and there in removing the

bodies, but the task was far beyond their strength. Cries of pain and

terror were heard on all sides, and every now and then a maddened wretch

would throw himself from a window, or would rush, naked perhaps, from a

house, and, stumbling and leaping over the corpses and the dying, like

the demoniac among the tombs, would fling himself in desperation into

the water of the harbour, or over the walls into the moats. One of

these maniacs, passing close to Inglesant, attempted to embrace a

passer-by, who coolly ran him through the body with his sword, the

bystanders applauding the act.

In the harbour corpses were floating, which a few slaves in boats were

feebly attempting to drag together with hooks. They escaped their

efforts, and rose and sank with a ghastly resemblance to life. Upon the

quay Inglesant fortunately found the physician, Signore Mauro, who was

himself going on board the galleys to endeavour to procure the loan of

more slaves. He offered to take Inglesant with him.

As they went the physician told him he had not discovered any trace of

the Cavaliere; but what was very curious, he said, many other persons

appeared to be engaged in the same search. It might be that all these

people were in fact but one, multiplied by the forgetfulness, and by the

excited imaginations, of those from whom Signore Mauro had obtained his

information; but, if these persons were to be believed, monks, friars,

physicians, soldiers, and even ladies, were engaged in this singular

search in a city where all ties of friendship were forgotten, for a man

whom no one knew.

As they shot over the silent water, and by the shadowy hulks of ships

lying idle and untended, with the cry of the city of the dead behind

them and the floating corpses around, Inglesant listened to the

physician as a man listens in a dream. Long shadows stretched across the

harbour, which sparkled beneath the rays of the newly-risen sun; a

sudden swoon stole over Inglesant's spirits, through which the voice of

the physician sounded distant and faint. He gave himself up for lost,

yet he felt a kind of dim expectation that something was about to happen

which these unknown inquirers foretold.

The galleys lay moored near together, with several other ships of large

size in company. Signore Mauro climbed to the quarter-deck of the

largest galley, on which the commodore was, and Inglesant followed him,

still hardly knowing what he did. The oars were shipped, but the slaves

were chained to their benches, as though the galleys were at sea. They

were singing and playing at cards. Upon the quarterdeck, pointing to

the long files of slaves, were two loaded howitzers, behind each of

which stood a gunner with a lighted match. Soldiers, heavily armed and

with long whips, paraded the raised gangway or passage, which ran the

whole length of the ship between the rows of benches upon which the

slaves were placed. The officers were mostly on the quarter-deck; they

looked pale and excited, though it was singular that few or no cases of

the plague had occurred among the slaves who remained on board. The

decks were washed with vinegar, and the galleys and slaves were much

cleaner than usual.

The physician stated his request to the commander, who ordered ten

slaves from every galley to be sent on shore. Some were wanted to act as

bakers, some as butchers, most of the artizans in the city having fled

or perished. A boatswain was ordered to make the selection. He chose

one or two, and then called upon the rest to volunteer. Inglesant was

standing by him on the gangway, looking down the files of slaves. There

were men of every age, of every rank, and almost of every country. As

the boatswain gave the word, every hand was held up; to all these men

death was welcome at the end of two or three days' change of life,

abundance of food, and comparative freedom. The boatswain selected ten

by chance.

Signore Mauro inquired among the officers concerning the Cavaliere, but

could obtain no positive information. Most had heard the name, some

professed to have known him intimately; all united in saying he had left

Naples. Inglesant and the physician visited two or three other galleys,

but with no greater success. They returned on shore as the heat was

becoming intense; the churches were crowded, and the Holy Sacrament was

exhibited every few moments. The physician refused to enter any of

them.

Then Inglesant determined to try the hospitals again. He went to the

"Santa Casa degli Incurabile," which the day before he had not been able

to approach for the dying and the dead. The slaves had worked hard all

night, and hundreds of corpses had been removed and buried in a vast

trench without the wall of the hospital. Inglesant passed through many

of the rooms, and spoke to several of the religious persons who were

tending the sick, but could learn nothing of the object of his search.

At last one of the monks conducted him into the strange room called the

"Anticamera di Morte," to which, in more orderly times, the patients

whose cases were hopeless were removed.

There, at the last extremity of life, before they were hurried into the

great pit outside the walls, lay the plague-stricken. Some unconscious,

yet with fearful throes and gasps awaiting their release; some in an

agony of pain and death, crying upon God and the Saints. Kneeling by

the bedsides were several monks; but at the farther end of the room,

bending over a sick man, was a figure in a friar's gown that made

Inglesant stop suddenly, and his heart beat quicker as he caught his

companion's arm.

"Who is that friar, Father?" he said, "the one at the end, bending over

the bed?"

"Ah! that," said the priest, "that is Father Grazia of the Capuchins; a

very holy man, and devoted to mortification and good works. He is

blind, though he moves about so cleverly. He says that, to within the

last few years, his life was passed in every species of sin; and he

relates that he was solemnly given over to the vengeance of the blessed

Gesu by his mortal enemy, the minion of a Cardinal, and that the Lord

has afflicted him with untold sorrows and sufferings to bring him to

Himself, and to a life of holy mortification and charity, which he leads

unceasingly--night and day. He is but now come in hither, knowing that

the sick man by whose bed he is, is dying of the plague in its most

fearful form,--a man whom none willingly will approach. Mostly he is in

the vilest dens of the city, reeking with pestilence, where to go, to

all save him, is certain death. His holiness and the Lord's will keep

him, so that the plague cannot touch him. Ah! he is coming this way."

It was true. The friar had suddenly started from his recumbent

position, conscious that the man before him was no more. At the same

moment, his mind, released from the attention which had riveted it

before, seemed to become aware of a presence in the chamber of death

which was of the intensest interest. He came down the passage in the

centre of the room with an eager unfaltering step, as though able to

see, and coming to within a few feet of the two men, he stopped, and

looked towards them with an excited glance, as though he saw their

faces. Inglesant was embarrassed, and hesitated whether to recognize

him or not. At last, pitying the look in the blind man's face, he

said,--

"This holy Father is not unknown to me, though I know not that he would

desire to meet me again. I am 'the minion of a Cardinal' of whom you

spoke."

The friar stretched out his hands before him, with an eager, delighted

gesture.

"I knew it," he said; "I felt your presence long before you spoke. It

signifies little whether I am glad to find you or no. It is part of the

Lord's purpose that we should meet."

"This is a strange and sanctified meeting," said the priest, "in the

room of death, and by the beds of the dead. Doubtless you have much to

say that can only be said to yourselves alone."

"I cannot stay," said the friar, wildly. "I came in here but for a

moment; for this wretched man who is gone to his account needed one as

wretched and as wicked as himself. But they are dying now in the streets

and alleys, calling upon the God whom they know not; they need the

vilest sinner to whom the Lord has been gracious to kneel by their side;

they need the vilest sinner; therefore I must go."

He stopped for a moment, then he said more calmly,--"Meet me in the

Santa Chiara, behind the altar, by the tomb of the wise King, this

evening at sunset. By that time, though the need will be as pressing,

yet the frail body will need a little rest, and I will speak with you

for an hour. Fail not to come. You will learn how your sword was the

sword, and your breath was the breath of the Lord."

"I will surely be there," said Inglesant.

The friar departed, leaving the priest and Inglesant alone. They went

out into the garden of the hospital, a plot of ground planted with

fruit-trees, and with vines trailing over the high stone walls. Walking

up and down in the shade, with the intense blue of the sky overhead, one

might for a time forget the carnival of death that was crowding every

street and lane around. Inglesant inquired of his companion more

particularly concerning the friar.

"He is a very holy man," said the priest, with a significant gesture;

"but he is not right in his head. His sufferings have touched his

brain. He believes that he has seen the Lord in a vision, and not only

so, but that all Rome was likewise a witness of the miracle. It is a

wonderful story, which doubtless he wishes to relate to you this

evening."

*CHAPTER XV.*

In the vast Church of the Santa Chiara, with its open nave which spread

itself on every side like a magic hall of romance, the wide floor and

the altars of the side Chapels had been crowded all day by prostrate

worshippers; but when Inglesant entered it about sunset, it was

comparatively empty. A strange unearthly perfume filled the Church, and

clouds of incense yet hovered beneath the painted ceiling, and obscured

the figure of the Saint chasing his enemies. Streaks of light,

transfigured through the coloured prism of the prophets and martyrs that

stood in the painted glass, lighted up the wreaths of smoke, and

coloured the marbles and frescoes of the walls and altars. The mystic

glimmer of the sacred tapers in the shaded chapels, and the concluding

strains of the chanting before the side altars, which had followed the

vesper service and benediction, filled the Church with half light and

half shadow, half silence and half sound, very pleasing and soothing to

the sense.

Inglesant passed up the Church towards the high altar, before which he

knelt; and as he did so, a procession, carrying the Sacrament, entered

by another door, and advanced to the altar, upon which it was again

deposited. The low, melancholy miserere--half entreating, half

desponding--spoke to the heart of man a language like its own; and as

the theme was taken up by one of the organs, the builder's art and the

musician's melted into one--in tier after tier of carved imagery, wave

after wave of mystic sound. All conscious thought and striving seemed

to fade from the heart, and before the altar and amid the swell of sound

the soul lost itself, and lay silent and passive on the Eternal Love.

Behind the high altar Inglesant found the friar by the grave of the wise

King. Upon the slabs of the Gothic tomb, covered with carving and

bas-relief, the King is seated and dressed in royal robes; but upon the

sarcophagus he lies in death bereft of all his state, and clothed in no

garment but a Franciscan's gown. Beside him lies his son in his royal

robes, covered with fleurs-de-lis; and other tombs of the kingly race of

Anjou surround him, all emblazoned with coat armour and device of rank.

Between the tombs of the two kings stood the friar, his head bowed upon

his hands. The light grew every moment less and less bright, and the

shadows stretched ever longer and longer across the marble floor. The

lamps before the shrines, and the altar tapers in the funeral chapels,

shone out clearer and more distinct. The organs had ceased, but the

dolorous chanting of the miserere from beyond the high altar still came

to them with a remote and wailing tone.

Inglesant advanced towards the friar, who appeared to be aware of his

presence by instinct, and raised his head as he drew near. He returned

no answer to Inglesant's greeting, but seated himself upon a bench near

one of the tombs, and began at once, like a man who has little time to

spend.

"I am desirous," he said, "of telling you at once of what has occurred

to me. Who can tell what may happen at any moment to hinder unless I

do? It is a strange and wonderful story, in which you and I and all men

would be but puppets in the Divine Hand were not the Divine Love such

that we are rather children led onward by their Father's hand--welcomed

home by their Mother's smile."

It was indeed a strange story that the friar told Inglesant in the

darkening Church. In places it was incoherent and obscure. The first

part of his narrative, as it relates to others besides himself, is told

here in a different form, so that, if possible, what really happened

might be known. The latter part, being untranslatable into any other

language and inexplicable upon any basis of fact, must be told in his

own words.

"When you left me at the mountain chapel," said the friar, "I thought of

nothing but that I had escaped with life. I thought I had met with a

Fantastic, whose brain was turned with monkish fancies, and I blessed my

fortunate stars that such had been the case. I thought little of the

Divine vengeance that dogged my steps."

When Inglesant met Malvolti upon the mountain pass (as he gathered from

the friar's narrative) the latter, utterly penniless and undone, having

exhausted every shift and art of policy, and being so well-known in all

the cities of Italy that he was safe in none of them, had bethought

himself of his native place. It was, indeed, almost the only place where

his character was unknown, and his person comparatively safe. But it

had other attractions for the hunted and desperate man. Malvolti's

father had died when his son was a boy, and his mother in a year or two

married again. His step-father was harsh and unkind to the fatherless

child, and the seeds of evil were sown in the boy's heart by the

treatment he received; but a year after this marriage a little girl was

born, who won her way at once into the heart of the forlorn and unhappy

lad. He was her constant playmate, protector, and instructor. For

several years the only happy moments of his life were passed when he

could steal away with her to the woods and hills, wandering for hours

together alone or with the wood-cutters and charcoal-burners; and when,

after a few years, the unkindness of his parents and his own restless

and passionate nature sent him out into the world in which he played so

evil a part, the image of the innocent child followed him into scenes of

vice, and was never obliterated from his memory. The murmur of the

leaves above the fowling-floor where they lay together during the

mid-day heat, the splash of the fountains where they watched the flocks

of sheep drinking, followed him into strange places and foreign

countries, and arose to his recollection in moments of danger, and even

of passion and crime.

The home of Malvolti's parents had been in the suburb, of a small town

of the Bolognese. Here, at some little height above the town on the

slope of the wooded hills, a monastery and chapel had been erected, and

in course of time some few houses had grouped themselves around, among

which that of Malvolti's father had been the most considerable. The sun

was setting behind the hills when Malvolti, weary, dispirited, and dying

of hunger, came along the winding road from the south, which skirted the

projecting spurs of the mountains. The slanting rays penetrated the

woods, and shone between the openings of the hills, lighting up the

grass-grown buildings of the monastery, and the belfry of the little

Chapel, where the bell was ringing for vespers. Below, the plain

stretched itself peacefully; a murmur of running water blended with the

tolling of the bell. A waft of peace and calm, like a breeze from

paradise, fell upon Malvolti's heart, and he seemed to hear soft voices

welcoming him home. He pictured to himself his mother's kind greeting,

his sister's delight; even his stern step-father's figure was softened

in the universal evening glow. It was a fairy vision, in which the

passing years had found no place, where the avenging footsteps that

follow sin did not come, and which had no reality in actual existence.

He turned the angle of the wood, and stood before his home. It lay in

ruins and desolate.

The sun sank below the hills, the bell went on tolling monotonously

through the deepening gloom. Dazed and faint, Malvolti followed its

tones into the Chapel, where the vesper service began. When it was

ended the miserable man spoke to one of the monks, and craved some food.

Deprived of his last hope, his senses faint and dull with weariness and

hunger, and lulled by the soft strains of devout sound--his life

confessed at last to have been completely a failure, and the wages of

sin to have turned to withered leaves in his hand--his heart was more

disposed than perhaps it had ever been to listen to the soft accents of

penitence, and to hear the whispering murmur that haunts the shadowy

walks of mortified repentance. Comforted by food, the kindly words of

pity and exhortation stole upon his senses, and he almost fancied that

he might find a home and peace without further wandering and punishment.

He was much deceived.

He inquired concerning the fate of those whom, debased and selfish as he

was, he still loved, especially now, when the sight of long-forgotten

but still familiar places recalled the past, and seemed to obliterate

the intervening years. The monks told him a story of sorrow and of sin,

such as he himself often had participated in, and would have heard at

another time with a smile of indifference. His step-father was dead,

killed in a feud which his own insolent temper had provoked. His mother

and sister had continued for some time to live in the same house, and

there perhaps he might have found them, had not a gentleman, whose

convenience had led him to claim the hospitality of the monastery for a

night's rest, chanced to see his sister in the morning as he mounted his

horse. The sight of a face, whose beauty combined a haughty clearness

of outline with a certain coy softness of expression, and a figure of

perfect form, detained him from his intended journey, and he obtained

admittance into the widow's house. What wizard arts he practised the

monks did not know, but when he departed he left anxiety and remorse

where he had found content and a certain peace. In due time the two

women, despairing of his return, had followed him, and the younger, the

monks had heard (and they believed the report)--ill-treated and

spurned--was now living in Florence a life of sin. The softened

expression of rest and penitence which had begun to show itself in

Malvolti's face left it, and the more habitual one of cruel and hungry

sin returned as he inquired,--

"Did the Reverend Fathers remember the name of this man?"

The good monks hesitated as they saw the look in the inquirer's face;

but it was not their duty to conceal the truth from one who undoubtedly

had a right to be informed of it.

"It is our duty to practise forgiveness, even of the greatest injuries,

my son," one of them replied; "our blessed Lord has enjoined it, and

left us this as an example, that He has forgiven us. The man was called

il Cavaliere di Guardino."

The monks were relieved when they saw that their guest showed no emotion

upon hearing this name; only he said that he must go to Florence and

endeavour to find his sister.

But in truth there was in the man's mind, under a calm exterior, a

crisis of feeling not easy to describe. That the Cavaliere, his

familiar accomplice, in whose company and by whose aid he had himself so

often committed ravages upon the innocent, should, in the chance medley

of life, be selected to inflict this blow, affected him in a strange and

unaccustomed way, with the sense of a hitherto unrecognized justice at

work among the affairs of men. He was so utterly at the end of all his

hopes, life was so completely closed to him, and his soul was so sorely

stricken, in return for all his sins, in the only holy and sacred spot

that remained in his fallen nature,--his love and remembrance of his

sister,--that it seemed as if a revulsion of feeling might take place,

and that, in this depth and slough, there might appear, though dimly,

the possibility of an entrance into a higher life. He was better known

in Florence than in any city of Italy, except Rome; and if he went there

his violent death was almost certain, yet he determined to go. He

assured Inglesant afterwards, in relating the story, that his object was

not revenge, but that his desire was to seek out and rescue his sister.

Revenge doubtless brooded in his mind; but it was not the motive which

urged him onward.

He told Inglesant a strange story of his weary journey to Florence,

subsisting on charity from convent to convent; of his wandering up and

down in the beautiful city, worn out with hunger and fatigue, unknown,

and hiding himself from recognition. Amid the grim forms of vice that

haunted the shadowy recesses of the older parts of the city, in the

vaulted halls of deserted palaces and the massive fastnesses of

patrician strife, he flitted like a ghost, pale and despairing, urged on

by a restless desire that knew no respite. In these dens of a reckless

life, which had thrown off all restraint and decorum, he recognized many

whom he had known in other days, and in far different places. In these

gloomy halls, which had once been bright with youth and gaiety, but were

now hideous with poverty and crime,--in which the windows were darkened,

and the coloured ceilings and frescoed walls were blurred with smoke and

damp, and which were surrounded by narrow alleys which shut out the

light, and cut them off from all connection with the outer world,--he at

last heard of the Cavaliere. He was told that, flying from Rome after

his sister's marriage, he had been arrested for some offence in the

south of Italy, and those into whose hands he fell being old enemies,

and bearing him some grudge, he was thrown into prison, and even

condemned to the galleys; for, since the Papal election, he was no

longer able to claim even a shadow of protection from any of the great

families who had once been his patrons. After a short imprisonment he

was deputed, among others, to perform some such office as Inglesant had

seen undertaken by the slaves in Naples; for the plague had raged for

some summers past, with more or less intensity, in southern Italy.

While engaged in this work he had managed to make his escape, and had

not long since arrived in Florence, where he had kept himself closely

concealed. Malvolti was told the secret lurking-place where he might

probably be found.

"It was a brilliantly hot afternoon," continued Malvolti, speaking very

slowly; "you will wonder that I tell you this; but it was the last time

that I ever saw the sun. I remember the bright and burning pavements

even in the narrow alleys out of which I turned into the long and dark

entries and vaulted rooms. I followed some persons who entered before

me, and some voices which led me onward, into a long and lofty room in

the upper stories, at the farther end of which, before a high window

partially boarded up, some men were at play. As I came up the room, all

the other parts of which lay in deep shadow, the light fell strongly

upon a corner of the table, and upon the man who was casting the dice.

He had just thrown his chance, and he turned his head as I came up. He

appeared to be naked except his slippers and a cloak or blanket of white

cloth, with pale yellow stripes. His hair was closely cropped; his

face, which was pale and aquiline, was scarred and seamed with deep

lines of guilt and misery, especially around the eyes, from which

flashed a lurid light, and his lips were parted with a mocking and

Satanic laugh. His dark and massive throat and chest and his long and

sinewy arms forced their way out of the cloth with which he was wrapped,

and the lean fingers of both hands, which crossed each other

convulsively, were pointed exultantly to the deuce of ace which he had

thrown. The last sight I ever saw, the last sight my eyes will ever

behold until they open before the throne of God, was this demon-like

figure, standing out clear and distinct against the shadowy gloom in

which dim figures seemed to move, and the dice upon the table by his

side.

"He burst out into a wild and mocking laugh. 'Ah, Malvolti,' he said,

'you were ever unlucky at the dice. Come and take your chances in the

next main.'

"I know not what fury possessed me, nor why, at that moment especially,

this man's mocking villany inspired me with such headlong rage. I

remembered nothing but the crimes and wrongs which he had perpetrated.

I drew the dagger I carried beneath my clothes, and sprang upon him with

a cry as wild as his own. What happened I cannot tell. I seemed to

hear the laughter of fiends, and to feel the tortures of hell on every

side. Then all was darkness and the grave."

Overpowered as it seemed by the recollection of his sufferings, the

friar paused and sank upon his knees upon the pavement. The miserere

had died away, and a profound gloom, broken only by the flicker of

tapers, filled the Church. Inglesant was deeply moved,--less, however,

by sympathy with the man's story than by the consciousness of the

emotions which he himself experienced. It was scarcely possible to

believe that he was the same man who, some short years before, had

longed for this meeting with a bloodthirsty desire that he might take

some terrible vengeance upon his brother's murderer. Now he stood

before the same murderer, who not so long before had attempted to take

his life also with perhaps the very dagger of which he now spoke; and as

he looked down upon him, no feeling but that of pity was in his heart.

In the presence of the awful visitant who at that moment was filling the

city which lay around them with death and corruption, and before whose

eternal power the strife and enmity of man shrank away appalled and

silenced, it was not wonderful that inordinate hate should cease; but,

as he gazed upon the prostrate man before him, an awe-inspiring feeling

took possession of Inglesant's mind, which still more effectually

crushed every sentiment of anger or revenge. The significance of his

own half-conceived action was revealed to him, and he recognized, with

something approaching to terror, that the cause was no longer his, that

another hand had interposed to strike, and that his sword had spared the

murderer of his brother only that he might become the victim of that

divine vengeance which has said, "I will repay."

The friar rose from his knees. "I found myself in the monastery of the

Cappucines on the bank of the river, blind, and holding life by the

faintest thread. That I lived was a miracle. I had been struck with

some twenty wounds, and in mere wantonness my eyes had been pierced as I

lay apparently dead. I was thrown into the river which flowed by gloomy

vaults beneath the houses, and had been carried down by the stream to

the garden of a monastery where I was found. As I recovered strength

the monks thought that my reason would not survive. For days and nights

I lay bound, a raving madman. At last, when my pains subsided, and my

mind was a little calmed and subdued, I was sent out into the world and

begged my way from village to village, not caring where I went, my mind

an utter blank, filled only now and then with horrible sights and

dreams. I had no sense of God or Christ; no feeling but a blind

senseless despair and confusion. Thus I wandered on. I got at last a

boy to lead me and buy me food. I know not why I did not rather lie

down and die. Sometimes I did fling myself down, resolving not to move

again; but some love of life or some divine prompting caused me to rise

and wander on in my miserable path. At last, towards the end of the

year, I came to Rome, and wandered about the city seeking alms. The boy

who led me, and who had attached himself to me, God knows why, told me

all he saw and all that passed; and I, who knew every phase and incident

of Roman life, explained to him such things in a languid and indifferent

way; for I found no pleasure nor relief in anything. I grew more and

more miserable; our life was hard, and we were ill-fed, and the terrors

of my memory haunted my spirits, weakened and depressed for want of

food. The forms of those whom I had wronged, nay, murdered, lay before

me. They rose and looked upon me from every side. My misery was

greater than I could bear. I desired death, and tried to accomplish it,

but my hand always failed. I bought poison, but my boy watched me and

changed the drink. I did not know this, and expected death. It did not

come. Then suddenly, as I lay in a kind of trance, that morning in the

mountain pass came into my remembrance, and it flashed suddenly into my

mind that I was not my own; that no poison could hurt me, no sword slay

me; that the sword of vengeance was in the Lord's hand, and would work

His will alone. What greater punishment could be in store for me I knew

not, but stunned by this idea I ceased to strive and cry any more. I

waited in silence for the final blow; it came. The year had come nearly

to an end, and it was Christmas Eve. All day long, in the Churches in

Rome, had the services, the processions, the religious shows, gone on.

My boy and I had followed them one by one, and he had, in his boyish

way, told me all that he saw. The new Pope went in procession to St.

John di Laterano, with all the Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops, and

Bishops, all the nobility and courtiers, and an interminable length of

attendants, Switzers, soldiers, led horses, servants, pages, rich

coaches, litters, and people of every class, under triumphal arches,

with all excess of joy and triumph. As midnight drew on the streets were

as light as day. Every pageant became more gorgeous, every service more

sweet and ravishing, every sermon more passionate. I saw it all in my

mind's eye,--all, and much beside. I saw in every Church, lighted by

sacred tapers before the crucifix, the pageants and ceremonies that, in

every form and to every sense, present the story of the mystic birth, of

that divine fact that alone can stay the longing which, since men walked

the earth, they have uttered in every tongue, that the Deity would come

down and dwell with man. We had wandered through all the Churches, and

at last, wearied out, we reached the Capitol, and sank down beneath the

balusters at the top of the marble stairs. Close by, in the Ara Coeli,

the simple country people and the faithful whose hearts were as those of

little children, kneeling as the shepherds knelt upon the plains of

Bethlehem, saw the Christ-Child lying in a manger, marked out from

common childhood by a mystic light which shone from His face and form;

while the organ harmonies which filled the Church resigned their wonted

splendours, and bent for once to pastoral melodies, which, born amid the

rustling of sedges by the river brink, have wandered down through the

reed-music and festivals of the country people, till they grew to be the

most fitting tones of a religion which takes its aptest similes from the

vineyard and the flock. All over Rome the flicker of the bonfires

mingled with the starlight. I was blind, yet I saw much that would have

been hidden from me had I been able to see. I saw across the roofs

before me, the dome of the Pantheon and St. Peter's, and the long line

of the Vatican, and the round outline of St. Angelo in the light of the

waning moon. This I should have seen had I had my sight; but I saw

behind me now what otherwise I should not have seen--the Forum, and the

lines of arches and ruins, and beyond these the walks of the Aventine

and of the Coelian, with their vineyards and white convents, and tall

poplar and cypress trees. I saw beyond them the great Churches of the

Lateran and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, standing out from the green

country, pale and spectral in the light. To the left I saw Santa Maria

Maggiore, stately and gorgeous, facing the long streets of palaces and

courts, and the gardens and terraces of the Quirinale, all distinct and

clear in the mystic light. The white light covered the earth like a

shroud, and over the vault of the sky were traced, by the pale stars,

strange and obscure forms, as over the dome of St. Peter's at evening

when the Church is dim. A confused sound filled my ears, a sound of

chanting and of praise for that advent that brought peace to men, a

sound of innumerable passing feet, and in all the Churches and basilicas

I saw the dead Christs over the altars and the kneeling crowds around.

Suddenly it seemed to me that I was conscious of a general movement and

rush of feet, and that a strange and wild excitement prevailed in every

region of Rome. The Churches became emptied, the people pouring out

into the streets; the dead Christs above the altars faded from their

crosses, and the sacred tapers went out of their own accord; for it

spread through Rome, as in a moment, that a miracle had happened at the

Ara Coeli, and that the living Christ was come. From where I stood I

could see the throngs of people pouring through every street and lane,

and thronging up to the' Campadoglio and the stairs; and from the

distance and the pale Campagna, and San Paolo without the walls, and

from subterranean Rome, where the martyrs and confessors lie, I could

see strange and mystic shapes come sweeping in through the brilliant

light.

"He came down the steps of the Ara Coeli, and the sky was full of

starlike forms, wonderful and gracious; and all the steps of the Capitol

were full of people down to the square of the Ara Coeli, and up to the

statue of Aurelius on horseback above; and the summit of the Capitol

among the statues, and the leads of the palace Caffarelli, were full of

eager forms; for the starlight was so clear that all might see; and the

dead gods, and the fauns, and the satyrs, and the old pagans, that

lurked in the secret hiding-places of the ruins of the Caesars, crowded

up the steps out of the Forum, and came round the outskirts of the

crowd, and stood on the fallen pillars that they might see. And Castor

and Pollux, that stood by their unsaddled horses at the top of the

stairs, left them unheeded and came to see; and the Marsyas who stood

bound broke his bonds and came to see; and spectral forms swept in from

the distance in the light, and the air was full of Powers and

Existences, and the earth rocked as at the Judgment Day.

"He came down the steps into the Campadoglio, and He came to me. He was

not at all like the pictures of the saints; for He was pale, and worn,

and thin, as though the fight was not yet half over--ah no!--but through

this pale and worn look shone infinite power, and undying love, and

unquenchable resolve. The crowd fell back on every side, but when He

came to me He stopped. 'Ah!' He said, 'is it thou? What doest thou

here? Knowest thou not that thou art mine? Thrice mine--mine centuries

ago when I hung upon the cross on Calvary for such as thou--mine years

ago, when thou camest a little child to the font--mine once again, when,

forfeit by every law, thou wast given over to me by one who is a servant

and friend of mine. Surely, I will repay.' As He spoke, a shudder and

a trembling ran through the crowd, as if stirred by the breath of His

voice. Nature seemed to rally and to grow beneath Him, and heaven to

bend down to touch the earth. A healing sense of help and comfort, like

the gentle dew, visited the weary heart. A great cry and shout rose

from the crowd, and He passed on; but among ten thousand times ten

thousand I should know Him, and amid the tumult of a universe I should

hear the faintest whisper of His voice."

The friar stopped and looked at Inglesant with his darkened eyeballs, as

though he could read his looks. Inglesant gazed at him in silence.

That the man was crazed he had no doubt; but that his madness should

have taken this particular form appeared to his listener scarcely less

miraculous than if every word of his wonderful story had been true.

"Heard you nothing else?" he said at last.

An expression of something like trouble passed over the other's face.

"No," he said in a quieter voice; "by this time it was morning. The

artillery of St. Angelo went off. His Holiness sang mass, and all day

long was exposed the cradle of the Lord."

There was another pause which Inglesant scarcely knew how to break.

Then he said,--

"And have you heard nothing since of the Cavaliere?"

"He is in this neighbourhood," said Malvolti, "but I have not found him.

I wondered and was impatient, ignorant and foolish as I am; now I know

the reason. The Lord waited till you came. How could he be found

except by us both? We must lose no time, or it will be too late. How

did you know that he was here?"

Inglesant told him.

"It was the Lord's doing," said the friar, a light breaking over his

darkened face. "It was Capace. You remember, at Florence, the leader

of that extravagant frolic of the Carnival, who was dressed as a

corpse?"

"I remember," said Inglesant, "and the poor English lad who was killed."

"He is one of the Lord's servants," continued the friar, "whom He called

very late. I do not know that he was guilty of any particular sins, but

he was the heir of a poor family, and lived for many years in luxury and

excess. He was brought under the influence of Molinos's party, and

shortly after I had seen the Lord, he came to me to know whether he

should become a religious. I told him I thought there was a time of

trial and of sifting for the Lord's people at hand, and that I thought

the strongholds were the safest spots. He joined the order de Servi.

Not three weeks ago I was with him at Frescati, at the house of the

Cappucines, when I heard that the Cavaliere was here. You must have

seen him three or four days afterwards."

*CHAPTER XVI.*

The night after Inglesant had met the friar in Naples there was "the

sound of abundance of rain," and the "plague was stayed." As constantly

happened in the cities desolated by this mysterious pestilence, no

adequate reason could be perceived for its cessation. Some change in

the state of the atmosphere took place, and the sick did not die, at

least in the same proportion as formerly. This was the only indication

that the most acute observer could detect; but the change was

marvellously rapid. The moment that contact with the dead bodies became

less fatally infectious, help offered on all sides, tempted by the large

rewards. The dead rapidly disappeared from sight, and the city began to

resume something of its ordinary appearance. The terrors of the grave

vanished into air, and gloomy resolutions faded from the mind. The few

survivors of the devoted men who, throughout the heat of the conflict,

had remained at their posts were, many of them at least, forgotten and

overlooked; for their presence was an unpleasing reminder to those whose

conduct had been of a far more prudent and selfish sort. Those who had

fled returned into the city to look after their deserted homes, and to

re-open their shops. The streets and markets were once more gay with

wares. The friar was now as eager to leave Naples as he had before been

determined to remain. His sole object was to find the Cavaliere, and he

constantly insisted that no time was to be lost if they wished to see

him alive. They left Naples together; the friar mounted upon a mule

which Inglesant purchased for him.

Notwithstanding the friar's eagerness, their journey was slow, for he

was not able to resist the impulse to turn aside to help when any

appearance of distress or poverty called upon them for aid. Inglesant

was not impatient at this delay, nor at the erratic and apparently

meaningless course of their singular journey. The country was

delightful after the heavy rains, and seemed to rejoice, together with

its inhabitants, at the abatement of the plague. People who had

remained shut up in their houses in fear now appeared freely in the once

deserted roads. Doors were thrown open, and the voice of the lute and

of singing was heard again in the land. As for those who had passed

away, it was wonderful how soon their name was forgotten, as of "a dead

man out of mind;" and those who had come into comfortable inheritance of

fruit-closes, and olive-grounds and vineyards, and of houses of pleasure

in the fields, which, but for the pestilence, had never been theirs,

soon found it possible to reconcile themselves to the absence of the

dead.

For some time after leaving Naples the road lay through a richly

cultivated land, with long straight ditches on either side. Rows of

forest trees crossed the country, and shaded the small closes of

fruit-trees and vines. Here and there a wine tavern, or a few cottages,

or a village church, stopped them. At all of these the friar alighted

from his mule, and made inquiries for any who were ill or in distress.

In this way they came across a number of people of the peasant class,

and heard the story of their lives; and now and then a religious, or a

country signore, riding by on his mule or palfrey, stopped to speak with

them.

They had proceeded for many days through this cultivated country, and

had at last, after many turnings, reached that part of the road which

approaches the slopes of the Apennines about Frosinone. The path wound

among the hills, the slopes covered with chestnut trees, and the crags

crowned with the remains of Gothic castles. Fields of maize filled the

valleys, and lines of lofty poplars crossed the yellow corn. As the

road ascended, distant reaches of forest and campagna lay in bright

sunlight between the craggy rocks, and down the wooded glens cascades

fell into rapid streams spanned here and there by a half-ruined bridge.

At last they entered a deep ravine of volcanic tufa, much of which

cropped out from the surface, cold and bare. Between these sterile

rocks laurels forced their way, and spread out their broad and brilliant

leaves. Creeping plants hung in long and waving festoons, and pines and

forest trees of great size crowned the summits. Here and there

sepulchral excavations were cut in the rock, and more than one

sarcophagus, carved with figures in relief, stood by the wayside.

The air in these ravines was close and hot, and sulphurous streams

emitted an unpleasant odour as they rode along. Inglesant felt oppressed

and ill. The valley of the Shadow of Death, out of which he had come

into the cool pastures and olive-yards, had left upon the mind an

exaltation of feeling rather than terror; and in the history of the

friar, through the course of which traces of a devised plan penetrated

the confusion of a disordered brain, the gracious prediction of Molinos

seemed to promise fulfilment. The supreme effort of Divine mercy surely

is that which shapes the faltering and unconscious actions of man into a

beneficent and everlasting work.

But the very clearness and calm of this transcendental air produced a

wavering of the spiritual sense; and the companionship of a blind

enthusiast, who, from the lowest depth of reckless sin, had suddenly

attained a height of religious fervour, did not tend to reduce the fever

of his thoughts. The scenes and forms of death with which he had been

familiar in Naples returned again and again before his eyes, and his old

disease again tormented him; so that once more he saw strange figures

and shapes walking by the wayside. These images of a disordered fancy

jostled and confused his spiritual perceptions. He felt wearied by

those thoughts and desires which had formerly been dear to him, and the

ceaseless reiteration of the friar's enthusiastic conceptions jarred and

irritated him more than he liked to confess. The brain of the blind

man, unoccupied by the sights of this world, was full of visions of a

mystic existence, blended and confused with such incidents and stories

of earth as he had heard along the way. With such phantasmal

imaginations, he filled Inglesant's ears.

Proceeding in this manner, they came to a place where the ravine,

opening out a little, exposed a distant view of the Campagna, with its

aqueducts and ruined tombs. At the opening of the valley stood one of

those isolated rocks so strange to English eyes, yet so frequently seen

in the paintings of the old masters, crowned with the ruins of a Temple,

and fringed with trees of delicate foliage, poplars and pines. At the

foot of the rock an arch of ruined brickwork, covered with waving grass

and creepers, spanned the road with a wide sweep, and on the opposite

side a black sulphurous pool exhaled a constant vapour. Masses of

strange, nameless masonry, of an antiquity dateless and undefined,

bedded themselves in the rocks, or overhung the clefts of the hills; and

out of a great tomb by the wayside, near the arch, a forest of laurel

forced its way, amid delicate and graceful frieze-work, moss-covered and

stained with age.

In this strangely desolate and ruinous spot, where the fantastic shapes

of nature seem to mourn in weird fellowship with the shattered strength

and beauty of the old Pagan art-life, there appeared unexpectedly signs

of modern dwelling. The base of the precipitous rock for some distance

above the road, was concealed by a steep bank of earth, the crumbling

ruin and dust of man and of his work. At the top of this bank was one

of those squalid erections, so common in Italy, where, upon a massive

wall of old brickwork, embedded in the soil, a roof of straw affords

some kind of miserable shelter. Some attempt had been made to wall in

the space covered by this roof, and a small cross, reared from the

gable, and a bell beneath a penthouse of wood, seemed to show that the

shed had been used for some ecclesiastical purpose. At the bottom of

the slope upon which this structure was placed, and on the other side of

the ruined arch and of the road, there stood, near to the tomb, a very

small hut, also thatched, and declared to be a tavern by its wine-bush.

At the door of this hut, as Inglesant and the friar rode up, stood a man

in a peasant's dress, in an attitude of perplexity and nervous dread. A

long streak of light from the western sun penetrated the ruined arch,

and shone upon the winding road, and against the blaze of light, rock

and arch and hanging woods stood out dark and lowering in the delicate

air.

The dazzling light, the close atmosphere of the valley, and the fumes of

the sulphurous lake, affected Inglesant's brain so much that he could

scarcely see; but they did not appear to disturb the friar. He

addressed the man as they came up, and understanding more from his own

instinct than from the few words that Inglesant spoke that the man was

in trouble, he said,--

"You seem in some perplexity, my son. Confide in me, that I may help

you."

As the man hesitated to reply, Inglesant said, "What is that building on

the hill?"

"It is a house for lepers," said the peasant.

"Are you the master of this tavern?" said Inglesant.

"No, Santa Madre," replied the man. "The mistress of the inn has fled.

This is the case, Padre," he continued, turning to the friar. "I was

hired a week or so ago at Ariano to bring a diseased man here, who was a

leper; but I did not know that he was a leper who was stricken with the

plague. I brought him in my cart, and a terrible journey I had with

him. When I had brought him here, and the plague manifestly appeared

upon him, all the lepers fled, and forsook the place. The Padrona, who

kept this tavern upon such custom as the peasants who brought food to

sell to the lepers brought her, also fled. I stayed a day or two to

help the wretched man--they told me that he was a gentleman--till I

could stay no longer, such was his condition, and I fled. But, my

Father, I have a tender heart, and I came back to-day, thinking that the

holy Virgin would never help me if I left a wretched man to die

alone--I, who only know where and in what state he is. I spoke to one

or two friars to come and help me, but they excused themselves. I came

alone. But when I arrived here my courage failed me, and I dared not go

up. I know the state he was in two days ago; he must be much more

terrible to look at now. Signore," concluded the man, turning to

Inglesant with an imploring gesture, "I dare not go up."

"Do you know this man's name?" said Inglesant.

"Yes; they told me his name."

"What is it?"

"Il Cavaliere di Guardino."

At the name of his wife's brother, Inglesant started, and would have

dismounted, but checked himself in the stirrup, struck by the action of

the friar. He had thrown his arms above his head with a gesture of

violent excitement, his sightless eyeballs extended, his face lighted

with an expression of rapturous astonishment and delight.

"Who?" he exclaimed. "Who sayest thou? Guardino a leper, and stricken

with the plague! Deserted and helpless, is he? too terribly disfigured

to be looked upon? The lepers flee him, sayest thou? Holy and blessed

Lord Jesus, this is Thy work! He is my mortal foe--the ravisher of my

sister--the destroyer of my own sight! Let me go to him! I will

minister to him--I will tend him! Let me go!"

He dismounted from his mule, and, with the wonderful instinct he seemed

to possess, turned towards the rock, and began to scramble up the hill,

blindly and with difficulty, it is true, but still with sufficient

correctness to have reached the ruin without help. There was, to

Inglesant, something inexpressibly touching and pitiful in his hurried

and excited action, and his struggling determination to accomplish the

ascent.

The peasant would have overtaken him to prevent his going up, probably

misdoubting his intention. Inglesant checked him.

"Do not stop him," he said. "He is a holy man, and will do what he

says. I will go with him. Stay here with my horse."

"You do not know to what you are going, signore," said the peasant,

looking at Inglesant with a shudder; "let him go alone. _He cannot

see_."

Inglesant shook his head, and, his brain still slightly dizzy and

confused, hastened after the friar, and assisted him to climb the rocky

bank. When they had reached the entrance to the hut the friar went

hastily in, Inglesant following him to the doorway.

It was a miserable place, and nearly empty, the lepers having carried

off most of their possessions with them. On a bed of straw on the

farther side, beneath the rock, lay what Inglesant _felt_ to be the man

of whom he was in search. What he saw it is impossible to describe

here. The leprosy and the plague combined had produced a spectacle of

inexpressible loathing and horror, such as nothing but absolute duty

would justify the description of. The corruption of disease made it

scarcely possible to recognize even the human form. The poisoned air of

the shed was such that a man could scarcely breathe it and live.

The wretched man was rolling on his couch, crying out at intervals,

groaning and uttering oaths and curses. Without the slightest faltering

the friar crossed the room (it is true he could not see), and kneeling

by the bedside, which he found at once, he began, in low and hurried

accents, to pour into the ear of the dying man the consoling sound of

that Name, which alone, uttered under heaven, has power to reach the

departing soul, distracted to all beside. Startled by the sound of a

voice close to his ear, for his sight also was gone, the sick man ceased

his outcries and lay still.

Never ceasing for a moment, the friar continued, in a rapid and fervent

whisper, to pour into his ear the tenderness of Jesus to the vilest

sinner, the eternal love that will reign hereafter, the sweetness and

peace of the heavenly life. The wretched man lay perfectly still,

probably not knowing whether this wonderful voice was of earth or

heaven; and Inglesant, his senses confused by the horrors of the room,

knelt in prayer in the entrance of the hut.

The fatal atmosphere of the room became more and more dense. The voice

of the friar died slowly away; his form, bending lower over the bed,

faded out of sight; and there passed across Inglesant's bewildered brain

the vision of Another who stood beside the dying man. The halo round

His head lighted all the hovel, so that the seamless coat He wore, and

the marks upon His hands and feet, were plainly seen, and the pale

alluring face was turned not so much upon the bed and upon the monk as

upon Inglesant himself, and the unspeakable glance of the Divine eyes

met his.

A thrill of ecstasy, terrible to the weakened system as the sharpest

pain, together with the fatal miasma of the place, made a final rush and

grasp upon his already reeling faculties, and he lost all consciousness,

and fell senseless within the threshold of the room.

When he came to himself he had been dragged out of the hut by the

peasant, who had ventured at last to ascend the hill. The place was

silent; the Cavaliere was dead, and the friar lay across the body in a

sort of trance. They brought him out and laid him on the grass,

thinking for some time that he was dead also. By and by he opened his

sightless eyes, and asked where he was; but he still moved as in a

trance. He seemed to have forgotten what had happened; and, with the

death of the Cavaliere, the great motive which had influenced him, and

which, while it lasted, seemed to have kept his reason from utterly

losing its balance, appeared to be taken away. He had lived only to

meet and bless his enemy, and this having been accomplished, all reason

for living was gone.

Inglesant and the peasant dug a grave with some implements they found in

the tavern, and hastily buried the body, the friar pronouncing a

benediction. The latter performed this office mechanically, and seemed

almost unconscious as to what was passing. His very figure and shape

appeared changed, and presented but the shadow of his former self; his

speech was broken and unintelligible. Inglesant gave the peasant money,

which seemed to him to be wealth, and they mounted and rode silently

away.

At Venafro, where they found a monastery of the Cappucines, they stayed

some days, Inglesant expecting that his companion would recover

something of his former state of health. But it soon became apparent

that this would not be the case; the friar sank rapidly into a condition

of mental unconsciousness, and the physicians told Inglesant that,

although he might linger for weeks, they believed that a disease of the

brain was hastening him towards the grave. Inglesant was impatient to

return to the Castello; and, leaving the friar to the care of the

brothers of his own order, he resumed his journey.

Was it a strange coincidence, or the omniscient rule and will of God,

that, at the moment Inglesant lay insensible before the hut, the plague

had done its work in the home that he had left? The old Count died

first, then some half of the servants, finally, in the deserted house, a

little child lay dead upon its couch, and beside it, on the marble

floor, lay Lauretta--dead--uncared for.

It was the opinion of Martin Luther that visions of the Saviour, which

he himself had seen, were delusions of Satan for the bewildering of the

Papists; and there is a story of a monk who left the Beatific Vision

that he might take his service in the choir.

Malvolti died at Venafro a short time after Inglesant had left him.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

After the narration of the events just detailed the papers from which

the life of Mr. Inglesant has hitherto been compiled become much less

minute and personal in character; and when the narrative is resumed, a

considerable period of time has evidently elapsed. It is stated that

some time after the death of his wife Mr. Inglesant returned to Rome,

and assumed a novice's gown in some religious order, but to which of the

religious bodies he attached himself is doubtful. It might be thought

that he would naturally become a member of the Society of Jesus; but

there is reason to conclude that the rule which he intended to embrace

was either that of the Benedictines or the Carmelites. As will soon

appear, he proceeded no farther than the noviciate, and this uncertainty

therefore is of little consequence.

It must be supposed that the distress caused by the death of his wife

and child, and by his absence from them at the last, was one motive

which caused Inglesant to seek in Rome spiritual comfort and

companionship from the Spanish priest Molinos, in whose society he had

before found so much support and relief. It was thought, indeed, by

many beside Inglesant, amid the excitement which the spread of the

method of devotion taught by this man had caused, that a dawn of purer

light was breaking over spiritual Rome. God seemed to have revealed

Himself to thousands in such a fashion as to make their past lives and

worship seem profitless and unfruitful before the brightness and peace

that was revealed; and the lords of His heritage seemed for a time to be

willing that this light should shine. It appeared for a moment as if

Christendom were about to throw off its shackles, its infant swaddling

clothes, in which it had been so long wrapped, and, acknowledging that

the childhood of the Church was past, stand forth before God with her

children around her, no longer distrusted and enslaved, but each

individually complete, fellow-citizens with their mother of the

household of God. The unsatisfactory rotation of formal penitence and

sinful lapse, of wearisome devotion and stale pleasures, had given place

to an enthusiasm which believed that, instead of ceremonies and bowing

in outer courts, the soul was introduced into heavenly places, and saw

God face to face. A wonderful experience, in exchange for lifeless

formality and rule, of communion with the Lord, with nothing before the

believer, as he knelt at the altar, save the Lord Himself, day by day,

unshackled by penance and confession as heretofore. Thousands of the

best natures in Rome attached themselves to this method; it was approved

by a Jesuit Father, the Pope was known to countenance it, and his

nephews were among its followers. The bishops were mostly in favour of

it, and in the nunneries of Rome the directors and confessors were

preaching it; and the nuns, instead of passing their time over their

beads and "Hours," were much alone, engaged in the exercise of mental

prayer.

It would indeed be difficult to estimate the change that would have

passed over Europe if this one rule of necessary confession before every

communion had been relaxed; and in the hope that some increased freedom

of religious thought would be secured, many adopted the new method who

had no great attachment to the doctrine, nor to the undoubted

extravagances which the Quietists, in common with other mystics, were

occasionally guilty of, both in word and deed. It cannot be denied, and

it is the plea that will be urged in defence of the action of the

Jesuits, that freedom of thought as well as of devotion was the motive

of numbers who followed the teaching of Molinos. That free speculation

and individual growth could be combined with loyalty to acts and

ceremonies, hallowed by centuries of recollection and of past devotion,

was a prospect sufficiently attractive to many select natures. Some, no

doubt, entered into this cause from less exalted motives--a love of fame

and a desire to form a party, and to be at the head of a number of

followers; but even among those whose intentions were not so lofty and

spiritual as those of Molinos probably were, by far the greater number

were actuated by a desire to promote freedom of thought and of worship

among Churchmen.

But it was only for a moment that this bright prospect opened to the

Church.

The Jesuits and Benedictines began to be alarmed. Molinos had

endeavoured to allay the suspicion attached to his teaching, and

diminish the aversion that the Jesuits felt towards him, by calling his

book "The Spiritual Guide," and by constantly enjoining the necessity of

being in all things under the direction of a religious person; but this

was felt to point more at the submission to general council than to

coming always to the priest, as to the minister of the sacrament of

penance, before every communion; especially as Molinos taught that the

only necessary qualification for receiving was the being free from

mortal sin.

Suddenly, when the reputation of this new society appeared to be at its

height, Molinos was arrested, and Father Esparsa, the Jesuit whose

approbation had appeared before "The Spiritual Guide," disappeared.

What became of the latter was not known, but it was generally supposed

that he was "shut up between four walls;" and at any rate he appeared no

more in Rome. In the midst of the excitement consequent on these events

seventy more persons, all of the highest rank,--Count Vespiniani and his

lady, the Confessor of Prince Borghese, Father Appiani of the Jesuits,

and others equally well-known,--were arrested in one day, and before the

month was over more than two hundred persons crowded the prisons of the

Inquisition.

The consternation was excessive, when a method of devotion which had

been extolled throughout Italy for the highest sanctity to which mortals

could aspire was suddenly found to be heretical, and the chief promoters

of it hurried from their homes and from their friends, shut up in

prison, and in peril of perpetual confinement, if not death. The arrest

of Father Appiani was the most surprising. He was accounted the most

learned priest in the Roman College, and was arrested on a Sunday in

April as he came from preaching. After this no one could guess on whom

the blow would fall next. The Pope himself, it was reported, had been

examined by the Jesuits. The imminence of the peril brought strength

with it. The prisoners, it was whispered, were steady and resolute, and

showed more learning than their examiners. Their friends who were still

at large, recovering from their first panic, assumed a bold front. Many

letters were written to the Inquisitors, advising them to consider well

what they did to their prisoners, and assuring them that their interests

would be maintained even at the cost of life. Nor did these protests

end here. As soon as possible after the arrests a meeting was held at

Don Agostino's palace in the Piazza Colonna, to which ladies were

summoned as well as men. There, in a magnificent saloon, amid gilding

and painting and tapestry, whose splendour was subdued by softened

colour and shaded light, were met the elite of Rome. There were ladies

in rich attire, yet in whose countenances was seen that refinement of

beauty which only religion and a holy life can give--ladies, who, while

appearing in public in the rank which belonged to them, were capable in

private of every self-denial, trained in the practice of devotion and

acts of mercy. There were nuns of the Conception and of the Palestrina,

distressed and mortified at being compelled to return to their beads and

to their other abandoned forms. There were present Cereri,

Cardinal-Bishop of Como; Cardinals Carpegna and Cigolini, and Cardinal

Howard of England (the noblest and most spiritually-minded of the Sacred

College), Absolini and Coloredi, Cardinals and Fathers of the Oratory,

and Cardinal D'Estrees. Petrucci himself, the most prominent advocate of

the Quietist doctrine, was in the room, though incognito, it not being

generally known that he was in Rome. There were present many Fathers of

the Oratory, men of intellect, refinement, and blameless lives; Don

Livio, Duke di Ceri, the Pope's nephew was there, and the Prince

Savelli, many of the highest nobility, and above a hundred gentlemen,

all of whom, by their presence, might be supposed to prove their

attachment to the teaching of Molinos, their superiority to the sordid

motives of worldly prudence and pleasure, and their devotion to

spiritual instincts and desires. It would be difficult to imagine

scenes more unlike each other; yet, strange as it may appear, it was

nevertheless true that this brilliant company, attired in the height of

the existing mode, sparkling with jewels and enriched with chastened

colour, might not unfitly be considered the successor of those hidden

meetings of a few slaves in Nero's household, who first, in that

wonderful city, believed in the crucified Nazarene.

The addresses were commenced by the Duke di Ceri, who spoke of the grief

caused by the arrest of their friends, and of the exertions that had

been made on their behalf. He was followed by other of the great nobles

and cardinals, who all spoke in the same strain. All these speeches

were delivered in somewhat vague and guarded terms, and as one after

another of the speakers sat down, a sense of incompleteness and

dissatisfaction seemed to steal over the assembly, as though it were

disappointed of something it most longed to hear. The meeting was

assured, over and over again, that extreme measures would not be taken

against those in prison; that their high rank and powerful connections

would save them; the Duke di Ceri had expressly said that he believed

his relation and servant, Count Vespiniani, and his lady would soon be

released. The fact was, though the Duke did not choose, to state it

publicly, that they had been proscribed solely from information gained

at the confessional; and this having been much talked of, the Jesuits

had resolved, rather than bring any further odium on the sacrament of

confession, to discharge both the lady and her husband at once. But,

though all this might be true, there was something that remained

unsaid--something that was filling all hearts.

What was to be the spiritual future of those assembled? Was this gate of

Paradise and the Divine Life to be for ever closed, and was earth and

all its littleness once more to be pressed upon them without denial, and

hypocrisy and the petty details of a formal service once more to be the

only spiritual food of their souls? Must they, if they resolved to

escape this spiritual death, quit this land and this glorious Church,

and seek, in cold and distant lands, and alien Churches, the freedom

denied by the tyranny of the leaders of their own? These thoughts

filled all minds, and yet none had given them utterance, nor was it

surprising that it should be so. Select and splendid as that assembly

was, no one knew for certain that his neighbour was not a spy. As was

known soon after, Cardinal D'Estrees, who sat there so calm and

lofty-looking, furnished the principal evidence against Molinos,

swearing that, being his intimate friend, he knew that the real meaning

of his friend's printed words was that heretical one of which, in fact,

Molinos had never dreamt. It was no wonder that the speeches were

cautious and vague.

At last Don Agostino rose, and in a quiet and unaffected tone, requested

a hearing for his very dear friend, the Cavaliere di San Georgio, one

well known to most of them, whose character was known to all.

A murmur of satisfaction ran through the room, and the audience settled

itself down to listen, as though they knew that the real business of the

day was about to begin. Inglesant rose in his seat immediately behind

his host. He was evidently dressed carefully, with a view to the effect

to be produced upon a fastidious and ultra-refined assembly. He wore a

cassock of silk, and the gown of a Benedictine made of the finest cloth.

His head was tonsured, and his hair cut short. He had round his neck a

band of fine cambric, and at his wrists ruffles of rich lace; and he

wore on his hand a diamond of great value. He had, indeed, to one who

saw his dress and not his face, entirely the look of a petit-maitre, and

even--what is more contemptible still--of a petit-maitre priest; yet, as

he rose in his seat, there was not a man in all that assembly who would

have given a silver scudo for the chances of his life.

His romantic and melancholy story, the death of his wife and child, his

assumption of the religious life, and, above all, his friendship with

Molinos, were known to all; it seemed to many a fitting close to a life

of such vicissitude, that at this crisis he should sacrifice himself in

the spiritual cause that was dear to all.

He had his speech written before him, every word carefully considered

and arranged by himself and some of the first masters of style then in

Rome. He began deliberately and distinctly, so that every word was

heard, though he spoke in a low voice.

After deprecating the judgment of the assembly upon the artless and

unpolished words he was about to address to it, and excusing his

rashness in consenting to speak in such an assembly at all, he said,--

"The words of the noble and august personages who have already spoken

have left me little to say. Nothing is necessary to be added to their

wise and reverend advice. All that remains for us to do is to attempt

to carry out in action what they have so well counselled. Our first

object, our first duty, is the safety of our friends. But, when this is

happily accomplished--as, under such leaders and protected by such

names, how can we doubt that it will be?--there are many among us who,

with sinking hearts and hushed voices, are inquiring, 'What will come

next?'"

He paused, and looked up for a moment, and a murmur of encouragement ran

through the room.

"I am not mistaken when I say that in this room, and also in Rome, are

many hearts which, within the last few years, and by the teaching of him

for whom night and day the prayers of the Church ascend to heaven, have

found a peace and a blessedness before unknown; many who have breathed

celestial air, and walked the streets of God. Nor am I mistaken--my

heart and your presence tell me I am not mistaken--when I say that many

are asking themselves, 'How can they renounce this heavenly birthright?

How can they live without this Divine intercourse, which they have found

so sweet--which the purest saints have hallowed with their approval?

How can they live without God who have seen Him face to face?' And many

are asking themselves, 'Must we leave the walks of men, and the Churches

where the saints repose, and wander into the wilderness--into byways

among the wild places of heresy, since the Church seems to close the

gates upon this way which is their life?' I risk the deserved censure

of this august assembly when I venture to advise--yet even this I am

willing to do, if I may serve any--and I venture to advise, No. I

myself was born in another country, amid contending forms of faith. I

believe that, in the sacrificial worship of our most Holy Church, room

is amply given for the perfection of the Contemplative State; and that

such lofty devotion can find no fitter scene than the altar of the Lord.

As we may hope that, at some future time, the whole Church may come to

this holy state, and be raised above many things which, though now

perhaps necessary, may in a higher condition fall away; so, if by our

continuing in this posture we may hasten such a happy time, this

doubtless will be the path Heaven wishes us to walk in. But"--he

paused, and the whole assembly listened with breathless attention--"if

such is to be our course, it is evident that an understanding is

necessary of adjustment between ourselves and the Fathers of the Holy

Office and of the Society of Jesus--an adjustment by which a silence

must be allowed our Faith--a silence which, for the sake of those

amongst us whose consciences are the most refined and heaven-taught,

must be understood to imply dissent to much that has lately been acted

and taught. We must understand that this exertion of authority is aimed

only at the open teaching of doctrines in which we still believe, and

which are still dear to us; and that liberty is allowed our faith so

long as we observe a discreet silence--a liberty which shall extend as

far as to admission to the Sacrament without previous confession. On

this point surely it is necessary that we have a clearer understanding."

Inglesant stopped, and applause, sufficiently loud and unmistakably

sincere, showed that a large proportion of the assembly approved of what

had been said.