HOW THE LIGHT WAS LIT.
Raphael spent several hours in visiting the sick, and the opportunity
which Horace desired came not until the morrow. Tidings having been
brought from Marco, who had gone out as a spy, that a traveling party
was expected on the way to Staiti, the bandits departed at dawn in the
hope of intercepting it. They went off in high spirits, except Matteo,
whose fierce and gloomy visage was never lighted with a smile.
"Enrico lost his last carlino at play yesterday!" shouted Beppo. "But
he will return with a heavy bag of ducats with which to line my purse.
He puts one hand into a cavalier's pocket, and with the other makes the
contents of it over to me. I call him the lion's provider."
"A lion more given to roaring than to fighting," laughed Enrico; but
the laugh was suddenly cut short as he caught the eye of his brother.
Raphael approached Enrico, and though Horace could not distinguish what
he said to him in his low, earnest tone, the robber's reply was more
audible:
"I must go—I have no choice—I may prevent bloodshed."
Enrico had the same uneasy, vacillating manner which Horace had before
remarked, and the nerve of his lip twitched violently.
"Enrico, keep at my side!" called out Matteo, turning upon the
Rossignol a scowl of dark suspicion and dislike.
Horace and Raphael watched the departure of the banditti. The latter
stood for some time with folded arms, his eyes fixed upon the spot
where Enrico had disappeared from view, and with an expression of such
anxious care on his face, that Horace did not venture to disturb him.
Presently, however, the pale features resumed their usual calmness, and
Raphael, turning towards the captive, proposed that they should renew
their study of the Scriptures.
Some time was spent in this occupation. Horace was beginning to regard
his seat under the oak much as regarded his place in the old village
church. The presence of earnest piety had seemed to isolate that one
little spot from all the rocks around, and the green boughs above were
as the roof of a temple consecrated to God. There were portions of
Scripture which Horace felt that he should always connect with that oak
and with him who now sat by his side beneath it—verses that he could
never hear again without recalling the musical tones of the Rossignol's
voice.
When the reading was concluded, Horace asked Raphael to tell him
something of the circumstances attending his capture and imprisonment.
"For I have understood, both from yourself and from others," said the
youth, "that you, like myself, know something of captivity. How did you
fall into your enemy's hand?"
"Simply thus," replied Raphael; "I was wandering slowly through the
woods one evening, when I heard a rapid step behind me, and on turning,
beheld Matteo wounded, bleeding, gasping, like a stag whom the hunters
have pursued till his strength is exhausted, and he can but turn, face
them, and die. I saw by his staggering, uncertain step that he could
not fly much further.
"'Boy!' he exclaimed. 'They are upon me! Plunge yonder through the
thicket, and let them hear you; you may draw off pursuit from your
captain.'
"I obeyed, was followed, and taken."
"Then your generous act saved the chief?"
"It was a mere act of impulse," replied Raphael; "it deserved no
praise, and won no gratitude. I was now a prisoner, bound and guarded.
I was taken from one place to another, and brought before a tribunal of
justice. There was little against me but bare suspicion, for no actual
crime could be laid to my charge. I had, indeed, been seen in the
company of banditti. I was known to be acquainted with Matteo. I had
baffled the soldiers when they had believed that the blood-money for
his capture was within their grasp. The last offense might be atoned
for; I was offered freedom and reward, if I would betray the secret
haunts of Matteo. Of course such treachery was not to be thought of.
"After tedious imprisonment and examinations before various
authorities, I was condemned to six months' labor in the galleys,
rather for obstinate silence than for any offense which could be
proved."
"What!" exclaimed Horace. "Was not the remembrance of the faithful
services of your heroic father sufficient to save his son from so harsh
a sentence."
"No one knew my parentage," replied Raphael quickly; "no, no! Sunk
as I was, disgraced, condemned, I jealously guarded the honor of my
father's name as the one precious possession left me, which would never
be tarnished by shame. It should never be said that the son of Raphael
Goldoni had appeared as a criminal at the bar of justice!"
"Were you not in a state of misery on hearing your doom?" asked Horace.
"I was in a state of sullen despair. It seemed to me as if there were
no help for me on earth or in heaven. I was an outcast, a wretch
abandoned by my fellow-creatures. I accused them of cruelty and
injustice; and, what was far worse, my soul rose in guilty rebellion
against the decrees of Providence. I looked upon myself as a sufferer
rather for the crimes of others than my own, forgetful that no
circumstances could justify my compliance with what I had known to be
evil.
"Sometimes, indeed, conscience, oft stifled, would make itself heard,
and then the icy calm of despair was exchanged for a tempest of
anguish, such as almost shook reason from its seat. I could no longer
have recourse to the miserable refuge offered by pilgrimage or penance.
Even the relief of confession was denied me, for I had never learned to
go in simplicity of faith for pardon and absolution to Him who heareth
in secret.
"This mortal life was to me as a prison, and yet I clung to its dark
walls, for I saw nothing beyond but purgatory fires, which made the
thought of death a terror. I knew myself to be guilty in the sight of
God, and I could not recognize a compassionate Father in the awful
Judge before whom I trembled. My service had been that of a slave, my
sufferings were those of a slave; far more galling than the iron which
fettered my limbs was that which entered into my soul."
"And how long did this misery last?"
"Not long," replied the Italian. "I and my companions in punishment
were chained by two and two in the galleys, and on the third day of my
labors, I was coupled with a man whose demeanor at once struck me as
different from that of the other prisoners. He was not old in years,
but his form was bowed by suffering and sorrow, and white as silver
were his locks and the beard which descended almost to his girdle. He
looked so calm and resigned in the dignity of conscious innocence, that
even the first glance convinced me that no criminal was at my side. Had
I been in a less gloomy and despondent mood, I should have questioned
by new companion; but I had lost all interest in life, all care for
what was passing around me.
"Even when Marino (such was his name) spoke a few words of kindly
greeting to his partner in misfortune, I only bowed my head in reply,
and preserved a moody silence. I thought that the galley-slave pitied
me, and my proud heart shrank from pity, even when I needed it most.
"Our toil on that day was severe. We had to row at our utmost speed,
hour after hour, under the burning rays of the sun, which were
reflected with dazzling glare from the waters. I felt as if the
unwonted and protracted labor were drawing my very life away, and I saw
that my comrade, who was weaker, suffered yet more than myself. The
beaded drops were upon his brow and his lip, and he bent over his oar
as if every stroke might be his last. While we were painfully toiling
on, a gay cavalier, stretched at ease in the stern of our galley, was
humming a light lay of love, or quaffing cool draughts of sparkling
wine. He took no notice of the exhausted rowers, except to express
impatience at the slow progress which they made.
"At length the keel grated on the shore, we lifted our oars, and the
cavalier stepped on the beach. There were gay friends to welcome him
there, and take him with them to cool orange groves and glittering
fountains, towards which we wearily turned our longing eyes. There with
fair and high-born ladies, would he enjoy the feast, the dance, and
the song, while we sat thirsty, weary, neglected—the very outcasts of
mankind.
"My companion addressed me again, in a voice so faint that I could
at first scarcely catch his meaning. 'Is it not well, my son,' he
murmured, 'that there is One who hath said:
"'"Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest?"'
"The words sounded strange to me, and I replied with sullen despair,
'There is no rest for me—no, not even in the grave!'
"'Then you have never yet come to Him, never yet found the Savior,'
said Marino; 'you have not yet accepted His invitation; perhaps till
this day you never heard it.'
"This was so unlike any address to which I had hitherto listened on the
subject of religion, that it instantly arrested my attention. Fresh
from the pure fount of Truth came the words which Marino now uttered.
Parched as I was with feverish thirst, with a force which I cannot
describe came especially one blessed verse, which I have ever since
regarded as the very breathing of infinite love—
"'And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth
say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. And whosoever will, let
him take the water of life freely.'
"That day,—that sultry, exhausting day," continued Raphael, clasping
his hands as he spoke, "I regard as the birth-day of my soul. It was
then first that I learned that there was pardon, full, free pardon,
even for the chief of sinners; that there was love, infinite love,
towards those for whom the Lord had died. I learned that I had been
'bought with a price,' and that I was no longer mine own. In the
morning my soul had been even as your person now is. I had been
shackled with my sins, galled, imprisoned, without power to shake off
either the burden of my guilt or the dread of its punishment. I had
seen before me a forest labyrinth of difficulties and temptations, and
had no clue to guide me through it. The grand, glorious truth that
the blood of the Savior 'cleanseth from all sin,' broke at once my
chain and set me free; and henceforth God's Word was to be my guide to
safety, to peace, and, I trust, hereafter—to glory."
There were some moments of silence, only broken by the ceaseless noise
of the cicala and the sigh of the wind through the wood.
"Who was Marino," inquired Horace; "and how came so good a man to be
working as a slave at the oar?"
"He had been sentenced to the galleys for a very different crime from
any of which I had been suspected," replied Raphael. "Marino, as I
learned afterwards from himself, had been a student of medicine,
brought up in the Romish faith. Circumstances, or rather the leading of
God's Providence, had taken him to England, where he had resided for
years, and where he had acquired not only a knowledge of the languages,
but of the truth which in your land is guarded and prized. Marino might
have remained honored and happy amongst those whose communion he had
joined, but he thought of the darkness of ignorance shrouding his own
beautiful country; he thought of the bondage of superstition in which
his fellow citizens groaned. Marino returned to be a missionary to his
own people.
"Following the steps of his Master in the path of self-denying labor,
he soon tracked the holy footprints through sufferings also. You
know, doubtless, that with Italians it is held a crime to search the
Scriptures; doubly a crime to teach others to do so. Marino for both
offenses was sentenced for three years to the galleys. Alas! Broken
down as he was, by hardship and trial, his life did not last out the
term."
"Was it not much to be regretted," observed Horace, "that, instead of
laboring where he could have labored in safety, this good man threw
away freedom, and, as it proved, life itself, upon such a desperate
venture?"
"I have no reason to say so," replied the Rossignol with deep feeling.
"Marino was silenced from preaching the gospel to freemen, that he
might carry the glad tidings to slaves! Who can say that he lived or
that he died in vain? I was not the only wretched outcast over whose
darkness he shed light, though to none was he such a friend, such
a father as he was to me. When his spirit passed away, I felt that
for the third time my earthly stay had been wrenched from my hold,
but now I was not left desolate. Marino had led me to the Rock—the
changeless—the everlasting!"
Raphael's voice faltered as he continued, covering his eyes with his
hand: "When they dropped his lifeless remains into the sea, without
funeral rite, without toll of bell, without even a coffin to shroud
them; when the waves of the Mediterranean rolled over the spot where
slept the friend I loved best upon earth, even then God sent thoughts
of comfort—of triumph—into my soul. I knew that Marino would rise
again, incorruptible, immortal, glorious; that the sea should give up
her dead and the Savior reclaim His own. And I knew that there was
something left also for me—an object in life, as well as a hope in
death."
"What was that object?" asked Horace.
Raphael seemed unable to give an audible reply. He turned over silently
the leaves of his Testament, and laid his finger upon this verse: "'The
love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge that if One died
for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all that they which
live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which
died for them!'"
Horace remained for a space with his eyes riveted upon the passage,
marveling how he had never before seen how it contains not only the
ground of a Christian's hope, but of a Christian's willing obedience.
What is true religion but "a personal love for a personal Savior?"
"'The love of Christ constraineth!'" That is the very watchword of the
soldier of the cross upon the battle-field of life. Not to live to
self, but unto God; not to do our own will, but God's will; to make
His love our inspiring motive, His glory our end and aim;—this is the
object, the only object, worthy of an immortal soul.
After a lengthened pause, Horace resumed the conversation. "I am
surprised," said he, "that one whose whole character had been changed
like yours, should ever have come back to a den of wickedness like
this."
"When Marino departed," replied Raphael, "my six months of durance
had almost come to a close. Often and anxiously I revolved in my mind
what course it would be right to pursue after I should have regained
my freedom. Sometimes I almost decided upon working my way to England;
at other times I proposed returning to Naples, seeking out some old
acquaintances of my grandfather, and trying through their assistance to
make my entrance into his profession.
"Amidst my various projects one truth was ever recurring to my mind. A
soldier chooses not his own post; it was my one simple duty to find out
where my Leader would have me to be, and what He would have me to do.
More and more strongly the conviction came that nowhere was light more
needed, and into no place was it less likely to penetrate, than into
this robbers' cave. Here seemed to be my allotted post, and hither I
accordingly came."
"You were throwing yourself into the midst of great temptations,"
observed Horace.
"I felt that—I feel it," replied Raphael; "and I often have I feared
presumption, and closely have searched my own motives for running so
great e risk. But," he continued, as if conscious that there was a
need of explaining his position in order to justify his conduct, "I
knew that there were circumstances in my favor, which made it possible
for me to plant my foot where by another man no standing ground could
have been found. I was known amongst the banditti, liked, favored;
perhaps I counted too much upon that favor, as I certainly did upon the
circumstance of having saved the life of their captain."
"But the danger!" exclaimed Horace Cleveland.
"There was nothing but bare life to be hazarded; I had nothing else
that I could lose—not even a fair reputation. I had neither father nor
mother to mourn me! I had but a brother, and he was one of the band.
Perhaps my strongest earthly incentive was the hope of being the means
of winning his soul."
"And how were you received by the banditti?" inquired Horace, who
regarded this project of planting a "home mission" in the midst of
a gang of ruffians as the wildest, most impracticable scheme which
enthusiasm had ever devised.
"I was received with a welcome so cordial and warm, that it almost
shook my resolution to strip away all deception, and at once avow the
reason for my return. I was enabled, however, to speak out the truth—to
own that I came not to rejoin the band, to eat bread that was won by
robbery, or to touch gold that was stained with blood—to say that if
the outlaws desired it, I would tend their sick, and do what other
kindly offices I might without wounding my conscience—but that I was
now the soldier and servant of One who suffers no compromise with sin."
"I should have liked to have heard such an avowal made to such men,"
exclaimed Horace, "and to have seen the countenance of Matteo as you
spoke! That was indeed walking into the lion's den, and laying your
hand on his mane. How was your strange offer received?"
"With bursts of laughter and mocking jests. I believe that some of the
banditti deemed that imprisonment had affected my brain."
"I marvel not at that," returned Horace. "Did you not find it hard to
stand against the storm of ridicule?"
"So hard that I almost cowered beneath it. I had then, however, nothing
beyond such ridicule to bear. The robbers were amused—not infuriated.
My conditions were mirthfully accepted. I was elected with shouts as
friar and father confessor to the band, and was given full leave to
pray and to fast as long as it might suit my pleasure to do so."
"The outlaws doubtless thought," observed Horace, "that your resolution
was but some strange passing fancy."
"I doubt not that they thought so," replied Raphael, "and that they
promised themselves much diversion from what was to them so novel. But
when the robbers found that though they might be in jest, the object of
their mockery was in earnest, opposition assumed a different form."
"You were persecuted, threatened, tormented," said Horace, recollecting
the lacerated shoulder, and the cruel insults of which he had himself
been a witness.
"I had a little rough discipline," answered Raphael lightly, "such as
every soldier must look for. I have often cheered myself under it by
remembering the words of my father—if applicable to earthly warfare,
how much more so to the heavenly!—'The duty of a brave soldier is
simple, prompt, unswerving obedience, even unto death!'"
"But does it not damp your spirit," asked Horace, "to find that you
labor and suffer in vain?"
A thoughtful, pensive expression sat on the brow of the young Italian
as he replied, "Is there not a promise that such labor shall not be in
vain? I have not much to cheer me, I own, as regards any little efforts
of my own; yet the village youth whom I am now going to visit has begun
to pray in earnest, and in the Savior's name alone. Sometimes I think
that in my brother's bosom a better spirit is stirring, though he is
hedged round with difficulties whose greatness a stranger cannot fully
understand. God will give Enrico to me; while life remains, I will
never cease to pray for my brother, and He in whom I trust will grant
me my heart's desire."
The sigh which followed came from a burdened, but yet a confiding heart.
"Oh, yes," cried Horace, anxious to efface the painful impression
caused by a thoughtless question, "you will not suffer without reward.
I know not whether you will care to hear it, but I must tell you
one thing. Though, from my cradle, I have heard a great deal about
religion, I have never thought so seriously upon the subject as you
have made me do during these last few days. If I ever become a real
Christian—a faithful soldier, as you would say—I shall trace, the
beginning of an earnest life to these hours which I have spent with you
under this oak."
The pale face of Raphael lighted up with an expression of joy, as when
a sunbeam, bursting from behind a cloud, throws over a still stream a
pathway of glory. The smile was so bright, so sudden, so angel-like
in its gladness, that it often in future days recurred to the memory
of Horace. Raphael grasped his hand with the warmth of a brother, but
without commenting upon what he had said; and the improvisatore soon
afterwards descended to the forest to go on his errand of mercy to the
sick.