Triumphant.
"For ever with the Lord!
Amen! to let it be!"--Montgomery.
Carlos was still sitting beside that couch, with scarcely more sense of
time than if he had been already where time exists no longer, when the
door of his cell was opened to admit two distinguished visitors. First
came the prior; then another member of the Table of the Inquisition.
Carlos rose up from beside his dead, and said calmly, addressing the
prior, "My father is free!"
"How? what is this?" cried Fray Ricardo, his brow contracting with
surprise.
Carlos stood aside, allowing him to approach and look. With real concern
in his stern countenance, he stooped for a few moments over the
motionless form. Then he asked,--
"But why was I not summoned? Who was with him when he departed?"
"I,--his son," said Carlos.
"But who besides thee?" Then, in a higher key, and with more hurried
intonation,--"Who gave him the last rites of the Church?"
"He did not receive them, my lord, for he did not desire them. He said
that Christ was his priest; that he would not confess; and that they
should not anoint him while he retained consciousness."
The Dominican's face grew white with anger, even to the lips.
"_Liar!_" he cried, in a voice of thunder. "How darest thou tell me
that he for whom I watched, and prayed, and toiled, after years and
years of faithful penance, has gone down at last, unanointed and
unassoiled, to hell with Luther and Calvin?"
"I tell thee that he has gone home in peace to his Father's house."
"Blasphemer! liar, like thy father the devil! But I understand all now.
Thou, in thy hatred of the Faith, didst refuse to summon help--didst let
his spirit pass without the aid and consolations of the Church.
Murderer of his soul--thy father's soul! Not content even with that,
thou canst stand there and slander his memory, bidding us believe that
he died in heresy! But that, at least, is false--false as thine own
accursed creed!"
"It is true; and you believe it," said Carlos, in calm, clear, quiet
tones, that contrasted strangely with the Dominican's outburst of
unwonted rage.
And the prior did believe it--there was the sharpest sting. He knew
perfectly well that the condemned heretic was incapable of falsehood: on
a matter of fact he would have received his testimony more readily than
that of the stately "Lord Inquisitor" now standing by his side. In the
momentary pause that followed, that personage came forward and looked
upon the face of the dead.
"If there be really any proof that he died in heresy," he said, "he
ought to be proceeded against according to the laws of the Holy Office
provided for such cases."
Carlos smiled--smiled in calm triumph.
"You cannot hurt him now," he said. "Look there, senor. The King
immortal, invisible, has set his own signet upon that brow, that the
decree may not be reversed nor the purpose changed concerning him."
And the peace of the dead face seemed to have passed into the living
face that had gazed on it so long. Carlos was as really beyond the
power of his enemies as his father was that hour. They felt it; or at
least one of them did. As for the other, his strong heart was torn with
rage and sorrow: sorrow for the penitent, whom he truly loved, and whom
he now believed, after all his prayers and efforts, a lost soul; rage
against the obstinate heretic, whom he had sought to befriend, and who
had repaid his kindness by snatching his convert from his grasp at the
very gate of heaven, and plunging him into hell.
"I will _not_ believe it," he reiterated, with pale lips, and eyes that
gleamed beneath his cowl like coals of fire. Then, softening a little
as he turned to the dead--"Would that those silent lips could utter,
were it only one word, to say that death found thee true to the Catholic
faith!--Not one word! So end the hopes of years. But at least thy
betrayer shall be with thee amongst the dead to-morrow.--Heretic!" he
said, turning fiercely to Carlos, "we are here to announce thy doom. I
came, with a heart full of pity and relenting, to offer counsel and
comfort, and such mercy as Holy Church still keeps for those who return
to her bosom at the eleventh hour. But now, I despair of thee.
Professed, impenitent, dogmatizing heretic, go thine own way to
everlasting fire!"
"To-morrow! Did you say to-morrow?" asked Carlos, standing motionless,
as one lost in thought.
The other Inquisitor took up the word.
"It is true," he said. "To-morrow the Church offers to God the
acceptable sacrifice of a solemn Act of Faith. And we come to announce
to thee thy sentence, well merited and long delayed--to be relaxed to
the secular arm as an obstinate heretic. But if even yet thou wilt
repent, and, confessing and deploring thy sins, supplicate restoration
to the bosom of the Church, she will so effectually intercede for thee
with the civil magistrate that the doom of fire will be exchanged for
the milder punishment of death by strangling."
Something like a faint smile played round the lips of Carlos; but he
only repeated, "To-morrow!"
"Yes, my son," said the Inquisitor, promptly; for he was a man who knew
his business well. He had come there to improve the occasion; and he
meant to do it. "No doubt it seems to thee a sudden blow, and but a
brief space left thee for preparation. But, at the best, our life here
is only a span; 'Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to
live, and is full of misery.'"
Carlos did not look as if he heard; he still stood lost in thought, his
head sunk upon his breast. But in another moment he raised it suddenly.
"To-morrow I shall be with Christ in glory!" he exclaimed, with a
countenance as radiant as if that glory were already reflected there.
Some faint feeling of awe and wonder touched the Inquisitor's heart, and
silenced him for an instant. Then, recovering himself, and falling back
for help upon wonted words of course, he said,--
"I entreat of you to think of your soul."
"I have thought of it long ago. I have given it into the safe keeping
of Christ my Lord. Therefore I think no more of it; I only think of
him."
"But have you no fear of the anguish--the doom of fire?"
"I have no fear," Carlos answered. And this was a great mystery, even
to himself. "Christ's hand will either lift me over it or sustain me
through it; which, I know not yet. And I am not careful; he will care."
"Men of noble lineage, such as you are--of high honour and stainless
name, such as you _were_," said the Inquisitor--"ofttimes dread shame
more than agony. You, who were called Alvarez de Menaya, what think you
of the infamy, the loathing of all men, the scorn and mockery of the
lowest rabble--the zamarra, the carroza?"
"I shall joyfully go forth with Him without the camp, bearing his
reproach."
"And stand at the stake beside a vile caitiff, a miserable muleteer,
convicted of the same crimes?"
"A muleteer? Juliano Hernandez?" Carlos questioned eagerly.
"The same."
A softer light played over the features of Carlos. Then he should see
that face once more--perhaps even grasp that hand! Truly God was giving
him everything he desired of him. He said,--
"I am glad to stand, here to the last, at the side of that faithful
soldier and servant of Christ. For when we go in there together, I dare
not hope to be so highly honoured as to take a place beside him."
At this point the prior broke in. "Senor and my brother, your words are
wasted. He is given over to the power of the evil one. Let us leave
him." And drawing his mantle round him, he turned to go, without
looking again towards Carlos.
But Carlos came forward. "Pardon me, my lord; I have a few words yet to
say to you;" and, stretching out his hand to detain him, he
unconsciously touched his arm with it.
The prior flung it off with a gesture of angry scorn. There was
contamination in that touch. "I have heard too many words from your
lips already," he said.
"To-morrow night my lips will be dust, my voice silent for ever. So you
may well bear with me for a little while to-day."
"Speak then; but be brief."
"It gives me the last pang I think to know on earth, to part thus from
you; for you have shown me true kindness. I owe you, not forgiveness as
an enemy, but gratitude as a sincere though mistaken friend. I shall
pray for you--"
"An impenitent heretic's prayers--"
"Will do my lord the prior no harm; and there may come a day when he
will not be sorry he had them."
There was a short pause. "Have you anything else to say?" asked the
prior rather more gently.
"Only one word, senor." He turned and looked at the dead. "I know you
loved him well. You will deal gently with his dust, will you not? A
grave is not much to ask for him. You will give it; I trust you."
The stern set face relaxed a little before that pleading look. "It is
you who have sought to rob him of a grave," said the prior--"you who
have defamed him of heresy. But your testimony is invalid; and, as I
have said, I believe you not."
With this declaration of purely official disbelief, he left the room.
His colleague lingered a moment. "You plead for the senseless dust that
can neither feel nor suffer," he said; "you can pity that. How is it
you cannot pity yourself?"
"That which you destroy to-morrow is not myself. It is only my garment,
my tent. Yet even over that Christ watches. He can raise it glorious
from the ashes of the Quemadero as easily as from the church where the
bones of my fathers sleep. For I am his, soul and body--the purchase of
his blood. And why should it be a marvel in your eyes that I rejoice to
give my life for him who gave his own for me?"
"God grant thee even yet to die in his grace!" answered the Inquisitor,
somewhat moved. "I do not despair of thee. I will pray for thee, and
visit thee again to-night." So saying, he hastened after the prior.
For a season Carlos sat motionless, his soul filled to overflowing with
a calm, deep tide of awed and wondering joy. No room was there for any
thought save one--"I shall see His face; I shall be with Him for ever."
Over the Thing that lay between he could spring as joyously as a child
might leap across a brook to reach his father's outstretched hand.
At length his eye fell, perhaps by accident, on the little writing-book
which lay near. He drew it towards him, and having found out the place
where the last entry was made, wrote rapidly beneath it,--
"To depart and to be with Christ is far better. My beloved father is
gone to him in peace to-day. I too go in peace, though by a rougher
path, to-morrow. Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the
days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
"CARLOS ALVAREZ DE SANTILLANOS Y MENAYA."
And with a strange consciousness that he had now signed his name for the
last time, he carefully affixed to it his own especial "rubrica," or
sign-manual.
Then came one thought of earth--only one--the last. "God, in his great
mercy, grant that my brother may be far away! I would not that he saw
my face to-morrow. For the pain and the shame can be seen of all; while
that which changes them to glory no man knoweth, save he that receiveth
it. But, wherever thou art, God bless thee, my Ruy!" And drawing the
book towards him again, he added, as if by a sudden impulse, to what he
had already written, "God bless thee, my Ruy!"
Soon afterwards the Alguazils arrived to conduct him back to the Triana.
Then, turning to his dead once more, he kissed the pale forehead,
saying, "Farewell, for a little while. Thou didst never taste death;
nor shall I. Instead of thee and me, Christ drank that cup."
And then, for the second time, the gate of the Triana opened to receive
Don Carlos Alvarez. At sunrise next morning its gloomy portals were
unlocked, and he, with others, passed forth from beneath their shadow.
Not to return again to that dark prison, there to linger out the slow
and solitary hours of grief and pain. His warfare was accomplished, his
victory was won. Long before the sun had arisen again upon the weary
blood-stained earth, a brighter sun arose for him who had done with
earth. All his desire was granted, all his longings were fulfilled. He
saw the face of Christ, and he was with Him for ever.