"Our God, the all just,
Unto himself reserves this royalty,
The secret chastening of the guilty heart;
The fiery touch, the scourge that purifies--
Leave it with him. Yet make not that thy trust;
For that strong heart of thine--oh, listen yet!--
Must in its depths o'ercome the very wish
Of death or torture to the guilty one,
Ere it can sleep again."--Hemans
Don Manuel's house had once belonged to a Moorish Cid, or lord. It had
been assigned to the first Conde de Nuera, as one of the original
_conquistadors_ of Seville; and he had bequeathed it to his second son.
It had a turret, after the Moorish fashion, and the upper chamber of
this had been given to Carlos on his first arrival in the city; from an
idea that the theological student would require a solitary place for
study and devotion, or, at least, that it would be decorous to suppose
so. The room beneath had been occupied by Don Juan, but since his
departure it was appropriated by Gonsalvo, who liked solitude, and took
advantage of his improved health to escape from the ground-floor, to
which his infirmities had long confined him.
As Carlos stole noiselessly down the narrow winding stair, he noticed a
light in his cousin's room. This in itself did not surprise him. But
he certainly felt a little disconcerted when, just as he passed the
door, Don Gonsalvo opened it, and met him face to face. He also was
fully equipped in sword and cloak, and carried a torch in his hand.
"Vaya, vaya, Don Carlos," he said reproachfully; "after all, thou
couldst not trust me."
"Nay, I did trust you."
From fear of being overheard, both entered the nearest room--Don
Gonsalvo's--and its owner closed the door softly.
"You are stealing away from fear of me, and thereby throwing yourself
into the fire. Do it not, Don Carlos; be advised, and do it not." He
spoke earnestly, and without a shadow of the old bitterness and sarcasm.
"Nay, it is not thus. My flight was planned ere yesterday; and in
concert with one who both can and will provide me with the means of
safety. It is best I should go."
"Enough said then," returned Gonsalvo, more coldly. "Farewell; I seek
not to detain you. Farewell; for though we may go forth together, our
paths divide, and for ever, at the door."
"Your path is perhaps less safe than mine, Don Gonsalvo."
"Talk of what you understand, cousin. My path is safety itself. And
now that I think of it (if you could be trusted), you might aid me
perhaps. Did you know all, I dare not doubt that you would rejoice to
do it."
"God knows how joyfully I would aid you if I could, Don Gonsalvo. But I
fear you are bound on a useless, and worse than useless, errand."
"You know not my errand."
"But I know to whom you go this night. Oh, my cousin, is it possible
you can dream that prayer of yours will soften hearts harder than the
nether millstone?"
"I know the way to one heart; and though it be the hardest of all, I
shall reach it."
"Were you to pour the wealth of El Dorado at the feet of Gonzales de
Munebraga, he neither would nor could unloose one bolt of that prison."
Gonsalvo's wild look changed suddenly into one of wistful earnestness,
almost of tenderness. He said, lowering his voice,--
"Near as death, the revealer of secrets, may be to me, there are still
some questions worth the asking. Perchance _you_ can throw a gleam of
light upon this horrible darkness. We are speaking frankly now, and as
in God's presence. Tell me, _it that charge true_?"
"Frankly, and in the sense in which you ask--it is."
The last fatal words Carlos only whispered. Gonsalvo made no answer;
but a kind of momentary spasm passed across his face.
Carlos at length went on in a low voice: "She knew the Evangel long
before I did, though she is so young--not yet one-and-twenty. She was
the pupil of Dr. Egidius; but he was wont to say he learned more from
her than she did from him. Her keen, bright intellect cut through
sophistries, and reached truth so quickly. And God gave her abundantly
of his grace; making her willing, for that truth, to endure all things.
Oft have I seen her sweet face kindle and glow whilst he who taught us
spoke of the joy and strength given to those that suffer for the name of
Christ. I am persuaded He is with her now, and will be with her even to
the end. Could you gain access to her where she is, I think she would
tell you she possesses a treasure of peace of which neither death nor
suffering, neither cruelty of fiends nor worse cruelty of fiend-like
men, can avail to rob her."
"She is a saint--she will be a blessed saint in heaven, let them say
what they may," murmured Gonsalvo hoarsely. Then the fierce look
returned to his face again. "But I think the old Christians of Castile,
the men whose good swords made the infidels bite the dust, and planted
the cross on their painted towers, are no better than curs and
dastards."
"In that they suffer these things?"
"Yes; a thousand times, yes. In the name of man's honour and woman's
loveliness, are there, in our good city of Seville, neither fathers, nor
brothers, nor lovers left alive? No man who thinks the sweetest eyes
ever seen worth six inches of steel in five skilful fingers? No one
man, save the poor forgotten cripple, Don Gonsalvo Alvarez. But he
thanks God this night that he has spared his life, and left strength
enough in his feeble limbs to bear him into a murderer's presence."
"Don Gonsalvo! what do you mean?" cried Carlos, shrinking from him.
"Lower thy voice, an' it please thee. But why should I fear to tell
thee--_thee_, who hast good cause to be the death-foe of Inquisitors?
If thou art not cur and dastard too, thou wilt applaud and pray for me.
For I suppose heretics pray, at least as well as Inquisitors. I said I
would reach the heart of Gonzales de Munebraga this night. Not with
gold. There is another metal of keener temper, which enters in where
even gold cannot come."
"Then you mean--_murder_?" said Carlos, again drawing near him, and
laying his hand on his arm. Gonsalvo sank into a seat, half
mechanically, half from an instinct that led him to spare the strength
he would need so sorely by-and-by.
In the momentary pause that followed, the clock of San Vicente tolled
the midnight hour.
"Yes," replied Gonsalvo steadily; "I mean murder--as the shepherd does
who strangles the wolf with his paw on the lamb."
"Oh, think--"
"I have thought of everything. And mark me, Don Carlos, I have but one
regret. It is that my weapon deals an instantaneous death. Such
revenge is poor and flavourless after all. I have heard of poisons whose
least drop, mingling with the blood, ensures a slow agonizing
death--time to learn what torture means, and to drain to the dregs the
cup filled for others--to curse God and man ere he dies. For a phial of
such, wherewith to anoint my blade, I would sell my soul to-night."
"O Gonsalvo, this is horrible! They are wild, wicked words you speak.
Pray God to pardon you!"
"I adjure him by his justice to prosper me," said Gonsalvo, raising his
head defiantly.
"He will not prosper you. And do you dream that such a mad achievement
(suppose you even succeed in it) will open prison-doors and set captives
free? Alas! alas! that we are not at the mercy of a tyrant's _will_.
For tyrants, the worst of them, sometimes relent; and--they are mortal.
That which is crushing us is not a living being, an organism with
nerves, and brain, and blood. It is a system, a THING, a terrible
engine, that moves on in its resistless way, cold and lifeless, without
will or feeling. Strong as adamant, it kills, tortures, destroys;
obeying laws far away out of our sight. Were Valdez and Munebraga, and
all the Board of Inquisitors, dead corpses by the morning light, not a
single dungeon in the Triana would open its pitiless gate."
"I do not believe _that_," replied Gonsalvo, rather more quietly.
"Surely there must be some confusion, of which advantage may be taken by
friends of the prisoners. This, indeed, is the motive which now induces
me to confide in you. You may know those who, if they had the chance,
could strike a shrewd blow to save their dearest on earth from torture
and death."
But Gonsalvo read no answer in the sorrowful face of Carlos to the
searching look of inquiry with which he said this. After a silence he
went on,--
"Suppose the worst, however. The Holy Office sorely needs a little
blood-letting, and will be much the better for it. Whoever succeeds,
Munebraga will have my dagger flashing in his eyes, and will take care
how he deals with his prisoners, and whom he arrests."
"I implore you to think of yourself," said Carlos.
Gonsalvo smiled. "I know I shall pay the forfeit," he said, "even as
those who slew the Inquisitor Pedro Arbues before the high altar in
Saragossa, But"--here the smile faded, and the stern set look returned
to his face--"I shall not pay more, for a man's triumphant vengeance,
than those fiends will dare to inflict upon a tender, delicately
nurtured girl for the crime of a mystic meditation, or a few words of
prayer not properly rounded off with an Ave."
"True. But then you will suffer alone. She has God with her."
"I _can_ suffer alone."
For that word Carlos envied him. _He_ shrank in terror from loneliness,
from suffering, shuddering at the very thought of the dungeon and the
torture-room. And just then the first quarter of his hour of grace
chimed from the clock of San Vicente. What if he and Pepe should fail to
meet? He would not think of that now. Whatever happened, Gonsalvo
_must_ be saved. He went on,--
"Here you can suffer alone and be strong. But how will you endure the
loneliness of the long hereafter, away from God's presence, from light
and life and hope? Are you content that you, and she for whom you give
your life, should be sundered throughout eternity?"
"Nay; I am casting my lot in with hers. If the Church curses her (pure
and holy as she ever was), its anathema shall fall on me too. If only
the Church's key opens heaven, she and I will both stand without."
"Yet you know she will enter heaven. Shall _you_?"
Gonsalvo hesitated. "It will not be the blood of a villain that will
bar my way," he said.
"God says, 'Thou shall not kill.'"
"Then what will he do with Gonzales de Munebraga?"
"He will do that with him of which, if you but dreamed, it would change
your fiercest hate into saddest, deepest pity. Have you realized what a
span is our life here compared with the countless ages of eternity?
Think! For God's chosen a few weeks, or months at most, of solitude and
fear and pain, ended perhaps by--but that is as he pleases; _ended_, at
all events. Then add up the million years, fill them with the joy of
victory, and the presence and love of Christ himself. Can they not, and
we for them, be content with this?"
"Are you content with it yourself?" Gonsalvo suddenly interrupted. "You
seek flight."
The glow faded from the face of Carlos, and his eyes sank to the 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 Munebraga? 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 Menaya 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.