WITHOUT AND WITHIN.
Not long after Lucius had quitted that spot, there came to it a single
horseman, slowly riding towards the city of Seville. The cavalier was
richly attired in green and silver; a broad scarlet scarf was wound
round his waist, and its fringed end hung gracefully over his
shoulder. His feet, cased in high boots, rested on stirrups of
peculiar shape, designed from their size and strength to act as a
protection to the rider. A Spanish sombrero shaded the cavalier's
brow, and his hand grasped a sharp spear. The horseman was Alcala de
Aguilera, in full fico as a picador, bound for the Plaza de Toros.
But, save in costume, the young Spaniard had nothing in common with
the bull-fighter by profession; Alcala's face and form were both in
strong contrast to those of the low-bred favourite of the Coliseo. The
form was tall and slight, and conveyed no impression of possessing
great physical strength. The pale intellectual countenance, with its
delicately-formed features, suggested the idea of a student or poet,
rather than that of a bold picador as dead to fear as to mercy. The
expression on those features was that of intense melancholy, and
formed but too faithful an index to the feelings of the heart which
beat beneath the folds of that brilliant scarf.
Alcala was sensible that he had committed an act of the greatest
folly. He had ventured all--his sister's peace of mind, his family's
comfort, his own life--for a bubble that was not worth the grasping,
even were it within his reach. Alcala was not one to care for the
applause of a mob; nay, his proud, reserved nature shrank sensitively
from the idea of appearing to court it. The greatest success in the
common circus would be rather a disgrace than an honour to an
Aguilera; he could not raise but degrade himself by competing for
popular favour with professional picadors.
Nor had Alcala the incitement of passion to impel him onwards in his
perilous career. His admiration of the governor's daughter had been
but a passing fancy, a homage paid to mere beauty; it had no strong
hold on his soul. The discovery of Antonia's heartlessness and selfish
pride had changed that admiration into something almost resembling
contempt. Alcala contrasted Antonia with Inez, the vain selfish beauty
with the loving, self-forgetting woman, and felt much as did the
knight of old who scornfully flung at the feet of his lady the glove
which she had bidden him bring from the arena in which wild beasts
were contending.
"Were I offered the hand of Antonia de Rivadeo," mused Aguilera, "I
would not now accept it, though she should bring as her dowry all
Andalusia!"
Thus even in success there was nothing to attract the young Spaniard.
But Alcala had scarcely any hope of success; and if the brighter side
of the picture was but dull, the darker was gloomy indeed. Alcala had
not frequented bull-fights; the sport was little to his taste, though
he did not regard it with all the horror and disgust which he would
have felt had he been brought up in England. But though the cavalier
had not been frequently seen at the Plaza de Toros, he had often
enough been a spectator of the scenes acted in the circus to know well
what dangers attend the contest with a furious bull, and how
absolutely essential to the safety of a picador is skill in the use of
his weapon. Such skill could only be acquired by practice, and until
this time Alcala had never handled a spear. In the grasp of the young
cavalier it felt unwieldy and cumbrous. He was as little likely to use
it effectually, as he would have been to climb to the mast-head of a
vessel in the midst of a storm, having never had nautical training.
Superstition, from which Alcala was not perfectly free, although far
more enlightened than most of his countrymen, tended to deepen the
impression on his mind that he was riding to his destruction. When
Alcala had been very young, his mother had consulted an old Gitana,
famed for her skill in prognostications, as to the future fate of her
boy. The child had never forgotten the weird appearance of the old
wrinkled hag, nor the words of her mumbled reply: "He will die in his
prime a violent death, and many shall look on at his fall." The
warning recurred to Alcala's memory with almost the force of prophecy,
now that he appeared so likely to meet such a fate as had been thus
foretold.
Then, to think on the position in which his death would leave his
family made Alcala de Aguilera writhe with mental torture. What would
become of his aged parent, widowed and imbecile--what would become of
his gentle loving sister, if their one prop were taken away? They had
already parted with most of the relics left of his grandfather's
wealth; not an acre which had once belonged to the estates of the
Aguileras remained to them now. The mansion in Seville was out of
repair, and situated in a now unfashionable quarter; should the ruined
family be driven to part with their home, the sale of the house would
bring but temporary relief to their need. It was not without a sharp
pang that Alcala thought even of Teresa, with all her faults so loving
and faithful a retainer, and revolved the probability of her ending
her long life of service by becoming a beggar in Seville!
And it was his madness that had done all. He was ruthlessly
sacrificing all who loved him, all whom he loved, to the Moloch of his
own pride! Alcala, when tortured by such reflections, again and again
almost resolved to break his fatal engagement, and make some excuse
for not entering the circus. But the sneers of his acquaintance, the
scoffs of his rivals, the yells of a disappointed mob, were harder to
be encountered than the charge of a savage bull. Alcala had not the
moral courage to face them. He could not endure to live on to be
taunted as the foreign manufacturer's clerk, who with the estates of
his ancestors had also lost all their courage and spirit. There was
but one thing (and that thing the cavalier lacked)--the constraining
power of faith and love--that could have enabled the Spaniard to
throw down and trample under foot that Moloch of pride.
But worse even than fears for his family, worse than the anticipation
of a violent death for himself, was the awful darkness which to Alcala
hung over the future beyond the grave! To die was to him as a leap
into chaos! Alcala was, as has been observed, more enlightened than
many Spaniards: he had used the taper-gleams of man's knowledge; but
of clear light from Heaven he had none. Alcala had read enough to make
him loosen his hold on the vain superstitions of the Church in which
he had been reared, but not enough to make him grasp any firm hope in
their place. The Spaniard did not believe that a priest could absolve
him from sin, therefore he felt that those sins were yet unforgiven.
He could not ease his conscience by repeating Latin prayers or
reciting a given number of penitential psalms, therefore his
conscience remained oppressed. The cavalier had no faith in prescribed
penance, purchased masses, or confessions to man, as means of
propitiating One who was to him indeed an "unknown God"; where then
was he to find peace? What was to assure Alcala that, if he gasped out
his last breath that day in the circus, he might not be but exchanging
the death agony for torments infinitely more terrible, because they
would never be closed by death? The state of mind of the cavalier
might, with little alteration, be described in the words of the
poet:--
"Before him tortures which the soul may dare,
But doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear,
Yet deeply feels a single cry would shame
To valour's praise his last, his dearest claim.
The life he lost below--denied above.
....*....*....*....*
A more than doubtful Paradise, his heaven
Of earthly hope, his loved one from him riven.
These were the thoughts that [Spaniard] must sustain
And govern pangs surpassing mortal pain,
And these sustained he, boots it well or ill,
Since not to sink beneath is something still."
In the anguish of his spirit the mind of Alcala reverted again and
again to Lucius Lepine. The Spaniard was of course aware that his
English companion held views of religion very different from those
adopted by the Roman Catholic Church. Alcala had secretly wished to
know more of these Protestant views, and now the wish became intense
when it was too late to gratify it. Alcala thought his English friend
the most upright and highminded man with whom he had ever met, and was
acute enough to distinguish that highmindedness from pride. The
Spaniard saw that Lepine had a loftier standard of duty than those
around him, and asked himself whence had that standard been drawn.
Alcala had never indeed heard his friend converse on the topic of
Divinity; but in many things, some of them trifling in themselves,
the observant eye of the cavalier had seen that his companion was
guided by a sense of religion. No profane word ever crossed the lips
of Lepine; he was pure in his life; he reverenced the Sabbath in a way
that appeared novel and strange to Alcala, but which the Spaniard
could not but respect.
And yet this noble-hearted, conscientious Englishman was one whom the
Romish priests would denounce as a heretic doomed to perdition! "How
strange," mused Alcala, "that from the root of error should spring a
tree bearing fruits so fair!" The Spaniard had yearned for a clearer
knowledge of that faith which was branded as worse than infidelity,
and which yet could produce such effects. He would fain have
questioned Lucius on the subject, but pride and reserve kept him
silent.
Once only had the ice been slightly broken. Lucius had been led to
allude in conversation to the death of his father, who, when cruising
in the Pacific, had been struck dead by a flash of lightning. It was a
painful subject, and one on which he rarely touched; but the two
friends were together alone under the quiet moonlight, and there had
been more of interchange of thought between them than there had ever
been before.
"It must have embittered your trial," Alcala had observed, "that your
father had no time for preparation for death--no time to receive the
last rites of his Church." Greatly had the Spaniard been struck by his
companion's reply, "No; for my father had made his peace with God long
before." Not a shadow of doubt had darkened the countenance of the
Protestant as he uttered these words; Lepine had looked as fully
assured of the happiness of his parent as if he had himself seen him
carried by angels into the skies. Alcala could not utter the question
which trembled on his lips, "Have you then no fear of the purgatorial
pains which, as our priests tell us, are needed to purify even the
good?" That question was answered, ere it was asked, by the peace--the
more than peace--which shone in the eyes of Lucius.
"What would not I give," thought the unhappy Alcala, as he rode
towards Seville, "to know on what basis rested that assurance of hope
which evidently made the Protestant look upon sudden death but as a
step into glory! Lepine's father had 'made his peace with God long
before!' How had he made his peace; how could he know that his sins
were forgiven, and that he might stand without trembling before the
awful judgment-seat of his God?"