ground. "Christ has not called me yet," he answered in a lower tone.
There was a silence; then he resumed: "Turn now to the other side.
Would you change, even this hour, with Gonzales de Munebrãga? But take
him from his wealth, and his pomp, and his sinful luxuries, all defiled
with blood, and what remains for him? Everlasting fire, prepared for
the devil and his angels."
"Everlasting fire!" Gonsalvo repeated, as if the thought pleased him.
"Leave him in God's hand. It is a stronger hand than yours, Don
Gonsalvo."
"Everlasting fire! I would send him there to-night."
"And whither would you send your own sinful soul?"
"God might pardon, though the Church cursed."
"Possibly. But to enter God's heaven you need something besides pardon."
"What?" asked Gonsalvo, half wearily, half incredulously.
"'Holiness; without which no man can see the Lord.'"
"Holiness?" Gonsalvo questioned, as if the word was strange to him, and
he attached no meaning to it.
"Yes," Carlos went on, with intense and ever increasing earnestness;
"unless, even from that passionate heart of yours, revenge and hatred
are banished, you can _never_ see God, never come where--"
"Hold thy peace, trifler!" Gonsalvo interrupted with angry impatience.
"Too long have I tarried, listening to thine idle talk. Priests and
women are content with words; brave men _act_. Farewell to thee!"
"One word more, only one." Carlos drew near and laid his hand on his
cousin's arm. "Nay, you _shall_ listen to me. Seemeth it to you a thing
incredible that that heart of yours can be changed and softened to a
love like His who prayed on the cross for his murderers? Yet it can be.
_He_ can do it. He gives pardon, holiness, peace. Peace of which you
dream not now, but which _she_ knows full well. O Don Gonsalvo, better
join her where she is going, than wildly, rashly, and most uselessly
peril your soul to avenge her!"
"Uselessly! Were that true indeed--"
"Ay de mi! who can doubt it?"
"Would I had time for thought!"
"Take it, in God's name, and pray him to keep you from a great crime."
For a few moments he sat still--still as the dead. Then he started
suddenly. "Already the hour is passing," he exclaimed; "I shall be too
late. Fool that I was, to be almost moved from my purpose by the idle
words of a--The weakness is past now. Still, ere we part, give me thy
hand, Don Carlos, for, on my faith, I never liked thee half so well."
Very sorrowfully Carlos extended it, rather wondering as he did so that
the energetic Gonsalvo failed to spring from his seat and prepare to be
gone.
Gonsalvo stirred not, even to take the offered hand. A deathlike
paleness overspread his face, and a cry of terror had well nigh broken
from his lips. But he choked it back. "Something is strangely wrong
with me," he faltered. "I cannot move. I feel dead--_dead_--from the
waist down."
"God has spoken to you from heaven," said Carlos solemnly. He felt as
if a miracle had been wrought in his presence. His Protestantism had
not freed him from the superstitions of his age. Had he lived three
centuries later, he would have seen nothing miraculous in the disease
with which Gonsalvo was stricken, but rather have called it the natural
result of intense agitation and excitement, acting upon a frame already
weakened.
Yet the reckless Gonsalvo was the more superstitious of the two. He was
at war with the creed in which he had been nurtured; but that older and
deeper kind of superstition which has its root in human nature had, for
this very reason, a stronger hold upon him.
"Dead--dead!" he repeated, the words falling from his lips in broken,
awe-struck whispers. "The limbs I misused! The feet that led me into
sin! God--God have mercy upon me! It is thy hand!"
"It is his hand; a sign he has not forsaken thee; that he means to
bring thee back to himself. Oh, my cousin, do not despair. Hope yet in
his mercy, for it is great."
Carlos knelt down beside him, took his passive hand in his, and spoke
earnest, loving words of hope and comfort. The last quarter, ere the
single stroke that should announce that the hour appointed for his own
flight was past, chimed from the clock on the church tower. Yet he did
not move--he had forgotten self. At last, however, he said, "But it may
be something can be done to relieve you. You ought to have medical aid
without delay. I should have thought of this before. I will rouse the
household."
"No; that would endanger you. Go on your way, and bid the porter do it
when you are gone."
It was too late, the household _was_ roused. A loud authoritative
knocking at the outer gate sent the blood back from the hearts of both
with sudden and horrible fear.
There was a sound of opening gates, followed by
footsteps--voices--cries.
Gonsalvo was the first to understand all. "The Alguazils of the Holy
Office!" he exclaimed.
"I am lost!" cried Carlos, large drops gathering on his brow.
"Conceal yourself," said Gonsalvo; but he knew his words were vain.
Already his quick ear had caught the sound of his cousin's name; and
already footsteps were on the stairs.
Carlos glanced round the room. For a moment his eye rested on the
window, eighty feet above the ground. Better spring from it and perish!
No, that would be self-murder. In God's name he would await them
manfully.
"You will be searched," Gonsalvo whispered hurriedly; "have you aught
about your person that may add to your danger?"
Carlos drew from its place of concealment the heroic Juliano's
treasured gift.
"I will hide it," said his cousin; and taking it hastily, he slipped it
beneath his inner vest, where it lay in strange neighbourhood with a
small, exquisitely tempered poniard, destined never to be used.
The torch-light within, perhaps the voices, guided the Alguazils
to that room. A hand was placed on the door. "They are coming, Don
Carlos," cried Gonsalvo; "I am thy murderer."
"No--no fault of thine. Always remember that," said Carlos, in his
sharpest anguish generous still. Then for one brief moment, that seemed
an age, he was deaf to all outward things. Afterwards he was himself
again.
And something more than himself perhaps. Now, as in other moments of
intense excitement, the spirit of his race descended on him. When the
Alguazils entered, it was Don Carlos Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya
who met them, with folded arms, with steadfast eye, and pale but
dauntless forehead.
All was quiet, regular, and most orderly. Don Manuel, roused from his
slumbers, appeared with the Alguazils, and respectfully requested a
sight of the warrant upon which they proceeded.
It was produced; and all could see that it was duly signed, and sealed
with the famous seal--the sword and olive branch, the dog with the
flaming brand, the sorely outraged, "Justitia et misericordia."
Had Don Manuel Alvarez been king of all the Spains, and Carlos his
heir-apparent, he dared not have offered the least resistance then. He
had no wish to resist, however; he bowed obsequiously, and protested
his own and his family's devotion to the Faith and the Holy Office.
But he added (perhaps merely as a matter of form), that he could bring
many witnesses of unimpeachable character to testify to his nephew's
orthodoxy, and hoped to succeed in clearing him from whatever odious
imputation had induced their Reverences to order his arrest.
Meanwhile Gonsalvo gnashed his teeth in impotent rage and despair. He
would have bartered his life for two minutes of health and strength
in which to rush suddenly on the Alguazils, and give Carlos time to
escape, let the consequences of such frantic audacity be what they
might. But the bands of disease, stronger than iron, made the body a
prison for the indignant, tortured spirit.
Carlos spoke for the first time. "I am ready to go with you," he said
to the chief of the Alguazils. "Do you wish to examine my apartment?
You are welcome. It is the chamber over this."
Having gone over every detail of such a scene a thousand times in
imagination, he knew that the examination of papers and personal
effects usually formed a part of it. And he had no fears for the
result, as, in preparation for his flight, he had carefully destroyed
everything that he thought could implicate himself or any one else.
"Don Carlos--cousin!" cried Gonsalvo suddenly, as surrounded by the
officers he was about to leave the room. "Vaya con Dios! A braver man
than you have I never seen."
Carlos turned on him one long, sorrowful gaze. "_Tell Ruy_," he said.
That was all.
Then there was trampling of footsteps overhead, and the sound of
voices, not excited or angry, but cool, business-like, even courteous.
Then the footsteps descended, passed the door of Gonsalvo's room,
sounded along the corridor, grew fainter on the great staircase, died
away in the court.
Less than an hour afterwards, the great gate of the Triana opened to
receive a new victim. The grave familiar held it, bowing low, until the
prisoner and his guard had passed through. Then it was swung to again,
and barred and bolted, shutting out from Don Carlos Alvarez all help
and hope, all charity and all mercy--save only the mercy of God.
XXVII.
My Brother's Keeper.
"Since she loved him, he went carefully,
Bearing a thing so precious in his hand."
GEORGE ELIOT.
About a week afterwards, Don Juan Alvarez dismounted at the door of his
uncle's mansion. His shout soon brought the porter, a "pure and ancient
Christian," who had spent nearly all his life in the service of the
family.
"God save you, father," said Juan. "Is my brother in the house?"
"No, señor and your worship,"--the old man hesitated, and looked
confused.
"Where shall I find him, then?" cried Juan; "speak at once, if you
know."
"May it please your noble Excellency, I--I know nothing. At least--the
Saints have mercy on us!" and he trembled from head to foot.
Juan thrust him aside, nearly knocking him down in his haste, and
dashed breathless into his uncle's private room, on the right hand side
of the patio.
Don Manuel was there, seated at a table, looking over some papers.
"Where is my brother?" asked Juan sternly and abruptly, searching his
face with his keen dark eyes.
"Holy Saints defend us!" cried Don Manuel, nearly startled out of his
ordinary decorum. "And what madness brings _you_ here?"
"Where is my brother?" Juan repeated, in the same tone, and without
moving a muscle.
"Be quiet--be reasonable, nephew Don Juan. Do not make a disturbance;
it will be worse for all of us. We did all we could--"
"For Heaven's sake, señor, will you answer me?"
"Have patience. We did all we could for him, I was about to say; and
more than we ought. The Guilt was his own, if he was suspected and
taken--"
"_Taken!_ Then I come too late." Sinking into the nearest seat, he
covered his face with both hands, and groaned aloud.
Don Manuel Alvarez had never learned to reverence the sacredness of a
great sorrow. "Rushing in" where such as he might well fear to tread,
he presumed to offer consolation. "Come, then, nephew Don Juan," he
said, "you know as well as I do that 'water that has run by will turn
no mill,' and that 'there is no good in throwing the rope after the
bucket.' No man can alter that which is past. All we can do is to avoid
worse mischief in future."
"When was it?" asked Juan, without looking up.
"A week agone."
"Seven days and nights!"
"Thereabouts. But _you_--are you in love with destruction yourself,
that, when you were safe and well at Nuera, you must needs comes hither
again?"
"I came to save him."
"Unheard of folly! If _you_ have been meddling with these matters--and
it is but too likely, seeing you were always with him (though, the
Saints forbid I should suspect an honourable soldier like you of
anything worse than imprudence)--do you not know they will wring the
whole truth out of _him_ with very little trouble, and your life is not
worth a brass maravedì?"
Juan started to his feet, and glared scorn and defiance in his uncle's
face. "Whoever dares to hint so vile a slander," he cried, "by my faith
he shall repent it, were he my uncle ten times over. Don Carlos Alvarez
never did, and never will, betray a trust, let those wretches deal with
him as they may. But I know him; he will die, or worse,--they will make
him mad." Here Juan's voice failed, and he stood in silent horror,
gazing on the dread vision that rose before his mind.
Don Manuel was daunted by his vehemence. "You are the best judge
yourself of what amount of danger you may be incurring," he said. "But
let me tell you, Señor Don Juan, that I hold you rather a dangerous
guest to harbour under the circumstances. To have the Alguazils of the
Holy Office twice in my house would be enough to cost me all my places,
not to mention the disgrace of it."
"You shall not lose a real by me or mine," returned Juan proudly.
"I did not mean, however, to refuse you hospitality," said Don Manuel,
relieved, yet a little uneasy, perhaps even remorseful.
"But I mean to decline it, señor. I have only two favours to ask
of you," he continued: "one, to allow me free intercourse with my
betrothed; the other, to permit me"--his voice faltered, stopped. With
a great effort he resumed--"to permit me to examine my brother's room,
and whatever effects he may have left there."
"Now you speak more rationally," said his uncle, mistaking the
self-control of indignant pride for genuine calmness. "But as to your
brother's effects, you may spare your pains; for the Alguazils set
the seal of the Holy Office upon them on the night of his arrest, and
they have since carried them away. As to the other matter, what Doña
Beatriz may think of the connection, after the infamy in which your
branch of the family is involved, I cannot tell."
A burning flush mounted to Juan's cheek as he answered, "I trust my
betrothed; even as I trust my brother."
"You can see the lady herself. She may be better able than I to
persuade you to consult for your own safety. For if you are not a
madman, you will return at once to Nuera, which you ought never to have
quitted; or you will take the earliest opportunity of rejoining the
army."
"I shall not stir from Seville till I obtain my brother's deliverance;
or--" Juan did not name the other alternative. Involuntarily he placed
his hand on his belt, in which he had concealed certain old family
jewels, which he believed would produce a considerable sum of money;
for his last faint hope for Carlos lay in a judicious appeal to the
all-powerful "Don Dinero."[17]
[17] The Lord Dollar.
"You will _never_ leave it, then," said Don Manuel. "And you must
hold me excused from aiding and abetting your folly. Your brother's
business has cost me and mine more than enough already. I had rather
ten thousand times that a man had died of the plague in my house, were
it for the scandal's sake alone! Nor, bad as it is, is the scandal all.
Since that miserable night, my unhappy son Gonsalvo, in whose apartment
the arrest took place, has been sick unto death, and out of his mind."
"Don Gonsalvo! What brought my brother to his room?"
"The devil, whose servant he is, may know; I do not. He was found
there, in his sword and cloak, as if ready to go forth, when the
officers came."
"Did he leave no message--no word for me?"
"Not one word. I know not if he spoke at all, save to offer to show the
Alguazils his personal effects. To do him justice, nothing suspicious
was found amongst them. But the less said on the subject the better. I
wash my hands of it, and of him. I thought he would have done honour to
the family; but he has proved its sorest disgrace."
"Señor, what you say of him you say of me also," said Juan, growing
white with anger. "And already I have heard quite enough."
"That is as you please, Señor Don Juan."
"I shall only trespass upon you for the favour you have promised
me--permission to wait upon Doña Beatriz."
"I shall apprise her of your presence, and give her leave to act as she
sees fit." And glad to put an end to the interview, Don Manuel left the
room.
Juan sank into a seat once more, and gave himself up to an agony of
grief for his brother.
So absorbed was he in his sorrow, that a light footstep entered and
approached unheard by him. At last a small hand touched his arm. He
started and looked up. Whatever his anguish of heart might be, he was
still the loyal lover of Doña Beatriz. So the next moment found him on
his knees saluting that hand with his lips. And then followed certain
ceremonies abundantly interesting to those who enact them, but apt to
prove tedious when described.
"My lady's devoted slave," said Don Juan, using the ordinary language
of the time, "bears a breaking heart to-day. We knew neither father nor
mother; there were but the two of us."
"Did you not receive my letter, praying you to remain at Nuera?" asked
the lady.
"Pardon me, queen of my heart, in that I dared to disregard a wish of
yours. But I knew _his_ danger, and I came to save him. Alas! too late."
"I am not sure that I do pardon you, Don Juan."
"Then, I presume so far as to say, that I know Doña Beatriz better than
she knows herself. Indeed, had I acted otherwise, she would scarce have
pardoned me. How would it have been possible for me to consult for my
own safety, leaving him, alone and unaided, in such fearful peril?"
"You acknowledge there is peril--_to you_?"
"There may be, señora."
"Ay de mi! Why, in Heaven's name, have you thus involved yourself? O
Don Juan, you have dealt very cruelly with me!"
"Light of my eyes, life of my life, what mean you by these words?"
"Was it not cruel to allow your brother, with his gentle, winning ways,
and his soft specious words, to lead you step by step from the faith
of our fathers, until he had you entangled in I know not what horrible
heresies, and made you put in peril your honour, your liberty, your
life--everything?"
"We only sought Truth."
"Truth!" echoed the lady, with a contemptuous stamp of her small foot
and twirl of her fan. "What is Truth? What good will Truth do me if
those cruel men drag you from your bed at midnight, take you to that
dreadful place, stretch you on the rack?" But that last horror was too
much to bear; Doña Beatriz hid her face in her hands, and wept and
sobbed passionately.
Juan soothed her with every tender, lover-like art. "I will be very
prudent, dearest lady," he said at last; adding, as he gazed on her
beautiful face, "I have too much to live for not to hold life very
precious."
"Will you promise to fly--to leave the city _now_, before suspicions
are awakened which may make flight impossible?"
"My first and my only love, I would die to fulfil your slightest wish.
But this thing I cannot do."
"And wherefore not, Señor Don Juan?"
"Can you ask? I must hazard everything, spend everything, in the
chance--if there be a chance--of saving him, or, at least, of softening
his fate."
"Then God help us both," said Doña Beatriz.
"Amen! Pray to him day and night, señora. Perhaps he may have pity on
us."
"There is no chance of saving Don Carlos. Know you not that of all the
prisoners the Holy House receives, scarce one in a thousand goes forth
again to take his place in the world?"
Juan shook his head. He knew well that his task was almost hopeless;
yet, even by Doña Beatriz, he was not to be moved from his
determination.
But he thanked her in strong, passionate words for her faith in him and
her truth to him. "No sorrow can divide us, my beloved," he said, "nor
even what they call shame, falsely as they speak therein. You are my
star, that shines on me throughout the darkness."
"I have promised."
"My uncle's family may seek to divide us, and I think they will. But
the lady of my heart will not heed their idle words?"
Doña Beatriz smiled. "I am a Lavella," she said. "Do you not know our
motto?--'True unto death.'"
"It is a glorious motto. May it be mine too."
"Take heed what you do, Don Juan. If you love me, you will look well to
your footsteps, since, wherever they lead, mine are bound to follow."
Saying this, she rose, and stood gazing in his face with flushed cheek
and kindling eyes.
The words were such as might thrill any lover's heart with joy and
gratitude. Yet there was something in the look which accompanied them
that changed joy and gratitude into vague fear and apprehension. The
light in that dark eye seemed borrowed from the fire of some sublime
but terrible resolve within. Juan's heart quailed, though he knew not
why, as he said, "My queen should never tread except through flowery
paths."
Doña Beatriz took up a little golden crucifix that, attached to a
rosary of coral beads, hung from her girdle. "You see this cross, Don
Juan?"
"Yes, señora mia."
"On that horrible night when they dragged your brother to prison, I
swore a sacred oath upon it. You esteemed me a child, Don Juan, when
you read me chapters from your book, and talked freely to me about God,
and faith, and the soul's salvation. Perchance I was a child in some
things. For I supposed them good words; how could they be otherwise,
since you spoke them? I listened and believed, after a fashion; half
thinking all the time of the pretty fans and trinkets you brought me,
or of the pattern of such and such an one's mantilla that I had seen
at mass. But your brother tore the veil from my eyes at last, and made
me understand that those specious words, with which a child played
childishly, were the crime that finds no pardon here or hereafter.
Of the hereafter I know not; of the here I know too much, God help
me! There be fair ladies, not more deeply involved than I, who have
changed their gilded saloons for the dungeons of the Triana. But then
it matters not so much about me. For I am not like other girls, who
have fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers to care for them. Saving
Don Carlos (who was good to me for your sake), no one ever gave me
more than the half-sorrowful, half-pitying kindness one might give a
pet parrot from the Indies. Therefore, thinking over all things, and
knowing well your reckless nature, Señor Don Juan, I swore that night
upon this holy cross, that if by evil hap _you_ were attainted for
heresy, _I_ would go next day to the Triana and accuse myself of the
same crime."
Juan did not for a moment doubt that she would do it; and thus a chain,
light as silk but strong as adamant, was flung around him.
"Doña Beatriz, for my sake--" he began to plead.
"For _my_ sake, Don Juan will take care of his life and liberty," she
interrupted, with a smile that, if it had a little sadness, had very
far more of triumph in it. She knew the power her resolve gave her over
him: she had bought it dearly, and she meant to use it. "Is it _still_
your wish to remain here," she continued; "or will you go abroad, and
wait for better times?"
Juan paused for a moment.
"No choice is left me while Carlos pines uncomforted in a dungeon," he
said at last, firmly, though very sorrowfully.
"Then you know what you risk, that is all," answered the lady, whose
will was a match for his.
In a marvellously short time had love and sorrow transformed the young
and childish girl into a passionate, determined woman, with all the
fire of her own southern skies in her heart.
Ere he departed, Juan pleaded for permission to visit her frequently.
But here again she showed a keen-sighted apprehensiveness for _him_,
which astonished him. She cautioned him against their cousins, Manuel
and Balthazar; who, if they thought him in danger of arrest, were quite
capable of informing against him themselves, to secure a share of
his patrimony. Or they might gain the same end, without the disgrace
of such a baseness, by putting him quietly out of the way with their
daggers. On all accounts, his frequent presence at the house would be
undesirable, and might be dangerous; but she agreed to inform him, by
means of certain signals (which they arranged together), when he might
pay a visit to her with safety. Then, having bidden her farewell, Don
Juan turned his back on his uncle's house with a heavy heart.
XXVIII.
Reaping the Whirlwind.
"All is lost, except a little life."
BYRON.