“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 sur prize 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 forever, 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 Gon salvo. 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, is 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 Bastards.”
“In that they suffer these things?”
“Yes; a thousand times, yes. In the name of man's honor 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 skillful 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 3" 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 I 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 Gon salvo 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 flavorless 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 tonight.”
“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 I 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 we.”
“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 I 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 1”
Gonsalvo hesitated. "It will not be the blood of a villain that will bar my way," he said.
“God says, Thou shalt 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 I 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 I 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 art. 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 neighborhood 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. Afterward 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 Malaya 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 afterward, the great gate of the Triana opened to receive a new victim. The grave familiar held it, bowing w, 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.