XLIV.

'El DoradoYo hé trovado.'"

'El Dorado

Yo hé trovado.'"

One Prisoner Set Free.

"All was ended now, the hope and the fear, and the sorrow;All the aching of heart, the restless unsatisfied longing,All the dull deep pain, and constant anguish of patience."Longfellow.

"All was ended now, the hope and the fear, and the sorrow;All the aching of heart, the restless unsatisfied longing,All the dull deep pain, and constant anguish of patience."

"All was ended now, the hope and the fear, and the sorrow;

All the aching of heart, the restless unsatisfied longing,

All the dull deep pain, and constant anguish of patience."

Longfellow.

The winter rain was pouring down in a steady continuous torrent. It was long since a gleam of sunshine had come through the windows of the prison-room. But Don Juan Alvarez did not miss the sunlight. For he lay on his pallet, weak and ill, and the only sight he greatly cared to look upon was the loving face that was ever beside him.

It is possible, by means of the embalmer's art, to enable buried forms to retain for ages a ghastly outward similitude to life. Tombs have been opened, and kings found therein clothed in their royal robes, stern and stately, the sceptre in their cold hands, and no trace of the grave and its corruption visible upon them. But no sooner did the breath of the upper air and the finger of light touch them than they crumbled away, silently and rapidly, and dust returned to dust again. Thus, buried in the chill dark tomb of his seclusion, Don Juan might have lived for years—if life it could be called—or, at least, he might have lingered on in the outward similitude of life. But Carlos brought in light and air upon him. His mind andheart revived; and, just in proportion, his physical nature sank. It proved too weak to bear these powerful influences. He was dying.

Tender and thoughtful as a woman, Carlos, who himself knew so well all the bitterness of unpitied pain and sickness, ministered to his father's wants. But he did not request their gaolers to afford him any medical aid, though, had he done so, it would have been readily granted.

He had good reason for seeking no help from man. The daily penance was neglected now; the rosary lay untold; and never again would "Ave Maria Sanctissima" pass the lips of Don Juan Alvarez. Therefore it was that Carlos, after much thought and prayer, said quietly to him one day, "My father, are you afraid to lie here, in God's hands, and in his alone, and to take whatever he pleases to send us?"

"I am not afraid."

"Do you desireanyhelp they can give, either for your soul or for your body?"

"No," said the Conde de Nuera, with something like the spirit of other days. "I would not confess to them; for Christ is my only priest now. And they should not anoint me while I retained my consciousness."

A look of resolution, strange to see, passed over the gentle face of Carlos. "It is well said, my father," he responded. "And, God helping me, I will let no man trouble you."

"My son," said Don Juan one evening, as Carlos sat beside him in the twilight, "I pray you, tell me a little more of those who learned to love the truth since I walked amongst men. For I would fain be able to recognize them when we meet in heaven."

Then Carlos told him, not indeed for the first time, but more fully than ever before, the story of the Reformed Church in Spain. Almost every name that he mentioned has come down to us surrounded by the mournful halo of martyr glory. With special reverential love, he told of Don Carlos de Seso,of Losada, of D'Arellano, and of the heroic Juliano Hernandez, who, as he believed, was still waiting for his crown. "For him," he said, "I pray even yet; for the others I can only thank God. Surely," he added, after a pause, "God will remember the land for which these, his faithful martyrs, prayed and toiled and suffered! Surely he will hear their voices, that cry under the altar, not for vengeance, but for forgiveness and mercy; and one day he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him!"

"I know not," said the dying man despondingly. "The Spains have had their offer of God's truth, and have rejected it. What is there that is said, somewhere in the Scriptures, about Noah, Daniel, and Job?"

Carlos repeated the solemn words, "'Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.' Do you fear that such a terrible doom has gone forth over our land, my father? I dare to hope otherwise. For it is not the Spains that have rejected the truth. It is the Inquisition that is crushing it out."

"But the Spains must answer for its deeds, since they consent to them. They heed not. There are brave men enough, with weapons in their hands," said the soldier of former days, with a momentary return to old habits of thought and feeling.

"Yet God may give our land another trial," Carlos continued. "His truth is sometimes offered twice to individuals, why not to nations?"

"True; it was offered twice to me, praised be his name." After an interval of silence, he resumed, "My son always speaks of others, never of himself. Not yet have I learned how it was that you came to receive the Word of God so readily from Juliano."

Then in the dark, with his father's hand in his, Carlos told, for the first and last time, the true story of his life.

Before he had gone far, Don Juan started, half-raised himself, and exclaimed in surprise, "What, and you!—youtoo—once loved?"

"Ay, and bitter as the pain has been, I am glad now of all except the sin. I am glad that I have tasted earth's very best and sweetest; that I know how the wine is red and gives its colour in the cup of life he honours me to put aside for him." His voice was low and full of feeling as he said this. Presently he resumed. "But the sin, my father! Especially my treachery in heart to Juan; that rankled long and stung deeply. Juan, my brave, generous brother, who would have struck down any man who dared to hint that I could do, or think, aught dishonourable! He never knew it; and had he known it, he would have forgiven me; but I could not forgive myself. I do not think the self-scorn passed away until—thatwhich happened after I had been nigh a year in prison. O my father, if God had not interposed to save me by withholding me from that crime, I shudder to think what my life might have been. I am persuaded I should have sunk lower, lower, and ever lower. Perhaps, even, I might have ended in the purple and fine linen, and the awful pomp and luxury of the oppressors and persecutors of the saints."

"Nay," said Don Juan, "that wouldneverhave been possible to thee, Carlos. But there is a question I have often longed to ask thee. Does Juan, my Juan Rodrigo, know and love the Word of God?"

He had asked that question before; but Carlos had contrived, with tact and gentleness, to evade the answer. Up to this hour he had not dared to tell his father the truth upon this important subject. Besides the terrible risk that in some moment of fear or forgetfulness the prior or his agents might draw an incautious word from the old man's lips, there was a haunting dread of listeners at key-holes, or secret apertures, quite natural in one who knew the customs of the Holy Office.But now he bent down close to the dying man, and spoke to him in a long earnest whisper.

"Thank God," murmured Don Juan. "I would have no earthly wish unsatisfied now—if onlyyouwere safe. But still," he added, "it seemeth somewhat hard to me that Juan should haveall, and you nothing."

"Inothing!" Carlos exclaimed; and had not the room been in darkness his father would have seen that his eye kindled, and his whole countenance lighted up. "My father, mine has been the best lot, even for earth. Were it to do again, I would not change the last two years for the deepest love, the brightest hope, the fairest joy life has to offer. For the Lord himself has been the portion of my cup, my inheritance in the land of the living."

After a silence, he continued, "Moreover, and beside all, I have thee, my father. Therefore to me it is a joy to think that my beloved brother has also something precious. How he loved her! But the strangest thing of all, as I ponder over it now, is the fulfilment of our childhood's dream. And in me, the weak one who deserved nothing, not in Juan the hero who deserved everything. It is the lame who has taken the prey. It is the weak and timid Carlos who has found our father."

"Weak—timid?" said Don Juan, with an incredulous smile. "I marvel who ever joined such words with the name of my heroic son. Carlos, have we any wine?"

"Abundance, my father," answered Carlos, who carefully treasured for his father's use all that was furnished for both of them. Having given him a little, he asked, "Do you feel pain to-night?"

"No—no pain. Only weary; always weary."

"I think my beloved father will soon be where the weary are at rest"—"and where the wicked cease from troubling," he added mentally, not aloud.

He would fain have dropped the conversation then, fearing to exhaust his father's strength. But the sick man's restlessness was soothed by his talk. Ere long he questioned, "Is it not near Christmas now?"

Well did Carlos know that it was; and keenly did he dread the return of the season which ought to bring "peace upon earth." For it would certainly bring the prisoners a visit; and almost certainly there would be the offer of special privileges to the penitent, perhaps sacramental consolation, perhaps permission to hear mass. He shuddered to think what a refusal to avail himself of these indulgences might entail. And once and again did he breathe the fervent prayer, that whatever came uponhim, neither violence, insult, nor reproach might be allowed to touch his father.

Moreover, amongst the great festivities of the season, it was more than likely that a solemn Auto-da-fé might find place. But this was a secret inner thought, not often put into words, even to himself. Only, if it were God's will to call his father first!

"It is December," he said, in answer to Don Juan's question; "but I have lost account of the day. It may be perhaps the twelfth or fourteenth. Shall I recite the evening psalms for the twelfth, 'Te dicet hymnus'?"

As he did so, the old man fell asleep, which was what he desired. Half in the sleep of exhaustion, half in weary restlessness, the next day and the next night wore on. Once only did Don Juan speak connectedly.

"I think you will see my mother soon," said Carlos, as he bore to his lips wine mingled with water.

"True," breathed the dying man; "but I am not thinking of that now. Far better—I shall see Christ."

"My father, are you still in peace, resting on him?"

"In perfect peace."

And Carlos said no more. He was content; nay, he wasexceeding glad. He who in all things will have the pre-eminence, had indeed taken his rightful place in the heart of the dying, when even the strong earthly love that was "twisted with the strings of life" had paled before the love of him.

And in the last watch of the night, when the day was breaking, he sent his angel to loose the captive's bonds. So gentle was the touch that freed him, that he who sat holding his hand in his, and watching his face as we watch the last conscious looks of our beloved, yet knew not the exact moment when the Deliverer came. Carlos never said "He is going!" he only said "He is gone!" And then he kissed the pale lips and closed the sightless eyes—in peace.

None ever thanked God for bringing back their beloved from the gates of the grave more fervently than Carlos thanked him that hour for so gently opening unto his those gates that "no man can shut." "My father, thy rest is won!" he said, as he gazed on the calm and noble countenance. "They cannot touch thee now. Not all the malice of men or of fiends can give one pang. A moment since so fearfully in their power; now so completely beyond it! Thank God! thank God!"

The rain was over, and ere long the sun arose, in his royal robes of crimson and purple and gold—to the prisoner from the dungeon of the Triana an ever fresh wonder and joy. Yet not even that sight could win his eyes to-day from the deeper beauty of the still and solemn face before him. And as the soft crimson light fell on the pallid cheek and brow, the watcher murmured, with calm thankfulness,—"'To him sun and daylight are as nothing, for he sees the glory of God.'"

Triumphant.

"For ever with the Lord!Amen! so let it be!"Montgomery.

"For ever with the Lord!Amen! so let it be!"

"For ever with the Lord!

Amen! so 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 desirethem. 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, señor.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 willnotbelieve 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 anddeploring 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 youwere," said the Inquisitor—"ofttimes dread shame more than agony. You, who were called Alvarez de Meñaya, what thinkyouof 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. "Señor 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 partthus 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, señor." 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 isyouwho 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. Noroom 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."

"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 openedto 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.

Is it too Late?

"Death upon his faceIs rather shine than shade;A tender shine by looks beloved made:He seemeth dying in a quiet place."E.B. Browning.

"Death upon his faceIs rather shine than shade;A tender shine by looks beloved made:He seemeth dying in a quiet place."

"Death upon his face

Is rather shine than shade;

A tender shine by looks beloved made:

He seemeth dying in a quiet place."

E.B. Browning.

The mountain-snow lay white around the old castle of Nuera; but within there was light and warmth. Joy and gladness were there also, "thanksgiving and the voice of melody;" for Doña Beatriz, graver and paler than of old, and with the brilliant lustre of her dark eyes subdued to a kind of dewy softness, was singing a cradle-song beside the cot where her first-born slept.

The babe had just been baptized by Fray Sebastian. With a pleading, wistful look had Dolores asked her lord, the day before, what name he wished his son to bear. But he only answered, "The heir of our house always bears the name of Juan." Another name was far dearer to memory; but not yet could he accustom his lips to utter it, or his ear to bear the sound.

Now he came slowly into the room, holding in his hand an unsealed letter. Doña Beatriz looked up. "He sleeps," she said.

"Then let him sleep on, señora mia."

"But will you not look? See, how pretty he is! How he smiles in his sleep! And those dear small hands—"

"Have their share in dragging me further than you wot of, my Beatriz."

Nay; what dost thou mean? Do not be grave and sad to-day—not to-day, Don Juan."

"My beloved, God knows I would not cloud thy brow with a single care if I could help it. Nor am I sad. Only we must think. Here is a letter from the Duke of Savoy (and very gracious and condescending too), inviting me to take my place once more in His Catholic Majesty's army."

"But you will not go? We are so happy together here."

"My Beatriz, Idarenot go. I would have to fight"—(here he broke off, and cast a hasty glance round the room, from the habit of dreading listeners)—"I would have to fight against those whose cause is just the cause I hold dearest upon earth. I would have to deny my faith by the deeds of every day. But yet, how to refuse and not stand dishonoured in the eyes of the world, a traitor and a coward, I know not."

"No dishonour could ever touch thee, my brave and noble Juan."

Don Juan's brow relaxed a little. "But that men should eventhinkit did, is what I could not bear," he said. "Besides"—and he drew nearer the cradle, and looked fondly down at the little sleeper—"it does not seem to me, my Beatriz, that I dare bring up this child God has given me to the bitter heritage of a slave."

"A slave!" repeated Doña Beatriz, almost with a cry. "Now Heaven help us, Don Juan; are you mad? You, of noblest lineage—you, Alvarez de Meñaya—to call your own first-born a slave!"

"I call any one a slave who dares not speak out what he thinks, and act out what he believes," returned Don Juan sadly.

"And what is it that you would do then?"

"Would to God that I knew! But the future is all dark to me. I see not a single step before me."

"Then, amigo mio, do not look before you. Let the future alone, and enjoy the present, as I do."

"Truly that baby face would charm many a care away," said Juan, with another fond glance at the sleeping child. "But a manmustlook before him, and a Christian man must ask what God would have him to do. Moreover, this letter of the duke demands an answer, Yea or Nay."

"Señor Don Juan. I desire to speak with your Excellency," said the voice of Dolores at the door.

"Come in, Dolores."

"Nay, señor, I want you here." This peremptory sharpness was very unlike the wonted manner of Dolores.

Don Juan came forth immediately. Dolores signed to him to shut the door. Then, not till then, she began,—"Señor Don Juan, two brethren of the Society of Jesus have come from Seville, and are now in the village."

"What then? Surely you do not fear that they suspect anything with regard to us?" asked Juan, in some alarm.

"No; but they have brought tidings."

"You tremble, Dolores. You are ill. Speak—what is it?"

"They have brought tidings of a great Act of Faith, to be held at Seville, upon a day not yet fixed when they left the city, but towards the end of this month."

For a moment the two stood silent, gazing in each other's faces. Then Dolores said, in an eager breathless whisper, "You will go, señor?"

Juan shook his head. "What you are thinking of Dolores, is a dream—a vain, wild dream. Long since, I doubt not, he rests with God."

"But if we had the proof of it, rest might come to us," said Dolores, large tears gathering slowly in her eyes.

"It is true," Juan mused; "they may wreak their vengeance on the dust."

"And for the assurance that would give that nothing more was left them, I, a poor woman, would joyfully walk barefoot from this to Seville and back again."

Juan hesitated no longer. "I go" he said. "Dolores, seek Fray Sebastian, and send him to me at once. Bid Jorge be ready with the horses to start to-morrow at daybreak. Meanwhile, I will prepare Doña Beatriz for my sudden departure."

Of that hurried winter journey, Don Juan was never afterwards heard to speak. No one of its incidents seemed to have made the slightest impression on his mind, or even to have been remembered by him.

But at last he drew near Seville. It was late in the evening, however, and he had told his attendant they should spend the night at a village eight or nine miles from their destination.

Suddenly Jorge cried out. "Look there, señor, the city is on fire."

Don Juan looked. A lurid crimson glow paled the stars in the southern sky. With a shudder he bowed his head, and veiled his face from the awful sight.

"That fire iswithout the gate," he said at last. "Pray for the souls that are passing in anguish now."

Noble, heroic souls! Probably Juliano Hernandez, possibly Fray Constantino, was amongst them. These were the only names that occurred to Don Juan's mind, or were breathed in his fervent, agitated prayer.

"Yonder is the posada, señor," said the attendant presently.

"Nay, Jorge, we will ride on. There will be no sleepers in Seville to-night."

"But, señor," remonstrated the servant, "the horses are weary. We have travelled far to-day already."

"Let them rest afterwards," said Juan briefly. Motion, justthen, was an absolute necessity to him. He could not have rested anywhere, within sight of that awful glare.

Two hours afterwards he drew the rein of his weary steed before the house of his cousin Doña Inez. He had no scruple in asking for admission in the middle of the night, as he knew that, under the circumstances, the household would not fail to be astir. His summons was speedily answered, and he was conducted to a hall opening on the patio.

Thither, after a brief interval, came Juanita, bearing a lamp in her hand, which she set down on the table. "My lady will see your Excellency presently," said the girl, with a shy, frightened air, which was very unlike her, but which Juan was too preoccupied to notice. "But she is much indisposed. My lord was obliged to accompany her home from the Act of Faith before it was half over."

Juan expressed the concern he felt, and desired that she would not incommode herself upon his account. Perhaps Don Garçia, if he had not yet retired to rest, would converse with him for a few moments.

"My lady said she must speak with you herself," answered Juanita, as she left the room.

After a considerable time Doña Inez appeared. In that southern climate youth and beauty fade quickly; and yet Juan was by no means prepared for the changed, worn, haggard face that gazed on him now, There was no pomp of apparel to carry off the impression. Doña Inez wore a loose dark dressing-robe; and a hasty careless hand seemed to have untwined the usual ornaments from her black hair. Her eyes were like those of one who has wept for hours, and then only ceased for very weariness.

She stretched out both her hands to Juan—"O Don Juan, I never meant it! I never meant it!"

"Señora and my cousin, I have but just arrived here. I do not understand you," said Juan, rising to greet her.

"Santa Maria! Then you know not!—Horrible!"

She sank into a seat. Juan stood gazing at her eagerly, almost wildly. "Yes; I understand all now," he said at last. "I suspected it."

Hesaw in imagination a black chest, with a little lifeless dust within it; a rude shapeless figure, robed in the hideous zamarra, and bearing in large letters the venerated name, "Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya." Whileshesaw a living face, that would never cease to haunt her memory until death shadowed all things.

"Let me speak," she gasped; "and I will try to be calm. I did not wish to go. It was the day of the last Auto, you remember, that my poor brother died, and altogether—— But Don Garçia insisted. He said everybody would talk, and especially when the taint had touched our own house. Besides, Doña Juana de Bohorques, who died in prison, was to be publicly declared innocent, and her property restored to her heirs. Out of regard to the family, it was thought we ought to be present. O Don Juan, if I had but known! I would rather have put on a sanbenito myself than have gone there. God grant it did not hurt him!"

"How could it possibly hurt him, my tender-hearted cousin?"

"Hush! Let me go on now, while I can speak of it; or I shall never, never tell you. And I must.Hewould have wished—— Well, we were seated in what they called good places; very near the condemned; in fact, the scaffold opposite was plain to us as you are to me now. But that last time, and Doña Maria's look, and Dr. Cristobal's, haunted me, so that I did not dare to raise my eyes to wheretheysat;—not until long after the mass had begun. And I knew besides there were so many women there—eight on that dreadful top bench, doomed to die. But at last a lady who sat near me bade me look at one of the relaxed, a little man, who was pointing upwards and making signs to his companions to encouragethem. 'Do not look, señora,' said Don Garçia, quickly—but too late. O Don Juan, I saw his face!"

"HisLIVINGface? Not his living face?" cried Juan, with a shudder that convulsed his strong frame from head to foot. And the Name—the one awful Name that rises to all human lips in moments of supreme emotion—broke from his in a wail of anguish.

Doña Inez tried to speak; but in vain. Thoroughly broken down, she wept and sobbed aloud. But the sight of the rigid, tearless face before her checked her tears at last. She gained power to go on. "I saw him. Worn and pale, of course; yet not changed so greatly, after all. The same dear, kind, familiar face I had seen last in this room, when he caressed and played with my child. Not sad, not as though he suffered. Rather as though he had suffered long ago; but was beyond it all, even then. A still, patient, fearless look, eyes that saw everything; and yet nothing seemed to trouble him. I bore it until they were reading the sentences, and came to his. But when I saw the Alguazil strike him—the blow that relaxed to the secular arm—I could endure no more. I believe I cried aloud. But in fact I know not what I did. I know nothing more till Don Garçia and my brother Don Manuel were carrying me through the crowd."

"No word? Was there no word spoken?" asked Juan wildly.

"No; but I heard some one near me say that he talked with that muleteer in the court of the Triana, and spoke words of comfort to a poor woman amongst the penitents, whom they called Maria Gonsalez."

All was told now. Maddened with rage and anguish, Juan rushed from the room, from the house; and, without being conscious of any settled purpose, in five minutes found himself far on his way to the Dominican convent adjoining the Triana.

His servant, who was still waiting at the gate, followed himto ask for orders, and with difficulty overtook him, and arrested his steps.

Juan sternly silenced his faltering, agitated question as to what was wrong with his lord. "Go to rest," he said, "and meet me in the morning by the great gate of Sun Isodro." Nothing was clear to him; but that he must shake off as soon as possible the dust of the wicked, cruel city from his feet. And San Isodro was the only trysting-place without its walls that happened at the moment to occur to his bewildered brain.

The Dominican Prior.

"Oh, deep is a wounded heart, and strongA voice that cries against mighty wrong!And full of death as a hot wind's blight,Doth the ire of a crushed affection light."Hemans.

"Oh, deep is a wounded heart, and strongA voice that cries against mighty wrong!And full of death as a hot wind's blight,Doth the ire of a crushed affection light."

"Oh, deep is a wounded heart, and strong

A voice that cries against mighty wrong!

And full of death as a hot wind's blight,

Doth the ire of a crushed affection light."

Hemans.

Tell the prior Don Juan Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya desires to speak with him, and that instantly," said Juan to the drowsy lay brother who at last answered his impatient summons, lantern in hand.

"My lord has but just retired to rest, and cannot now be disturbed," answered the attendant, looking with some curiosity, not to say surprise, at the visitor, who seemed to think three o'clock of a winter morning a proper and suitable hour to demand instant audience of a great man.

"I will wait," said Juan, walking into the court.

The attendant led him to a parlour; then, holding the door ajar, he said, "Let his Excellency pardon me, I did not hear distinctly his worship's honourable name."

"Don Juan Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya. The prior knows it—too well."

It was evident from his face that the poor lay brother knew it also. And so that night did every man, woman, and child in Seville. It had become a name of infamy.

With a hasty "Yes, yes, señor," the door was closed, and Juan was left alone.

What had brought him there? Did he mean to accuse the Dominican of his brother's murder, or did he only intend to reproach him—him who had once shown some pity to the captive—for not saving him from that horrible doom? He himself scarcely knew. He had been driven thither by a wild, unreasoning impulse, an instinct of passionate rage, prompting him to grasp at the only shadow of revenge that lay within his reach. If he could not execute God's awful judgments against the persecutors, at least he could denounce them. A poor substitute, but all that remained to him. Without it his heart must break.

Yet that unreasoning impulse had a kind of unconscious reason in it, since it led him to seek the presence of the Dominican prior, and not that of the far more guilty Munebrãga. For who would accuse a tiger, reproach a wolf? Words would be wasted upon such. For them there is no argument but the spear and the bullet. A man can only speak to men.

To do Fray Ricardo justice, he was so much of a man that sleep did not visit his eyes that night. When at length his attendants thought fit to inform him that Don Juan desired to see him, he was still kneeling, as he had knelt for hours, before the crucifix in his private oratory. "Saviour of the world, so much didst thou suffer," this was the key-note of his thoughts; "and shall I weakly pity thine enemies, or shrink from seeing them suffer what they have deserved at thy hands and those of thy holy Church?"

"Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya waits below!" Just then Don Fray Ricardo would rather have held his right hand in the fire than have gone forth to face one bearing that name. But, for that very reason, no sooner did he hear that Don Juan awaited him than he robed himself in his cowl and mantle, took a lamp in his hand (for it was still dark), and went down to meet the visitor. For that morning he was in the mood towelcome any form of self-torture that came in his way, and to find a strange but real relief in it.

"Peace be with thee, my son," was his grave but courteous salutation, as he entered the parlour. He looked upon Juan with mournful compassion, as the last of a race over which there hung a terrible doom.

"Let your peace be with murderers like yourselves, or with slaves like those that work your will; I fling it back to you in scorn," was the fierce reply.

The Dominican recoiled a step—only a step, for he was a brave man, and his face, pale with conflict and watching, grew a shade paler.

"Do you think I mean to harm you?" cried Juan in yet fiercer scorn. "Not a hair of your tonsured head. See there!" He unbuckled his sword, and threw it from him, and it fell with a clang on the floor.

"Young man, you would consult your own safety as well as your own honour by adopting a different tone," said the prior, not without dignity.

"My safety is little worth consulting. I am a bold, rough soldier, used to peril and violence. Would it were such, and such alone, that you menaced. But, fiends that you are, would no one serve you for a victim save my young, gentle, unoffending brother; he who never harmed you nor any one? Would nothing satisfy your malice but to immure him in your hideous dungeons for two-and-thirty long slow months, in what suffering of mind and body God alone can tell; and then, at last, to bring him forth to that horrible death? I curse you! I curse you! Nay, that is nothing; who am I to curse? I invoke God's curse upon you! I give you up into God's hands this hour! When He maketh inquisition for blood—another inquisition than yours—I pray him to exact from you, murderers of the innocent, torturers of the just, every drop of blood, every tear, every pang of which he has been the witness, as he shall be the avenger."

At last the prior found a voice. Hitherto he had listened spell-bound, as one oppressed by nightmare, powerless to free himself from the hideous burden. "Man!" he cried, "you are raving; the Holy Office—"

"Is the arch-fiend's own contrivance, and its ministers his favourite servants," interrupted Juan, reckless in his rage, and defying all consequences.

"Blasphemy! This may not be borne," and Fray Ricardo stretched out his hand towards a bell that lay on the table.

But Juan's strong grasp prevented his touching it. He could not shake off that as easily as he had shaken off a pale thin hand two days before. "I shall speak forth my mind this once," he said. "After that, what you please.—Go on. Fill your cup full to the brim. Immure, plunder, burn, destroy. Pile up, high as heaven, your hecatomb of victims, offered to the God of love. At least there is one thing that may be said in your favour. In your cruelties there is a horrible impartiality. It can never be spoken of you that you have gone out into the highways and hedges, taken the blind and the lame, and made of them your burnt sacrifice. No. You go into the closest guarded homes; you take thence the gentlest, the tenderest, the fairest, the best, and of such you make your burnt-offering. And you—are your hearts human, or are they not? If they are, stifle them, crush them down into silence while you can; for a day will come when you can stifle them no longer. That will begin your punishment. You will feel remorse."

"Man, let me go!" interrupted the indignant yet half-frightened prior, struggling vainly to free himself from his grasp. "Cease your blasphemies. Men only feel remorse when they have sinned; and I serve God and the Church."

"Yet, servant of the Church (for God's servant I am not profane enough to call you), speak to me this once as man to man, and tell me, did a victim's pale face never haunt you, a victim's agonized cry never ring in your ears?"

For just an instant the prior winced, as one who feels a sharp, sudden pain, but determines to conceal it.

"There!" cried Juan—and at last he released his arm and flung it from him—"I read an answer in your look. You, at least, are capable of remorse."

"You are false there," the prior broke in. "Remorse is not for me."

"No? Then all the worse for you—infinitely the worse. Yet it may be. You may sleep and rise, and go to your rest again untroubled by an accusing conscience. You may sit down to eat and drink with the wail of your brother's anguish ringing in your ears, like Munebrãga, who sits feasting yonder in his marble hall, with the ashes yet hot on the Quemadero. Until you go down quick into hell, and the pit shuts her mouth upon you. Then,THENshall you drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and you shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb."

"Thou art beside thyself," cried the prior; "and I, scarce less mad than thou, to listen to thy ravings. Yet hear me a moment, Don Juan Alvarez. I have not merited these insane reproaches. To you and yours I have been more a friend than you wot of."

"Noble friendship! I thank you for it, as it deserves."

"You have given me, this hour, more than cause enough to order your instant arrest."

"You are welcome. It were shame indeed if I could not bear at your hands what my gentle brother bore."

The last of his race! The father dead in prison; the mother dead long ago (Fray Ricardo himself best knew why); the brother burned to ashes. "I think you have a wife, perhaps a child?" asked the prior hurriedly.

"A young wife, and an infant son," said Juan, softening a little at the thought.

"Wild as your words have been, I am yet willing, for their sakes, to show you forbearance. According to the lenity which ministers of the Holy Office—"

"Have learned from their father the devil," interrupted Juan, the flame of his wrath blazing up again. "After what the stars looked down on last night, dare to mock me with thy talk of lenity!"

"You are in love with destruction," said the prior. "But I have heard you long enough. Now hear me. You have been, ere this, under grave suspicion. Indeed, you would have been arrested, only that your brother endured the Question without revealing anything to your disadvantage. That saved you."

But here he stopped, struck with astonishment at the sudden change his words had wrought.

A man stabbed to the heart makes no outcry, he does not even moan or writhe. Nor did Juan. Mutely he sank on the nearest seat, all his rage and defiance gone now. A moment before he stood over the shrinking Inquisitor like a prophet of doom or an avenging angel; now he cowered crushed and silent, stricken to the soul. There was a long silence. Then he raised a changed, sad look to the prior's face. "He borethatfor me," he said, "and I never knew it."

In the cold gray morning light, now filling the room, he looked utterly forlorn and broken. The prior could even afford to pity him. He questioned, mildly enough, "How was it you did not know it? Fray Sebastian Gomez, who visited him in prison, was well aware of the fact."

In Juan's present mood every faculty was stimulated to unnatural activity. This perhaps enabled him to divine a truth which in calmer moments might have escaped him. "My brother," he said, in a low tone of deep emotion, "my heroic, tender-hearted brother must have bidden him conceal it from me."

"It was strange," said the prior, and his thoughts ran backto other things which were strange also—to the uniform patience and gentleness of Carlos; to the fortitude with which, whilst acknowledging his own faith, he had steadily refused to compromise any one else; to the self-forgetfulness with which he had shielded his father's last hours from disturbance. Granted that the heretic was a wild beast, "made to be taken and destroyed," even the hunter may admire unblamed the grace and beauty of the creature who has just fallen beneath his relentless weapon. Something like a mist rose to the eyes of Fray Ricardo, taking him by surprise.

Still, the interests of the Faith were paramount with him. All that had been done had been well done; he would not, if he could, undo any part of it. But did his duty to the Faith and to Holy Church require that he should hunt the remaining brother to death, and thus "quench the coal that was left"? He hoped not; he thought not. And, although he would not have allowed it to himself, the words that followed were really a peace-offering to the shade of Carlos.

"Young man, I am willing, for my own part, to overlook the wild words you have uttered, regarding them as the outpourings of insanity, and making moreover due allowance for your natural fraternal sorrow. Still you must be aware that you have laid yourself open, and not for the first time, to grave suspicion of heresy. I should not only sin against my own conscience, but also expose myself to the penalties of a grievous irregularity, did I take no steps for the vindication of the Faith and your just and well-merited punishment. Therefore give ear to what I say.This day weekI bring the matter before the Table of the Holy Office, of which I have the honour to be an unworthy member. And God grant you the grace of repentance, and his forgiveness."

Having said this, Fray Ricardo left the room. He disappears also from our pages, where he occupied a place as a type of the less numerous and less guilty class of persecutors—those whonot only thought they were doing God service (Munebrãga may have thought that, but he was only willing to do God such service as cost him nothing), but who were honestly anxious to serve him to the best of their ability. His future is hidden from our sight. We cannot even undertake to say whether, when death drew near,—if the name of Alvarez de Meñaya occurred to him at all,—he reproached himself for his sternness to the brother whom he had consigned to the flames, or for his weakness to the brother to whom he had generously given a chance of life and liberty.

It is not usually the most guilty who hear the warning voice that denounces their crimes and threatens their doom. Such words as Don Juan spoke to Fray Ricardo could not, by any conceivable possibility, have been uttered in the presence of Gonzales de Munebrãga.

Soon afterwards a lay brother, the same who had admitted Don Juan, entered the room and placed wine on the table before him. "My lord the prior bade me say your Excellency seemed exhausted, and should refresh yourself ere you depart," he explained.

Juan motioned it away. He could not trust himself to speak. But did Fray Ricardo imagine he would either eat bread or drink water beneath the roof that shelteredhim?

Still the poor man lingered, standing before him with the air of one who had something to say which he did not exactly know how to bring out.

"You may tell your lord that I am going," said Juan, rising wearily, and with a look that certainly told of exhaustion.

"If it please your noble Excellency—" and the lay brother stopped and hesitated.

"Well?"

"Let his Excellency pardon me. Could his worship have the misfortune to be related, very distantly no doubt, to one of the heretics who—"

"Don Carlos Alvarez was my brother," said Juan proudly.

The poor lay brother drew nearer to him, and lowered his voice to a mysterious whisper. "Señor and your Excellency, he was here in prison for a long time. It was thought that my lord the prior had a kindness for him, and wished him better used than they use the criminals in the Santa Casa. It happened that the prisoner whose cell he shared died the day before his—removal. So that the cell was empty, and it fell to my lot to cleanse it. Whilst I was doing it I found this; I think it belonged to him."

He drew from beneath his serge gown a little book, and handed it to Juan, who seized it as a starving man might seize a piece of bread. Hastily taking out his purse, he flung it in exchange to the lay brother; and then, just as the matin bells began to ring, he buckled on his sword and went forth.

San Isodro Once More.

Back to Index Next