“Old faces look upon me,
Old forms go crowding past.”
AYTOUN.
WALTER Gray slept at last; weariness of body gaining the victory over sorrow of heart. He was wakened from a dream of home, more vivid than any he had known for months, by curses and blows and cries of pain, the usual matins of the galley-slave.
He put his stiff and weary limbs into the position necessary for their accustomed toil, and grasped his oar. But he did not escape a rough admonition from his comrade the bandit, seasoned with a couple of oaths.
“Look alive there, Englishman, and take your own share of the pulling; else you are pretty likely to take your own share of the lash by-and-by!”
It happened, however, that they received orders to pull gently. There was no occasion for haste, for the sea was calm, and they were near land. If he pleased, Walter might look about him as he rowed.
And right glorious was the sight that greeted his dim and tearful eyes. The water beneath was a sheet of liquid light, silver and rose; and before him stretched the green and pleasant shore of the Bay of Callao, with the giant Andes towering far above in the distance, the cold of their everlasting snows kindled into flame by the magic of the sunrise.
It was long since the crushed heart of Walter Gray had thrilled to the beauty of earth and sea. But this morning, like the Ancient Mariner, he "blessed them unawares;" and, like him, he felt the blessing return into his own bosom.
“Look, camerado!" he whispered to his friend, taking his right hand from the oar to point to the snowy mountains.
"Quiton!" murmured his older and more cautious companion—for the commissary was near. Too late! The cruel lash swung, quivered, descended. Walter's cry of pain rang through the clear morning air, startling his own ear with its echo, and making him ashamed of his weakness. Next time, he vowed, he would give no sign.
Already a change had begun in him; he was growing gradually more like his former self. And as days passed on, life and feeling returned to him, slowly but surely. It was a fettered hand, like his own, that had plucked him back from the gates of the grave. And that hand had also pointed upwards to a star of hope. Again and again did Walter's pale lips murmur over those words: "He also will hear their cry, and will save them '—even in the galleys.”
But with hope came memory—fast-thronging memories of the past-of his home, his mother, his faith. Sharp, sudden stings of remorse followed. Conscience spoke aloud, and would not be 'silenced; telling of his home abandoned-his mother wronged and deceived, perhaps heart-broken—his faith forsaken, his God denied. Could there be forgiveness for such as he?
For a considerable time the San Cristofero lay quietly at anchor in the Bay of Callao; so he had leisure enough for thought. Indeed, we are assured by no less an authority than that of Cervantes, that there was "plenty of leisure in the galleys of Spain.”
His look of deep dejection, and the tears that often, at this period, fell silently from his eyes, were not unnoticed by his compassionate comrade. This man went amongst his companions by the name of the "Matador;" for almost all the galley-slaves had quaint sobriquets, by which they were distinguished, their real names being rarely known, and still more rarely used. Nor could Walter help remarking that he was singularly unlike the rest. He never joined in the revolting blasphemies with which the rowers' benches so often resounded; he never tried to evade his share of the work, but rather exerted himself to shield and spare his weaker companions; and neither under the blazing tropical sun nor the drenching rains, neither in toil, in hunger, nor in pain, was he ever heard to murmur. By degrees Walter began to talk with him, to confide in him. And one day he abruptly uttered the substance of many a brooding thought,—“I hope they think me dead in England!”
“Why hope that, señor?”
“Better dead, than here. Better dead twice over, than a slave—and an apostate." The last word, it need scarcely be said, was breathed in a low and cautious whisper.
“That depends,"—the matador replied, with equal caution. Walter felt sorry he had ventured so far, and held his peace.
But the matador resumed presently, of his own accord, "Life is better than death, señor.”
“This is not life; it is living death," Walter answered.
“Not so, my young camerado. It is written, 'The dead cannot praise Thee.'”
"Praise! If you spoke of prayer, I might understand you. But who ever yet praised God in the galleys?”
“One, at least, señor. A poor man who, long ago, in the depths of his despair, cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.'”
“Do you mean—" Walter stopped and hesitated. “I wish," he continued, looking at him with interest," I wish you would tell me who you are; and what misfortune—crime I cannot believe it to have been-has brought you hither.”
“Whereto would that serve, señor? Mine is an humble name, unknown to fame. And I do not, like you, suffer for my faith. I am here for the deeds wrought by my own right hand.”
These words destroyed a hope, or rather a surmise, about the matador, that had of late been growing up silently in the mind of Walter. The old galley-slave went on,—
“Do you think, my young camerado, that no man save yourself ever cursed the day of his birth, and sought death and found it not? The first year I spent at the oar, I would have thanked any man to give me a heave overboard, or to pass a sword through my body.”
“The first year!" Walter echoed, with a long sigh. "I have been but seven months here, and they seem a lifetime. More years to follow!—More years! God help me!”
“Amen. God comfort you, as He has comforted me.”
“How?”
“By showing you Himself; señor Englishman,—Himself, the God of all comfort, the Savior from sin and sorrow, the Lord who binds up the broken in heart;" and the worn, bronzed, weather-beaten face kindled and glowed at the words.
Walter asked in surprise, "Where—how did you learn all this?”
“Where? Sitting on this bench, chained to this oar. How? Through the goodness of God in bringing back to me what I heard, but little heeded, in happier days.”
“Heard, but little heeded," Walter sighed again. "Just my own case. But—one thing perplexes me.”
“What is that?”
“From whose lips you can have learned all this." For Walter believed, and not unnaturally, that there was only light in the land of Goshen, the countries of the Reformation, and that all the rest of the world lay in Egyptian darkness. Of the gleams that here and there illumined that darkness he had never heard.
The matador smiled, a little sadly. "Perhaps," he said, "I would scarce tell you that did I not think my own hour near—my hour of deliverance. We feel the water calm and calmer under the keel as we draw nigh the shore. What could not be spoken once, for tears, is easily enough said now. She taught me, whom I loved best on earth.”
His quiet tones sounded more sorrowfully in Walter's ears than a burst of emotion would have done. It may be sadder to walk dryshod over the deep channel of a great grief passed away and done with, than to cross the shallow, noisy stream of a present sorrow. "It is bitter," he said falteringly, "to be parted forever from what we love. I too—I—”
“Shall meet the loved again—up yonder," said the matador, pointing with his fettered hand to the cloudless azure above them.
“It was all my own folly, my own sin! Ah, you know not how deeply I have sinned!”
“But God knows. Arise, and go to your Father, and say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son.”
Walter's tears flowed too fast to allow him to utter the answer that trembled on his lips. But eyes and thoughts were raised upwards, and the cry that reached no mortal ear was heard by Him who bindeth up the broken in heart, and giveth medicine to heal their sickness.
Some days afterward the matador seized a quiet moment in which to whisper to his friend, "I have been asking God to comfort you.—Has He?”
Walter answered with brightening eyes, "Not yet with the best robe, and the ring, and the fatted calf. But even now with the word, ‘This, My son.' And that is enough.”