THE SPANISH BROTHERS (continued 4)

"There!" Juan exclaimed with a start. "There is the origin of my second and favourite name, Rodrigo. Brother, brother, these are the best tidings I have heard for years." And uncovering his head, he uttered fervent and solemn words of thanksgiving.

To which Carlos added a heartfelt "Amen," and resumed,--

"Then, brother, you think we are justified in taking this joy to our hearts?"

"Without doubt," cried the sanguine Don Juan.

"And it follows that his crime--"

"Was what in our eyes constitutes the truest glory, the profession of a pure faith," said Juan with decision, leaping at once to the conclusion Carlos had reached by a far slower path.

"And those mystic words inscribed upon the window, the delight and wonder of our childhood--"

"Ah!" repeated Juan--

"El Dorado

Yo hé trovado."

But what they have to do with the matter I see not yet."

"You see not? Surely the knowledge of God in Christ, the kingdom of heaven opened up to us, is the true El Dorado, the golden country, which enriches those who find it for ever more."

"That is all very good," said Juan, with the air of a man not quite satisfied.

"I doubt not that was our father's meaning," Carlos continued.

"I doubt it, though. Up to that point I follow you, Carlos; but there we part. Something in the New World, I think, my father must have found."

A lengthened debate followed, in which Carlos discovered, rather to his surprise, that Juan still clung to his early faith in a literal land of gold. The more thoughtful and speculative brother sought in vain to reason him out of that belief. Nor was he much more successful when he came to state his own settled conviction that they should never see their father's face on earth. Not the slightest doubt remained on his own mind that, on account of his attachment to the Reformed faith, the Conde de Nuera had been, in the phraseology of the time, quietly "put out of the way." But whether this had been done during the voyage, or on the wild unknown shores of the New World, he believed his children would never know.

On this point, however, no argument availed with Juan. He seemed determined not to believe in his father's death. He confessed, indeed, that his heart bounded at the thought that he had been a sufferer "in the cause of truth and freedom." "He has suffered exile," he said, "and the loss of all things. But I see not wherefore he may not after all be living still, somewhere in that vast wonderful New World."

"I am content to think," Carlos replied, "that all these years he has been at rest with the dead in Christ. And that we shall see his face first with Christ when he appears in glory."

"But I am not content. We must learn something more."

"We shall never learn more. How can we?" asked Carlos.

"That is so like thee, little brother. Ever desponding, ever turned easily from thy purpose."

"Well; be it so," said Carlos meekly.

"But what I determine, that I do," said Juan. "At least I will make my uncle speak out," he continued. "I have ever suspected that he knows something."

"But how is that to be done?" asked Carlos. "Nevertheless, do all thou canst, and God prosper thee. Only," he added with great earnestness, "remember the necessities of our present position; and for the sake of our friends, as well as of our own lives, use due prudence and caution."

"Fear not, my too prudent brother.--The best and dearest brother in the world," he added kindly, "if he had but a little more courage."

Thus conversing they hastily retraced their steps to the city, the hour being already late.

Quiet weeks passed on after this unmarked by any event of importance. Winter had now given place to spring; the time of the singing of birds was come. In spite of numerous and heavy anxieties, and of one sorrow that pressed more or less upon all, it was still spring-time in many a brave and hopeful heart amongst the adherents of the new faith in Seville. Certainly it was spring-time with Don Juan Alvarez.

One Sunday a letter arrived by special messenger from Nuera, containing the unwelcome tidings that the old and faithful servant of the house, Diego Montes, was dying. It was his last wish to resign his stewardship into the hands of his young master, Señor Don Juan. Juan could not hesitate. "I will go to-morrow morning," he said to Carlos; "but rest assured I will return hither as soon as possible; the days are too precious to be lost."

Together they repaired once more to Doña Isabella's house. Don Juan told the friends they met there of his intended departure, and ere they separated many a hand warmly grasped his, and many a voice spoke kindly the "Vaya con Dios" for his journey.

"It needs not formal leave-takings, señores and my brethren," said Juan; "my absence will be very short; not next Sunday indeed, but possibly in a fortnight, and certainly this day month I shall meet you all here again."

"God willing," said Losada gravely. And so they parted.

XXII.

The Flood-Gates Opened.

"And they feared as they entered into the cloud."

For the first stage of Don Juan's journey Carlos accompanied him. They spent the time in animated talk, chiefly about Nuera, Carlos sending kind messages to the dying man, to Dolores, and indeed to all the household. "Remember, brother," he said, "to give Dolores the little books I put into the alforjas, specially the 'Confession of a Sinner.'"

"I shall remember everything, even to bringing thee back tidings of all the sick folk in the village. Now, Carlos, here we agreed to part;--no, not one step further."

They clasped each other's hands. "It is not like a long parting," said Juan.

"No. Vaya con Dios, my Ruy."

"Quede con Dios,[#] brother;" and he rode off, followed by his servant.

[#] Remain with God.

Carlos watched him wistfully; would he turn for a last look? He did turn. Taking off his velvet montero, he gaily bowed farewell; thus allowing Carlos to gaze once more upon his dark, handsome, resolute features, keen, sparkling eyes and curling black hair.

Whilst Juan saw a scholar's face, thoughtful, refined, sensitive; a broad pale forehead, from which the breeze had blown the waving fair hair (fair to a southern eye, though really a bright soft brown), and lips that kept the old sweetness of expression, though, whether from the manly fringe that graced them or from some actual change, the weakness which marred them once had ceased to be apparent now.

Another moment, and both had turned their horses' heads. Carlos, when he reached the city, made a circuit to avoid one of the very frequent processions of the Host; since, as time passed on, he felt ever more and more disinclined to the absolutely necessary prostration. Afterwards he called upon Losada, to inquire the exact address of a person whom he had asked him to visit. He found him engaged in his character of physician, and sat down in the patio to await his leisure.

Ere long Dr. Cristobal passed through, politely accompanying to the gate a canon of the cathedral, for whose ailments he had just been prescribing. The Churchman, who was evidently on the best terms with his physician, was showing his good-nature and affability by giving him the current news of the city; to which Losada listened courteously, with a grave, quiet smile, and, when necessary, an appropriate question or comment. Only one item made any impression upon Carlos: it related to a pleasant estate by the sea-side which Munebrãga had just purchased, disappointing thereby a relative of the canon's who desired to possess it, but could not command the very large price readily offered by the Inquisitor.

At last the visitor was gone. In a moment the smile had faded from the physician's care-worn face. Turning to Carlos with a strangely altered look, he said, "The monks of San Isodro have fled."

"Fled?" Carlos repeated, in blank dismay.

"Yes; no fewer than twelve of them have abandoned the monastery."

"How did you hear it?"

"One of the lay brethren came in this morning to inform me. They held another solemn Chapter, in which it was determined that each one should follow the guidance of his own conscience, those, therefore, to whom it seemed best to go have gone, the rest remain."

For some moments they looked at each other in silence. So fearful was the peril in which this rash act involved them all, that it almost seemed as if they had heard a sentence of death.

The voice of Carlos faltered as he asked at last,--"Have Fray Cristobal or Fray Fernando gone?"

"No; they are both amongst those, more generous if not more wise, who have chosen to remain and take what God will send them here. Stay, here is a letter from Fray Cristobal which the lay brother brought me; it will tell you as much as I know myself."

Carlos read it carefully. "It seems," he said, when he had finished, "that the consciences of those who fled would not allow them any longer to conform, even outwardly, to the rules of their order. Moreover, from the signs of the times, they believe that a storm is about to burst upon the company of the faithful."

"God grant it may prove that they have saved themselves from its violence," Losada answered, with a slight emphasis on "themselves."

"And for us?--God help us!" Carlos almost moaned, the paper falling from his trembling hand. "What shall we do?"

"Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might," returned Losada bravely. "No other strength remains for us. But God grant none of us in the city may be so unadvised as to follow the example of the brethren. The flight of one might be the ruin of all."

"And those noble, devoted men who remain at San Isodro?"

"Are in God's hands, as we are."

"I will ride out and visit them, especially Fray Fernando."

"Excuse me, Señor Don Carlos, but you will do nothing of the kind; that were to court suspicion. I will bear any message you choose to send."

"And you?"

Losada smiled, though sadly. "The physician has occasion to go," he said; "he is a very useful personage, who often covers with his ample cloak the dogmatizing heretic."

Carlos recognized the official phraseology of the Holy Office. He repressed a shudder, but could not hide the look of terror that dilated his large blue eyes.

The older man, the more experienced Christian, could compassionate the youth. Losada, himself standing "face to face with death," spoke kind words of counsel and comfort to Carlos. He cautioned him strongly against losing his self-possession, and thereby running needlessly into danger. "Especially would I urge upon you, Señor Don Carlos," he said, "the duty of avoiding unnecessary risk, for already you are useful to us; and should God spare your life, you will be still more so. If I fall--"

"Do not speak of it, my beloved friend."

"It will be as God pleases," said the pastor calmly. "But I need not remind you, others stand in like peril with me. Especially Fray Cassiodoro, and Don Juan Ponce de Leon."

"The noblest heads, the likeliest to fall," Carlos murmured.

"Then must younger soldiers step forth from the ranks, and take up the standards dropped from their hands. Don Carlos Alvarez, we have high hopes of you. Your quiet words reach the heart; for you speak that which you know, and testify that which you have seen. And the good gifts of mind that God has given you enable you to speak with the greater acceptance. He may have much work for you in his harvest-field. But whether he should call you to work or to suffer, shrink not, but 'be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.'"

"I will try to trust him; and may he make his strength perfect in my weakness," said Carlos. "But for the present," he added, "give me any lowly work to do, whereby I may aid you or lighten your cares, my loved friend and teacher."

Losada gladly gave him, as indeed he had done several times before, instructions to visit certain secret inquirers, and persons in distress and perplexity of mind.

He passed the next two or three days in these ministrations, and in constant prayer, especially for the remaining monks of San Isodro, whose sore peril pressed heavily on his heart. He sought, as much as possible, to shut out other thoughts; or, when they would force an entrance, to cast their burden, which otherwise would have been intolerable, upon Him who would surely care for his own Church, his few sheep in the wilderness.

One morning he remained late in his chamber, writing a letter to his brother; and then went forth, intending to visit Losada. As it was a fast-day, and he kept the Church fasts rigorously, it happened that he had not previously met any of his uncle's family.

The entrance to the physician's house did not present its usual cheerful appearance. The gate was shut and bolted, and there was no sign of patients passing in or out Carlos became alarmed. It was long before he obtained an answer to his repeated calls. At last, however, some one inside cried, "Quien es?"[#]

[#] Who is there?

Carlos gave his name, well known to all the household.

Then the door was half opened, and a mulatto serving-lad showed a terrified face behind it.

"Where is Señor Cristobal?"

"Gone, señor."

"Gone!--whither?"

The answer was a furtive, frightened whisper. "Last night--the Alguazils of the Holy Office." And the door was shut and bolted in his face.

He stood rooted to the spot, speechless and motionless, in a trance of horror. At last he was startled by feeling some one grasp his arm without ceremony, indeed rather roughly.

"Are you moonstruck, Cousin Don Carlos?" asked the voice of Gonsalvo. "At least you might have had the courtesy to offer me the aid of your arm, without putting me to the shame of requesting it, miserable cripple that I am!" and he gave vent to a torrent of curses upon his own infirmities, using expressions profane and blasphemous enough to make Carlos shiver with pain.

Yet that very pain did him real service. It roused him from his stupor, as sharp anguish sometimes brings back a patient from a swoon. He said, "Pardon me, my cousin, I did not see you; but I hear you now--with sorrow."

Gonsalvo deigned no answer, except his usual short, bitter laugh.

"Whither do you wish to go?"

"Home. I am tired."

They walked along in silence; at last Gonsalvo asked, abruptly,--

"Have you heard the news?"

"What news?"

"The news that is in every one's mouth to-day. Indeed, the city has well nigh run mad with holy horror. And no wonder! Their reverences, the Lords Inquisitors, have just discovered a community of abominable Lutherans, a very viper's nest, in our midst. It is said the wretches have actually dared to carry on their worship somewhere in the town. Ah, no marvel you look horror-stricken, my pious cousin. You could never have dreamed that such a thing was possible, could you?" After one quick, keen glance, he did not look again in his cousin's face; but he might have felt the beating of his cousin's heart against his arm.

"I am told," he continued, "that nearly two hundred persons have been arrested already."

"Two hundred!" gasped Carlos.

"And the arrests are going on still."

"Who is taken?" Carlos forced his trembling lips to ask.

"Losada; more's the pity. A good physician, though a bad Christian."

"A good physician, and a good Christian too," said Carlos in the voice of one who tries to speak calmly in terrible bodily pain.

"An opinion you would do more wisely to keep to yourself, if a reprobate such as I may presume to counsel so learned and pious a personage."

"Who else?"

"One you would never guess. Don Juan Ponce de Leon, of all men. Think of the Count of Baylen's son being thus degraded! Also the master of the College of Doctrine, San Juan; and a number of Jeromite friars from San Isodro. Those are all I know worth a gentleman's taking account of. There are some beggarly tradesfolk, such as Medel d'Espinosa, the embroiderer; and Luis d'Abrego, from whom your brother bought that beautiful book of the Gospels he gave Doña Beatriz. But if only such cattle were concerned in it, no one would care."

"Some fools there be," Don Gonsalvo continued after a pause, "who have run to the Triana, and informed against themselves, thinking thereby to get off more easily. Fools, again I say, for their pains." And he emphasized his words by a pressure of the arm on which he was leaning.

At length they reached the door of Don Manuel's house. "Thanks for your aid," said Gonsalvo. "Now that I remember it, Don Carlos, I hear also that we are to have a grand procession on Tuesday with banners and crosses, in honour of Our Lady, and of our holy patronesses Justina and Rufina, to beg pardon for the sin and scandal so long permitted in the midst of our most Catholic city. You, my pious cousin, licentiate of theology and all but consecrated priest--you will carry a taper, no doubt?"

Carlos would fain have left the question unanswered; but Gonsalvo meant to have an answer. "You will?" he repeated, laying his hand on his arm, and looking him in the face, though with a smile. "It would be very creditable to the family for one of us to appear. Seriously; I advise you to do it."

Then Carlos said quietly, "No;" and crossed the patio to the staircase which led to his own apartment.

Gonsalvo stood watching him, and mentally retracting, at his last word, the verdict formerly pronounced against him as "a coward," "not half a man."

XXIII.

The Reign of Terror

"Though shining millions around thee stand,

For the sake of him at thy right hand

Think of the souls he died for here,

Thus wandering in darkness, in doubt and fear.

"The powers of darkness are all abroad--

They own no Saviour, and they fear no God;

And we are trembling in dumb dismay;

Oh, turn not thou thy face away."--Hogg

It was late in the evening when Carlos emerged from his chamber. How the intervening hours had been passed he never told any one. But this much is certain,--he contended with and overcame a wild, almost uncontrollable impulse to seek refuge in flight. His reason told him that this would be to rush upon certain destruction: so sedulously guarded were all the ways of egress, and so watchful and complete, in every city and village of the land, was the inquisitorial organization; not to speak of the "Hermandad," or Brotherhood--a kind of civil police, always ready to co-operate with the ecclesiastical authorities.

Still, if he could not be saved, Juan might and should. This thought was growing gradually clearer and stronger in his bewildered brain and aching heart while he knelt in his chamber, finding a relief in the attitude of prayer, though few and broken were the words of prayer that passed his trembling lips. Indeed, the burden of his cry was this: "Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Thou that carest for us, forsake us not in our bitter need. For thine is the kingdom; even yet thou reignest."

This was all he could find to plead, either on his own behalf or on that of his imprisoned brethren; though for them his heart was wrung with unutterable anguish. Once and again did he repeat--"Thine is the kingdom and the power. Thine, O Father; thine, O Lord and Saviour. Thou canst deliver us."

It was well for him that he had Juan to save. He rose at last; and added to the letter previously written to his brother a few lines of most earnest entreaty that he would on no account return to Seville. But then, recollecting his own position, he marvelled greatly at his simplicity in purposing to send such a letter by the King's post--an institution which, strange to say, Spain possessed at an earlier period than any other country in Europe. If he should fall under suspicion, his letter would be liable to detention and examination, and might thus be the means of involving Juan in the very peril from which he sought to deliver him.

A better plan soon occurred to him. That he might carry it out, he descended late in the evening to the cool, marble-paved court, or patio, in the centre of which the fountain ever murmured and glistened, surrounded by tropical plants, some of them in gorgeous bloom.

As he had hoped, one solitary lamp burned like a star in a remote corner; and its light illumined the form of a young girl seated on a low chair, before an inlaid ebony table, writing busily. Doña Beatriz had excused herself from accompanying the family on an evening visit, that she might devote herself in undisturbed solitude to the composition of her first love-letter--indeed, her first letter of any kind: for short as he intended his absence to be, Juan had stipulated for this consolation, and induced her to premise it; and she knew that the King's post went northwards the next day, passing by Nuera on his way to the towns of La Mancha.

So engrossing was her occupation that she did not hear the step of Carlos. He drew near, and stood behind her. Pearls, golden Agni, and a scarlet flower or two, were twined with her glossy raven hair; and the lamp shed a subdued radiance over her fine features, which glowed through their delicate olive with the rosy light of joy. An exquisite though not very costly perfume, that Carlos in other days always associated with her presence, still continued a favourite with her, and filled the place around with fragrance. It brought back his memory to the past--to that wild, vain, yet enchanting dream; the brief romance of his life. But there was no time now even for "a dream within a dream." There was only time to thank God, from the depths of his soul, that in all the wide world there was no heart that would break for him.

"Doña Beatriz," he said gently.

She started, and half turned, a bright flush mounting to her cheek.

"You are writing to my brother."

"And how know you that, Señor Don Carlos?" asked the young lady, with a little innocent affectation.

But Carlos, standing face to face with terrible realities, pushed aside her pretty arts, as one hastening to succour a dying man might push aside a branch of wild roses that impeded his path.

"I most earnestly request of you, señora, to convey to him a message from me."

"And wherefore can you not write to him yourself, Señor Licentiate?"

"Is it possible, señora, that you know not what has happened?"

"Vaya, vaya, Don Carlos! how you startle one.--Do you mean these horrible arrests?"

Carlos found that a few strong, plain words were absolutely necessary in order to make Beatrix understand his brother's peril. She had listened hitherto to Don Juan's extracts from Scripture, and the arguments and exhortations founded thereon, conscious, indeed, that these were secrets which should be jealously guarded, yet unconscious that they were what the Church and the world branded as heresy. Consequently, although she heard of the arrest of Losada and his friends with vague regret and apprehension, she was far from distinctly associating the crime for which they suffered with the name dearest to her heart. She was still very young; and she had not thought much--she had only loved. And she blindly followed him she loved, without caring to ask whither he was going himself, or whither he was leading her. When at last Carlos made her comprehend that it was for reading the Scriptures, and talking of justification by faith alone, that Losada was thrown into the dungeons of the Triana, a thrilling cry of anguish broke from her lips.

"Hush, señora!" said Carlos; and for once his voice was stern. "If even your little black foot-page heard that cry, it might ruin all."

But Beatrix was unused to self-control. Another cry followed, and there were symptoms of hysterical tears and laughter. Carlos tried a more potent spell.

"Hush, señora!" he repeated. "We must be strong and silent, if we are to save Don Juan."

She looked piteously up at him, repeating, "Save Don Juan?"

"Yes, señora. Listen to me. You, at least, are a good Catholic. You have not compromised yourself in any way: you say your angelus; you make your vows; you bring flowers to Our Lady's shrine. You are safe."

She turned round and faced him--her cheek dyed crimson, and her eyes flashing,--

"I am safe! Is that all you have to say? Who cares for that? What is my life worth?"

"Patience, dear señora! Your safety aids in securing his. Listen.--You are writing to him. Tell him of the arrests; for hear of them he must. Use the language about heresy which will occur to you, but which--God help me!--I could not use. Then pass from the subject. Write aught else that comes to your mind; but before closing your letter, say that I am well in mind and body, and would be heartily recommended to him. Add that I most earnestly request of him, for our common good and the better arrangement of our affairs, not to return to Seville, but to remain at Nuera. He will understand that. Lay your own commands upon him--your commands, remember, señora--to the same effect."

"I will do all that.--But here come my aunt and cousins."

It was true. Already the porter had opened for them the gloomy outer gate; and now the gilt and filagreed inner door was thrown open also, and the returning family party filled the court. They were talking together; not quite so gaily as usual, but still eagerly enough. Doña Sancha soon drew near to Beatrix, and began to rally her upon her occupation, threatening playfully to carry away and read the unfinished letter. No one addressed a word to Carlos; but that might have been mere accident.

It was, however, scarcely accidental that his aunt, as she passed him on her way to an inner room, drew her mantilla closer round her, lest its deep lace fringe might touch his clothing. Shortly afterwards Doña Sancha dropped her fan. According to custom, Carlos stooped for it, and handed it to her with a bow. The young lady took it mechanically, but almost immediately dropped it again with a look of scorn, as if polluted by its touch. Its delicate carved ivory, the work of Moorish hands, lay in fragments on the marble floor; and from that moment Carlos knew that he was under the ban, that he stood alone amidst his uncle's household--a suspected and degraded man.

It was not wonderful. His intimacy with the monks of San Isodro, his friendship with Don Juan Ponce de Leon, and with the physician Losada, were all well-known facts. Moreover, had he not taught at the College of Doctrine, under the direct patronage of Fernando de San Juan, another of the victims. And there were other indications of his tendencies which could scarcely escape notice, once the suspicions of those who lived under the same roof with him were awakened.

For a time he stood silent, watching his uncle's countenance, and marking the frown that contracted his brow whenever his eye turned towards him. But when Don Manuel passed into a smaller saloon that opened upon the court, Carlos followed him boldly.

They stood face to face, but could hardly see each other. The room was darkness, save for a few struggling moonbeams.

"Señor my uncle," said Carlos, "I fear my presence here is displeasing to you."

Don Manuel paused before replying.

"Nephew," he said at length, "you have been lamentably imprudent. The saints grant you have been no worse."

A moment of strong emotion will sometimes bring out in a man's face characteristic lineaments of his family, in calmer seasons not traceable there. Thus it is with features of the soul. It was not the gentle timid Don Carlos who spoke now, it was Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya. There was both pride and courage in his tone.

"If it has been my misfortune to offend my honoured uncle, to whom I owe so many benefits, I am sorry, though I cannot charge myself with any fault. But I should be faulty indeed were I to prolong my stay in a house where I am no longer what, thanks to your kindness, señor my uncle, I have ever been hitherto, a welcome guest." Having spoken thus, he turned to go.

"Stay, young fool!" cried Don Manuel, who thought the better of him for his proud words. They raised him, in his estimation, from a mark for his scorn to a legitimate object for his indignation. "There spoke your father's voice. But I tell you, for all that, you shall not quit the shelter of my roof."

"I thank you."

"You may spare the pains. I ask you not, for I prefer to remain in ignorance, to what perilous and fool-hardy lengths your intimacy with heretics may have gone. Without being a Qualificator of heresy myself, I can tell that you smell of the fire. And indeed, young man, were you anything less than Alvarez de Meñaya, I would hardly scorch my own fingers to hold you out of it. The Devil--to whom, in spite of all your fair appearances, I fear you belong--might take care of his own. But since truth is the daughter of God, you shall have it from my lips. And the plain truth is, that I have no desire to hear every cur dog in Seville barking at me and mine; nor to see our ancient and honourable name dragged through the mire and filth of the streets."

"I have never disgraced that name."

"Have I not said that I desire no protestations from you? Whatever my private opinion may be, it stands upon our family honour to hold that yours is still unstained. Therefore, not from love, as I tell you plainly, but from motives that may perchance prove stronger in the end, I and mine extend to you our protection. I am a good Catholic, a faithful son of Mother Church; but I freely confess I am no hero of the Faith, to offer up upon its shrine those that bear my own name. I pretend not to such heights of sanctity, not I." And Don Manuel shrugged his shoulders.

"I entreat of you, señor my uncle, to allow me to explain--"

Don Manuel waved his hand with a forbidding gesture. "None of thy explanations for me," he said. "I am no silly cock, to scratch till I find the knife. Dangerous secrets had best be let alone. This I will say, however, that of all the contemptible follies of these evil times, this last one of heresy is the worst. If a man will lose his soul, in the name of common sense let him lose it for fine houses, broad lands, a duke's title, an archbishop's coffers, or something else good at least in this world. But to give all up, and to gain nothing, save fire here and fire again hereafter! It is sheer, blank idiocy."

"I have gained something," said Carlos firmly. "I have gained a treasure worth more than all I risk, more than life itself."

"What! Is there really a meaning in this madness? Have you and your friends a secret?" Don Manuel asked in a gentler voice, and not without curiosity. For he was the child of his age; and had Carlos told him that the heretics had made the discovery of the philosopher's stone, he would have seen nothing worthy of disbelief in the statement; he would only have asked him for proofs.

"The knowledge of God in Christ," began Carlos eagerly, "gives me joy and peace--"

"Is that all?" cried Don Manuel with an oath. "Fool that I was, to imagine, for half an idle minute, that there might be some grain of common sense still left in your crazy brain! But since it is only a question of words and names, and mystical doctrines, I have the honour to wish you good evening, Señor Don Carlos. Only I command you, as you value your life, and prefer a residence beneath my roof to a dungeon in the Triana, to keep your insanity within bounds, and to conduct yourself so as to avert suspicion. On these conditions we will shelter you. Eventually, if it can be done with safety, we may even ship you out of the Spains to some foreign country, where heretics, rogues, and thieves are permitted to go at large." So saying, he left the room.

Carlos was stung to the quick by his contempt; but remembered at last that it was a fragment of the true cross (really the first that had fallen to his lot) given him to wear in honour of his Master.

Sleep would not visit his eyes that night. The next day was the Sabbath, a day he had been wont to welcome and enjoy. But never again should the Reformed Church of Seville meet in the upper room which had been the scene of so much happy intercourse. The next reunion was appointed for another place, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Doña Isabella de Baena and Losada were in the dungeons of the Triana. Fray Cassiodoro de Reyna, singularly fortunate, had succeeded in making his escape. Fray Constantino, on the other hand, had been amongst the first arrested; but Carlos went as usual to the Cathedral, where that eloquent voice would never again be heard. A heavy silent gloom, like that which precedes a thunderstorm, seemed to fill the crowded aisles.

Yet it was there that the first gleam of comfort reached the breaking heart of Carlos. It came to him through the familiar words of the Latin service, loved from childhood.

He said afterwards to the trembling children of one of the victims, whose desolated home he dared to visit, "For myself, horror took hold of me. I dared not to think. I scarce dared to pray, save in broken words that were only like cries of pain. The first thing that helped me was that grand verse in the Te Deum, chanted by the sweet childish voices of the Cathedral choir--'Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuesti credentibus regna coelorum.' Think, dear friends, not death alone, but its sting, its sharpness,--for us and our beloved,--He has overcome, and they and we in him. The gates of the kingdom of heaven stand open; opened by his hands, and neither men nor fiends can shut them again."

Such words as these did Carlos find opportunity to speak to many bereaved ones, from whom the desire of their eyes had been taken by a stroke far more bitter than death. This ministry of love did not greatly increase his own peril, since the less he deviated from his ordinary habits of life the less suspicion he was likely to awaken. But had it been otherwise, he was not now in a position to calculate. Perhaps he was too near heaven; at all events, he had already ventured too much for Christ's sake not to be willing, at his call, to venture a little more.

Meanwhile, the isolation of his position in his uncle's house grew overpowering. No one reproached him, no one taunted him, not even Gonsalvo. He often longed for some bitter word, ay, though it were a curse, to break the oppressive silence. Every eye looked upon him with hatred and scorn; every hand shrank from the slightest, most accidental contact with his. Almost he came to consider himself what all others considered him,--polluted, degraded--under the ban.

Once and again would he have sought escape by flight from an atmosphere in which it seemed more and more impossible to breathe. But flight meant arrest; and arrest, besides its overwhelming terrors for himself, meant the danger of betraying Juan. His uncle and his uncle's family, though they seemed now to scorn and hate him, had promised to save him if they could, and so far he trusted them.

XXIV.

A Gleam of Light

"It is a weary task to school the heart,

Ere years or griefs have tamed its fiery throbbings,

Into that still and passive fortitude

Which is but learned from suffering."--Hemans

Shortly afterwards, the son and heir of Doña Inez was baptized, with the usual amount of ceremony and rejoicing. After the event, the family and friends partook of a merienda of fruit, confectionery, and wine, in the patio of Don Garçia's house. Much against his inclination, Carlos was obliged to be present, as his absence would have occasioned remark and inquiry.

When the guests were beginning to disperse, the hostess drew near the spot where he stood, near to the fountain, admiring, or seeming to admire, a pure white azalia in glorious bloom.

"In good sooth, cousin Don Carlos," she said, "you forget old friends very easily. But I suppose it is because you are going so soon to take Orders. Every one knows how learned and pious you are. And no doubt you are right to wean yourself in good time from the concerns and amusements of this unprofitable world."

No word of this little speech was lost upon one of the neatest gossips in Seville, a lady of rank, who stood near, leaning on the arm of Losada's former patient, the wealthy Canon. And this was what the speaker, in her good nature, probably intended.

Carlos raised to her face eyes beaming with gratitude for the friendly notice.

"No change of state, señora, can ever make me forget the kindness of my fair cousin," he responded with a bow.

"Your cousin's little daughter," said the lady, "had once a place in your affections. But with you, as with all the rest, I presume the boy is everything. As for my poor little Inez, her small person is of small account in the world now. It is well she has her mother."

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to renew my acquaintance with Doña Inez, if I may be permitted so to do."

This was evidently what the mother desired. "Go to the right then, amigo mio," she said promptly, indicating the place intended by a quick movement of her fan, "and I will send the child to you."

Carlos obeyed, and for a considerable time paced up and down a cool spacious apartment, only separated from the court by marble pillars, between which costly hangings were suspended. Being a Spaniard, and dwelling among Spaniards, he was neither surprised nor disconcerted by the long delay.

At last, however, he began to suspect that his cousin had forgotten him. But this was not the case. First a painted ivory ball rolled in over the smooth floor; then one of the hangings was hastily pushed aside, and the little Doña Inez bounded gaily into the room in search of her toy. She was a merry, healthy child, about two years old, and really very pretty, though her infantine charms were not set off to advantage by the miniature nun's habit in which she was dressed, on account of a vow made by her mother to "Our Lady of Carmel," during the serious illness for which Carlos had summoned Losada to her aid.

She was followed almost immediately, not by the grave elderly nurse who usually waited on her, but by a girl of about sixteen, rather a beauty, whose quick dark eyes bestowed, from beneath their long lashes, bashful but evidently admiring glances on the handsome young nobleman.

Carlos, ever fond of children, and enjoying the momentary relief from the painful tension of his daily life, stooped for the ball and held it, just allowing its bright red to appear through his fingers. As the child was not in the least shy, he was soon engaged in a game with her.

Looking up in the midst of it, he saw that the mother had come in silently, and was watching him with searching anxious eyes that brought back in a moment all his troubles. He allowed the ball to slide to the ground, and then, with a touch of his foot, sent it rolling into one of the farthest corners of the spacious hall. The child ran gleefully after it; while the mother and the attendant exchanged glances. "You may take the noble child away, Juanita," said the former.

Juanita led off her charge without again allowing her to approach Carlos, thus rendering unnecessary the ceremony of a farewell. Was this the mother's contrivance, lest by spell of word or gesture, or even by a kiss, the heretic might pollute or endanger the innocent babe?

When they were alone together, Doña Inez was the first to speak. "I do not think you can be so wicked after all; since you love children, and play with them still," she said in a low, half-frightened tone.

"God bless you for those words, señora," answered Carlos with a trembling lip. He was learning to steel himself to scorn; but kindness tested his self-control more severely.

"Amigo mio," she resumed, drawing nearer and speaking more rapidly, "I cannot quite forget the past. It is very wrong, I know, and I am weak. Ay de mi! If it be true you really are that dreadful thing I do not care to name, I ought to have the courage to stand by and see you perish."

"But my kinsfolk," said Carlos, "do not intend me to perish. And for the protection they afford me I am grateful. More I could not have expected from them; less they might well have done for me. But I would to God I could show them and you that I am not the foul dishonoured thing they deem me."

"If it had only been something respectable," said Doña Inez, with a sort of writhe, "such as some youthful irregularity, or stabbing or slaying somebody!--but what use in words? I would say, I counsel you to look to your own safety. Do you not know my brothers?"

"I think I do, señora. That an Alvarez de Meñaya should be defamed of heresy would be more than a disgrace--it would be a serious injury to them."

"There be more ways than one of avoiding the misfortune."

Carlos looked inquiringly at her. Something in her half-averted face and the quick shrug of her shoulders prompted him to ask, "Do you think they mean me mischief?"

"Daggers are sharp to cut knots," said the lady, playing with her fan and avoiding his eye.

With so many ghastlier terrors had the mind of Carlos grown familiar, that this one came to him in the guise of a relief. So "the sharpness of death" for him might mean no more than a dagger's thrust, after all! One moment here, the next in his Saviour's presence. Who that knew aught of the tender mercies of the Holy Office could do less than thank God on his bended knees for the prospect of such a fate!

"It is not death that I fear," he answered, looking at her steadily.

"But you may as well live; nay, you had better live. For you may repent, may save your unhappy soul. I shall pray for you."

"I thank you, dear and kind señora; but, through the grace of God, my soul is saved already. I believe in Jesus Christ--"

"Hush! for Heaven's sake!" Doña Inez interrupted, dropping her fan and putting her fingers in her ears. "Hush! or ere I am aware I shall have listened to some dreadful heresy. The saints help me! How should I know just where the good Catholic words end, and the wicked ones begin? I might be caught in the web of the evil one; and then neither saint nor angel, no, nor even Our Lady herself, could deliver me. But listen to me, Don Carlos, for at all events I would save your life."

"I will listen gratefully to aught from your lips."

"I know that you dare not attempt flight from the city at present. But if you could lie concealed in some safe and quiet place within it till this storm has blown over, you might then steal away unobserved. Don Garçia says that now there is such a keen search made after the Lutherans, that every man who cannot give a good account of himself is like to be taken for one of the accursed sect. But that cannot last for ever; in six months or so the panic will be past. And those six months you may spend in safety, hidden away in the lodging of my lavandera."[#]

[#] Washerwoman.

"You are kind--"

"Peace, and listen. I have arranged the whole matter. And once you are there, I will see that you lack nothing. It is in the Morrero;[#] a house hidden in a very labyrinth of lanes, a chamber in the house which a man would need to look for very particularly ere he found it."

[#] Moorish quarter of the city.

"How shall I succeed in finding it?"

"You noticed the pretty girl who led in my little Inez? Pepe, the lavandera's son, is ready to die for the love of her. She will describe you to him, and engage his assistance in the adventure, telling him the story I have told her, that you wish to conceal yourself for a season, having stabbed your rival in a love affair."

"O Doña Inez! I?--almost a priest!"

"Well, well; do not look so horror-stricken, amigo mia. What could I do? I dared not give them a hint of the truth, or both my hands full of double ducats would not have tempted them to stir in the affair. So I thought no shame of inventing a crime for you that would win their interest and sympathy, and dispose them to aid you."

"Passing strange," said Carlos. "Had I only sinned against the law of God and the life of my neighbour, they would gladly help me to escape; did they dream that I read his words in my own tongue, they would give me up to death."

"Juanita is a good little Christian," remarked Doña Inez; "and Pepe also is a very honest lad. But perhaps you may find some sympathy with the old crone of a lavandera, who is of Moorish blood, and, it is whispered, knows more of Mohammed than she does of her Breviary."

Carlos disclaimed all connection with the followers of the false prophet.

"How should I know the difference?" said Doña Inez. "I thought it was all the same, heresy and heresy. But I was about to say, Pepe is a gallant lad, a regular majo; his hand knows its way either amongst the strings of a guitar, or on the hilt of a dagger. He has often served caballeros who were out of nights serenading their ladies; and he will go equipped as if for such an adventure. You, also, bind a guitar on your shoulder (you could use one in old times, and to good purpose too, if you have not forgotten all Christian accomplishments together); bribe old Sancho to leave the gates open, and sally forth to-morrow night when the clock strikes the midnight hour. Pepe will wait for you in the Calle del Candilejo until one."

"To-morrow night?"

"I would have named to-night, but Pepe has a dance to attend. Moreover, I knew not whether I could arrange this interview in sufficient time to prepare you. Now, cousin," she added anxiously, "you understand your part, and you will not fail in it."

"I understand everything, señora my cousin. From my heart I thank you for the noble effort to save me. Whether in its result it shall prove successful or no, already it is successful in giving me hope and strength, and renewing my faith in old familiar kindness."

"Hush! that step is Don Garçia's. It is best you should go."

"Only one word more, señora. Will my generous cousin add to her goodness by giving my brother, when it can be done with safety, a hint of how it has fared with me?"

"Yes; that shall be cared for. Now, adios."

"I kiss your feet, señora,"

She hastily extended her hand, upon which he pressed a kiss of friendship and gratitude. "God bless you, my cousin," he said.

"Vaya con Dios," she responded. "For it is our last meeting," she added mentally.

She stood and watched the retreating figure with tears in her bright eyes, and in her heart a memory that went back to old times, when she used to intercede with her rough brothers for the delicate shrinking child, who was younger, as well as frailer, than all the rest. "He was ever gentle and good, and fit to be a holy priest," she thought. "Ay de mi, for the strange, sad change! Yet, after all, I cannot see that he is so greatly changed. Playing with the child, talking with me, he is just the same Carlos as of old. But the devil is very cunning. God and Our Lady keep us from his wiles!"

XXV.

Waiting.

"Our night is dreary, and dim our day,

And if thou turn thy face away,

We are sinful, feeble, and helpless dust,

And have none to look to and none to trust."--Hogg

Thus was Carlos roused from the dull apathy of forced inaction. With the courage and energy that are born of hope, he made the few and simple preparations for his flight that were in his power. He also visited as many as he could of his afflicted friends, feeling that his ministry among them was now drawing to a close.

He rejoined his uncle's family as usual at the evening meal. Don Balthazar, the empleado, was not present at its commencement, but soon came in, looking so much disturbed that his father asked, "What is amiss?"

"There is nothing amiss, señor and my father," answered the young man, as he raised a large cup of Manzanilla to his lips.

"Is there any news in the city?" asked his brother Don Manuel.

Don Balthazar set down the empty cup. "No great news," he answered. "A curse upon those Lutheran dogs that are setting the place in an uproar."

"What! more arrests," said Don Manuel the elder. "It is awful. The number reached eight hundred yesterday. Who is taken now?"

"A priest from the country, Doctor Juan Gonzalez, and a friar named Olmedo. But that is nothing. They might take all the Churchmen in all the Spains, and fling them into the lowest dungeons of the Triana for me. It is a different matter when we come to speak of ladies--ladies, too, of the first families and highest consideration."

A slight shudder, and a kind of forward movement, as if to catch what was coming, passed round the table. But Don Balthazar seemed reluctant to say more.

"Is it any of our acquaintances?" asked the sharp, high-pitched voice of Doña Sancha at last.

"Every one is acquainted with Don Pedro Garçia de Xeres y Bohorques. It is--I tremble to tell you--his daughter."

"Which?" cried Gonsalvo, in tones that turned the gaze of all on his livid face and fierce eager eyes.

"St. Iago, brother! You need not look thus at me. Is it my fault?--It is the learned one, of course, Doña Maria. Poor lady, she may well wish now that she had never meddled with anything beyond her Breviary."

"Our Lady and all the saints defend us! Doña Maria in prison for heresy--horrible! Who will be safe now?" the ladies exclaimed, crossing themselves shudderingly.

But the men used stronger language. Fierce and bitter were the anathemas they heaped upon heresy and heretics. Yet it is only just to say that, had they dared, they might have spoken differently. Probably in their secret hearts they meant the curses less for the victims than for their oppressors; and had Spain been a land in which men might speak what they thought, Gonzales de Munebrãga would have been devoted to a lower place in hell than Luther or Calvin.

Only two were silent. Before the eye of Carlos rose the sweet thoughtful face of the young girl, as he had seen it last, radiant with the faith and hope kindled by the sublime words of heavenly promise spoken by Losada. But the sight of another face--still, rigid, death-like--drove that vision away. Gonsalvo sat opposite to him at the table. And had he never heard the strange story Doña Inez told him, that look would have revealed it all.

Neither curse nor prayer passed the white lips of Gonsalvo. Not one of all the bitter words, found so readily on slighter occasions, came now to his aid. The fiercest outburst of passion would have seemed less terrible to Carlos than this unnatural silence.

Yet none of the others, after the first moment, appeared to notice it. Or if they did observe anything strange in the look and manner of Gonsalvo, it was imputed to physical pain, from which he often suffered, but for which he rejected, and even resented, sympathy, until at last it ceased to be offered him. Having given what expression they dared to their outraged feelings, they once more turned their attention to the unfinished repast. It was not at all a cheerful meal, yet it was duly partaken of, except by Gonsalvo and Carlos, both of whom left the table as soon as they could without attracting attention.

Willingly would Carlos have endeavoured to console his cousin; but he did not dare to speak to him, or even to allow him to guess that he saw the anguish of his soul.

One day still remained to him before his flight. In the morning, though not very early, he set out to finish his farewell visits to his friends. He had not gone many paces from the house, when he observed a gentleman in plain black clothing, with sword and cloak, look at him regardfully as he passed. A moment afterwards the same person, having apparently changed his mind as to the direction in which he wished to go, hurried by him at a rapid pace; and with a murmured "Pardon, señor," thrust a billet into his hand.

Not doubting that one of his friends had sent an emissary to warn him of some danger, Carlos turned into one of the narrow winding lanes with which the semi-oriental city abounds, and finding himself safe from observation, cast a hasty glance at the billet.

His eye just caught the words, "His reverence the Lord Inquisitor--Don Gonsalvo--after midnight--revelations of importance--strict secrecy." What did it all mean? Did the writer wish to inform him that his cousin intended betraying him to the Inquisition? He did not believe it. But the sound of approaching footsteps made him thrust the paper hastily away; and in another moment his sleeve was grasped by Gonsalvo.

"Give it to me," said his cousin in a breathless whisper.

"Give you what?"

"The paper that born idiot and marplot put into thy hands, mistaking thee for me. Curse the fool! Did he not know I was lame?"

Carlos showed the note, still holding it. "Is this what you mean?" he asked.

"You have read it! Honourable!" cried Gonsalvo, with a bitter sneer.

"You are unjust to me. It bears no address; and I could not suppose otherwise than that it was intended for myself. However, I only read the few disconnected words upon which my eye first chanced to fall."

The cousins stood gazing in each other's faces; as those might do that meet in mortal combat, ere they close hand to hand. Each was pondering whether the other was capable of doing him a deadly injury. Yet, after all, each held, at the bottom of his heart, a conviction that the other might be trusted.

Carlos, though he had the greater cause for apprehension, was the first to come to a conclusion. Almost with a smile he handed the note to Gonsalvo. "Whatever yon mysterious billet may mean to Don Gonsalvo," he said, "I am convinced that he means no harm to any one bearing the name of Alvarez de Meñaya."

"You will never repent that word. And it is true--in the sense you speak it," returned Gonsalvo, taking the paper from his hand. At that moment he was irresolute whether to confide in Carlos or no. But the touch of his cousin's hand decided him. It was cold and trembling. One so weak in heart and nerve was obviously unfit to share the burden of a brave man's desperate resolve.

Carlos went his way, firmly believing that Gonsalvo intended no ill to him. But what then did he intend? Had he solicited the Inquisitor for a private midnight interview merely to throw himself at his feet, and with impassioned eloquence to plead the cause of Doña Maria? Were "important revelations" only a blind to procure his admission?

Impossible! who, past the age of infancy, would kneel to the storm to implore it to be still, or to the fire to ask it to subdue its rage? Perhaps some dreamy enthusiast, unacquainted with the world and its ways, might still be found sanguine enough for such a project, but certainly not Don Gonsalvo Alvarez de Meñaya.

Or had he a bribe to offer? Inquisitors, like other Churchmen, were known to be subject to human frailties; of course they would not touch gold, but, according to a well-known Spanish proverb, you were invited to throw it into their cowls. And Munebrãga could scarcely have fed his numerous train of insolent retainers, decked his splendid barge with gold and purple, and brought rare plants and flowers from every known country to his magnificent gardens, without very large additions to the acknowledged income of the Inquisitor-General's deputy. But, again, not all the wealth of the Indies would avail to open the gates of the Triana to an obstinate heretic, however it might modify the views of "his Reverence" upon the merits of a doubtful case. And even to procure a few slight alleviations in the treatment of the accused, would have required a much deeper purse than Gonsalvo's.

Moreover, Carlos saw that the young man was "bitter of soul;" ready for any desperate deed. What if he meant to accuse himself. Amidst the careless profanity in which he had been too wont to indulge, many a word had fallen from his lips that might be contrary to sound doctrine in the estimation of Inquisitors, comparatively lenient as they were to blasphemers. But what possible benefit to Doña Maria would be gained by his throwing himself into the jaws of death? And if it were really his resolve to commit suicide, by way of ending his own miseries, he could surely accomplish the act in a more direct and far less painful manner.

Thus Carlos pondered; but in whatever way he regarded the matter, he could not escape from the idea that his cousin intended some dangerous or fatal step. Gonsalvo was too still, too silent. This was an evil sign. Carlos would have felt comparatively easy about him had he made him shrink and shudder by an outburst of the fiercest, most indignant curses. For the less emotion is wasted in expression, the more remains, like pent-up steam, to drive the engine forward in its course. Moreover, there was an evil light in Gonsalvo's eye; a gleam like that of hope, but hope that was certainly not kindled from above.

Although the very crisis of his own fate was now approaching, and every faculty might have had full occupation nearer home, Carlos was haunted perpetually by the thought of his cousin. It continued to occupy him not only during his visits to his friends, but afterwards in the solitude and silence of his own apartment. We all know the strange perversity with which, in times of suspense and sorrow, the mind will sometimes run riot upon matters irrelevant, and even apparently trivial.

With slow footsteps the hours stole on; miserable hours to Carlos, except in so far as he could spend them in prayer, now his only resource and refuge. After pleading for himself, for Juan, for his dear imprisoned brethren and sisters, he named Gonsalvo; and was led most earnestly to implore God's mercy for his unhappy cousin. As he thought of his misery, so much greater than his own; his loneliness, without God in the world; his sorrow, without hope,--his pleading grew impassioned. And when at last he rose from his knees, it was with that sweet sense that God would hear--nay, that he had heard--which is one of the mysteries of the new life, the precious things that no man knoweth save he that receiveth them.

Then, believing it was nearly midnight, he quickly finished his simple preparations, took his guitar (which had now lain unused for a long time), and sallied forth from his chamber.

XXVI.

Don Gonsalvo's Revenge

"Our God, the all just,

Unto himself reserves this royalty,

The secret chastening of the guilty heart;

The fiery touch, the scourge that purifies--

Leave it with him. Yet make not that thy trust;

For that strong heart of thine--oh, listen yet!--

Must in its depths o'ercome the very wish

Of death or torture to the guilty one,

Ere it can sleep again."--Hemans

Don Manuel's house had once belonged to a Moorish Cid, or lord. It had been assigned to the first Conde de Nuera, as one of the original conquistadors of Seville; and he had bequeathed it to his second son. It had a turret, after the Moorish fashion, and the upper chamber of this had been given to Carlos on his first arrival in the city; from an idea that the theological student would require a solitary place for study and devotion, or, at least, that it would be decorous to suppose so. The room beneath had been occupied by Don Juan, but since his departure it was appropriated by Gonsalvo, who liked solitude, and took advantage of his improved health to escape from the ground-floor, to which his infirmities had long confined him.

As Carlos stole noiselessly down the narrow winding stair, he noticed a light in his cousin's room. This in itself did not surprise him. But he certainly felt a little disconcerted when, just as he passed the door, Don Gonsalvo opened it, and met him face to face. He also was fully equipped in sword and cloak, and carried a torch in his hand.

"Vaya, vaya, Don Carlos," he said reproachfully; "after all, thou couldst not trust me."

"Nay, I did trust you."

From fear of being overheard, both entered the nearest room--Don Gonsalvo's--and its owner closed the door softly.

"You are stealing away from fear of me, and thereby throwing yourself into the fire. Do it not, Don Carlos; be advised, and do it not." He spoke earnestly, and without a shadow of the old bitterness and sarcasm.

"Nay, it is not thus. My flight was planned ere yesterday; and in concert with one who both can and will provide me with the means of safety. It is best I should go."

"Enough said then," returned Gonsalvo, more coldly. "Farewell; I seek not to detain you. Farewell; for though we may go forth together, our paths divide, and for ever, at the door."

"Your path is perhaps less safe than mine, Don Gonsalvo."

"Talk of what you understand, cousin. My path is safety itself. And now that I think of it (if you could be trusted), you might aid me perhaps. Did you know all, I dare not doubt that you would rejoice to do it."

"God knows how joyfully I would aid you if I could, Don Gonsalvo. But I fear you are bound on a useless, and worse than useless, errand."

"You know not my errand."

"But I know to whom you go this night. Oh, my cousin, is it possible you can dream that prayer of yours will soften hearts harder than the nether millstone?"

"I know the way to one heart; and though it be the hardest of all, I shall reach it."

"Were you to pour the wealth of El Dorado at the feet of Gonzales de Munebrãga, he neither would nor could unloose one bolt of that prison."

Gonsalvo's wild look changed suddenly into one of wistful earnestness, almost of tenderness. He said, lowering his voice,--

"Near as death, the revealer of secrets, may be to me, there are still some questions worth the asking. Perchance you can throw a gleam of light upon this horrible darkness. We are speaking frankly now, and as in God's presence. Tell me, it that charge true?"

"Frankly, and in the sense in which you ask--it is."

The last fatal words Carlos only whispered. Gonsalvo made no answer; but a kind of momentary spasm passed across his face.

Carlos at length went on in a low voice: "She knew the Evangel long before I did, though she is so young--not yet one-and-twenty. She was the pupil of Dr. Egidius; but he was wont to say he learned more from her than she did from him. Her keen, bright intellect cut through sophistries, and reached truth so quickly. And God gave her abundantly of his grace; making her willing, for that truth, to endure all things. Oft have I seen her sweet face kindle and glow whilst he who taught us spoke of the joy and strength given to those that suffer for the name of Christ. I am persuaded He is with her now, and will be with her even to the end. Could you gain access to her where she is, I think she would tell you she possesses a treasure of peace of which neither death nor suffering, neither cruelty of fiends nor worse cruelty of fiend-like men, can avail to rob her."

"She is a saint--she will be a blessed saint in heaven, let them say what they may," murmured Gonsalvo hoarsely. Then the fierce look returned to his face again. "But I think the old Christians of Castile, the men whose good swords made the infidels bite the dust, and planted the cross on their painted towers, are no better than curs and dastards."

"In that they suffer these things?"

"Yes; a thousand times, yes. In the name of man's honour and woman's loveliness, are there, in our good city of Seville, neither fathers, nor brothers, nor lovers left alive? No man who thinks the sweetest eyes ever seen worth six inches of steel in five skilful fingers? No one man, save the poor forgotten cripple, Don Gonsalvo Alvarez. But he thanks God this night that he has spared his life, and left strength enough in his feeble limbs to bear him into a murderer's presence."

"Don Gonsalvo! what do you mean?" cried Carlos, shrinking from him.

"Lower thy voice, an' it please thee. But why should I fear to tell thee--thee, who hast good cause to be the death-foe of Inquisitors? If thou art not cur and dastard too, thou wilt applaud and pray for me. For I suppose heretics pray, at least as well as Inquisitors. I said I would reach the heart of Gonzales de Munebrãga this night. Not with gold. There is another metal of keener temper, which enters in where even gold cannot come."

"Then you mean--murder?" said Carlos, again drawing near him, and laying his hand on his arm. Gonsalvo sank into a seat, half mechanically, half from an instinct that led him to spare the strength he would need so sorely by-and-by.

In the momentary pause that followed, the clock of San Vicente tolled the midnight hour.

"Yes," replied Gonsalvo steadily; "I mean murder--as the shepherd does who strangles the wolf with his paw on the lamb."

"Oh, think--"

"I have thought of everything. And mark me, Don Carlos, I have but one regret. It is that my weapon deals an instantaneous death. Such revenge is poor and flavourless after all. I have heard of poisons whose least drop, mingling with the blood, ensures a slow agonizing death--time to learn what torture means, and to drain to the dregs the cup filled for others--to curse God and man ere he dies. For a phial of such, wherewith to anoint my blade, I would sell my soul to-night."

"O Gonsalvo, this is horrible! They are wild, wicked words you speak. Pray God to pardon you!"

"I adjure him by his justice to prosper me," said Gonsalvo, raising his head defiantly.

"He will not prosper you. And do you dream that such a mad achievement (suppose you even succeed in it) will open prison-doors and set captives free? Alas! alas! that we are not at the mercy of a tyrant's will. For tyrants, the worst of them, sometimes relent; and--they are mortal. That which is crushing us is not a living being, an organism with nerves, and brain, and blood. It is a system, a THING, a terrible engine, that moves on in its resistless way, cold and lifeless, without will or feeling. Strong as adamant, it kills, tortures, destroys; obeying laws far away out of our sight. Were Valdez and Munebrãga, 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, Munebrãga will have my dagger flashing in his eyes, and will take care how he deals with his prisoners, and whom he arrests."

"I implore you to think of yourself," said Carlos.

Gonsalvo smiled. "I know I shall pay the forfeit," he said, "even as those who slew the Inquisitor Pedro Arbues before the high altar in Saragossa, But"--here the smile faded, and the stern set look returned to his face--"I shall not pay more, for a man's triumphant vengeance, than those fiends will dare to inflict upon a tender, delicately nurtured girl for the crime of a mystic meditation, or a few words of prayer not properly rounded off with an Ave."

"True. But then you will suffer alone. She has God with her."

"I can suffer alone."

For that word Carlos envied him. He shrank in terror from loneliness, from suffering, shuddering at the very thought of the dungeon and the torture-room. And just then the first quarter of his hour of grace chimed from the clock of San Vicente. What if he and Pepe should fail to meet? He would not think of that now. Whatever happened, Gonsalvo must be saved. He went on,--

"Here you can suffer alone and be strong. But how will you endure the loneliness of the long hereafter, away from God's presence, from light and life and hope? Are you content that you, and she for whom you give your life, should be sundered throughout eternity?"

"Nay; I am casting my lot in with hers. If the Church curses her (pure and holy as she ever was), its anathema shall fall on me too. If only the Church's key opens heaven, she and I will both stand without."

"Yet you know she will enter heaven. Shall you?"

Gonsalvo hesitated. "It will not be the blood of a villain that will bar my way," he said.

"God says, 'Thou shall not kill.'"

"Then what will he do with Gonzales de Munebrãga?"

"He will do that with him of which, if you but dreamed, it would change your fiercest hate into saddest, deepest pity. Have you realized what a span is our life here compared with the countless ages of eternity? Think! For God's chosen a few weeks, or months at most, of solitude and fear and pain, ended perhaps by--but that is as he pleases; ended, at all events. Then add up the million years, fill them with the joy of victory, and the presence and love of Christ himself. Can they not, and we for them, be content with this?"

"Are you content with it yourself?" Gonsalvo suddenly interrupted. "You seek flight."

The glow faded from the face of Carlos, and his eyes sank to the ground. "Christ has not called me yet," he answered in a lower tone. There was a silence; then he resumed: "Turn now to the other side. Would you change, even this hour, with Gonzales de Munebrãga? But take him from his wealth, and his pomp, and his sinful luxuries, all defiled with blood, and what remains for him? Everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

"Everlasting fire!" Gonsalvo repeated, as if the thought pleased him.

"Leave him in God's hand. It is a stronger hand than yours, Don Gonsalvo."

"Everlasting fire! I would send him there to-night."

"And whither would you send your own sinful soul?"

"God might pardon, though the Church cursed."

"Possibly. But to enter God's heaven you need something besides pardon."

"What?" asked Gonsalvo, half wearily, half incredulously.

"'Holiness; without which no man can see the Lord.'"

"Holiness?" Gonsalvo questioned, as if the word was strange to him, and he attached no meaning to it.

"Yes," Carlos went on, with intense and ever increasing earnestness; "unless, even from that passionate heart of yours, revenge and hatred are banished, you can never see God, never come where--"

"Hold thy peace, trifler!" Gonsalvo interrupted with angry impatience. "Too long have I tarried, listening to thine idle talk. Priests and women are content with words; brave men act. Farewell to thee!"

"One word more, only one." Carlos drew near and laid his hand on his cousin's arm. "Nay, you shall listen to me. Seemeth it to you a thing incredible that that heart of yours can be changed and softened to a love like His who prayed on the cross for his murderers? Yet it can be. He can do it. He gives pardon, holiness, peace. Peace of which you dream not now, but which she knows full well. O Don Gonsalvo, better join her where she is going, than wildly, rashly, and most uselessly peril your soul to avenge her!"

"Uselessly! Were that true indeed--"

"Ay de mi! who can doubt it?"

"Would I had time for thought!"

"Take it, in God's name, and pray him to keep you from a great crime."

For a few moments he sat still--still as the dead. Then he started suddenly. "Already the hour is passing," he exclaimed; "I shall be too late. Fool that I was, to be almost moved from my purpose by the idle words of a--The weakness is past now. Still, ere we part, give me thy hand, Don Carlos, for, on my faith, I never liked thee half so well."

Very sorrowfully Carlos extended it, rather wondering as he did so that the energetic Gonsalvo failed to spring from his seat and prepare to be gone.

Gonsalvo stirred not, even to take the offered hand. A deathlike paleness overspread his face, and a cry of terror had well nigh broken from his lips. But he choked it back.

"Something is strangely wrong with me," he faltered. "I cannot move. I feel dead--dead--from the waist down."

"God has spoken to you from heaven," said Carlos solemnly. He felt as if a miracle had been wrought in his presence. His Protestantism had not freed him from the superstitions of his age. Had he lived three centuries later, he would have seen nothing miraculous in the disease with which Gonsalvo was stricken, but rather have called it the natural result of intense agitation and excitement, acting upon a frame already weakened.

Yet the reckless Gonsalvo was the more superstitious of the two. He was at war with the creed in which he had been nurtured; but that older and deeper kind of superstition which has its root in human nature had, for this very reason, a stronger hold upon him.

"Dead--dead!" he repeated, the words falling from his lips in broken, awe-struck whispers. "The limbs I misused! The feet that led me into sin! God--God have mercy upon me! It is thy hand!"

"It is his hand; a sign he has not forsaken thee; that he means to bring thee back to himself. Oh, my cousin, do not despair. Hope yet in his mercy, for it is great."

Carlos knelt down beside him, took his passive hand in his, and spoke earnest, loving words of hope and comfort. The last quarter, ere the single stroke that should announce that the hour appointed for his own flight was past, chimed from the clock on the church tower. Yet he did not move--he had forgotten self. At last, however, he said, "But it may be something can be done to relieve you. You ought to have medical aid without delay. I should have thought of this before. I will rouse the household."

"No; that would endanger you. Go on your way, and bid the porter do it when you are gone."

It was too late, the household was roused. A loud authoritative knocking at the outer gate sent the blood back from the hearts of both with sudden and horrible fear.

There was a sound of opening gates, followed by footsteps--voices--cries.

Gonsalvo was the first to understand all. "The Alguazils of the Holy Office!" he exclaimed.

"I am lost!" cried Carlos, large drops gathering on his brow.

"Conceal yourself," said Gonsalvo; but he knew his words were vain. Already his quick ear had caught the sound of his cousin's name; and already footsteps were on the stairs.

Carlos glanced round the room. For a moment his eye rested on the window, eighty feet above the ground. Better spring from it and perish! No, that would be self-murder. In God's name he would await them manfully.

"You will be searched," Gonsalvo whispered hurriedly; "have you aught about your person that may add to your danger?"

Carlos drew from its place of concealment the heroic Juliano's treasured gift.

"I will hide it," said his cousin; and taking it hastily, he slipped it beneath his inner vest, where it lay in strange neighbourhood with a small, exquisitely tempered poniard, destined never to be used.

The torch-light within, perhaps the voices, guided the Alguazils to that room. A hand was placed on the door. "They are coming, Don Carlos," cried Gonsalvo; "I am thy murderer."

"No--no fault of thine. Always remember that," said Carlos, in his sharpest anguish generous still. Then for one brief moment, that seemed an age, he was deaf to all outward things. Afterwards he was himself again.

And something more than himself perhaps. Now, as in other moments of intense excitement, the spirit of his race descended on him. When the Alguazils entered, it was Don Carlos Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya who met them, with folded arms, with steadfast eye, and pale but dauntless forehead.

All was quiet, regular, and most orderly. Don Manuel, roused from his slumbers, appeared with the Alguazils, and respectfully requested a sight of the warrant upon which they proceeded.

It was produced; and all could see that it was duly signed, and sealed with the famous seal--the sword and olive branch, the dog with the flaming brand, the sorely outraged, "Justitia et misericordia."

Had Don Manuel Alvarez been king of all the Spains, and Carlos his heir-apparent, he dared not have offered the least resistance then. He had no wish to resist, however; he bowed obsequiously, and protested his own and his family's devotion to the Faith and the Holy Office. But he added (perhaps merely as a matter of form), that he could bring many witnesses of unimpeachable character to testify to his nephew's orthodoxy, and hoped to succeed in clearing him from whatever odious imputation had induced their Reverences to order his arrest.

Meanwhile Gonsalvo gnashed his teeth in impotent rage and despair. He would have bartered his life for two minutes of health and strength in which to rush suddenly on the Alguazils, and give Carlos time to escape, let the consequences of such frantic audacity be what they might. But the bands of disease, stronger than iron, made the body a prison for the indignant, tortured spirit.

Carlos spoke for the first time. "I am ready to go with you," he said to the chief of the Alguazils. "Do you wish to examine my apartment? You are welcome. It is the chamber over this."

Having gone over every detail of such a scene a thousand times in imagination, he knew that the examination of papers and personal effects usually formed a part of it. And he had no fears for the result, as, in preparation for his flight, he had carefully destroyed everything that he thought could implicate himself or any one else.

"Don Carlos--cousin!" cried Gonsalvo suddenly, as surrounded by the officers he was about to leave the room. "Vaya con Dios! A braver man than you have I never seen."

Carlos turned on him one long, sorrowful gaze. "Tell Ruy," he said. That was all.

Then there was trampling of footsteps overhead, and the sound of voices, not excited or angry, but cool, business-like, even courteous.

Then the footsteps descended, passed the door of Gonsalvo's room, sounded along the corridor, grew fainter on the great staircase, died away in the court.

Less than an hour afterwards, the great gate of the Triana opened to receive a new victim. The grave familiar held it, bowing low, until the prisoner and his guard had passed through. Then it was swung to again, and barred and bolted, shutting out from Don Carlos Alvarez all help and hope, all charity and all mercy--save only the mercy of God.

XXVII.

My Brother's Keeper

"Since she loved him, he went carefully,

Bearing a thing so precious in his hand."--George Eliot

About a week afterwards, Don Juan Alvarez dismounted at the door of his uncle's mansion. His shout soon brought the porter, a "pure and ancient Christian," who had spent nearly all his life in the service of the family.

"God save you, father," said Juan. "Is my brother in the house!"

"No, señor and your worship,"--the old man hesitated, and looked confused.

"Where shall I find him, then?" cried Juan; "speak at once, if you know."

"May it please your noble Excellency, I--I know nothing. At least--the Saints have mercy on us!" and he trembled from head to foot.

Juan thrust him aside, nearly knocking him down in his haste, and dashed breathless into his uncle's private room, on the right hand side of the patio.

Don Manuel was there, seated at a table, looking over some papers.

"Where is my brother?" asked Juan sternly and abruptly, searching his face with his keen dark eyes.

"Holy Saints defend us!" cried Don Manuel, nearly startled out of his ordinary decorum. "And what madness brings you here?"

"Where is my brother?" Juan repeated, in the same tone, and without moving a muscle.

"Be quiet--be reasonable, nephew Don Juan. Do not make a disturbance; it will be worse for all of us. We did all we could--"

"For Heaven's sake, señor, will you answer me?"

"Have patience. We did all we could for him, I was about to say; and more than we ought. The fault was his own, if he was suspected and taken--"

"Taken! Then I come too late." Sinking into the nearest seat, he covered his face with both hands, and groaned aloud.

Don Manuel Alvarez had never learned to reverence the sacredness of a great sorrow. "Rushing in" where such as he might well fear to tread, he presumed to offer consolation. "Come, then, nephew Don Juan," he said, "you know as well as I do that 'water that has run by will turn no mill,' and that 'there is no good in throwing the rope after the bucket.' No man can alter that which is past. All we can do is to avoid worse mischief in future."

"When was it?" asked Juan, without looking up.

"A week agone."

"Seven days and nights!"

"Thereabouts. But you--are you in love with destruction yourself, that, when you were safe and well at Nuera, you must needs come hither again?"

"I came to save him."

"Unheard of folly! If you have been meddling with these matters--and it is but too likely, seeing you were always with him (though, the Saints forbid I should suspect an honourable soldier like you of anything worse than imprudence)--do you not know they will wring the whole truth out of him with very little trouble, and your life is not worth a brass maravedì?"

Juan started to his feet, and glared scorn and defiance in his uncle's face. "Whoever dares to hint so vile a slander," he cried, "by my faith he shall repent it, were he my uncle ten times over. Don Carlos Alvarez never did, and never will, betray a trust, let those wretches deal with him as they may. But I know him; he will die, or worse,--they will make him mad." Here Juan's voice failed, and he stood in silent horror, gazing on the dread vision that rose before his mind.

Don Manuel was daunted by his vehemence. "You are the best judge yourself of what amount of danger you may be incurring," he said. "But let me tell you, Señor Don Juan, that I hold you rather a dangerous guest to harbour under the circumstances. To have the Alguazils of the Holy Office twice in my house would be enough to cost me all my places, not to mention the disgrace of it."

"You shall not lose a real by me or mine," returned Juan proudly.

"I did not mean, however, to refuse you hospitality," said Don Manuel, relieved, yet a little uneasy, perhaps even remorseful.

"But I mean to decline it, señor. I have only two favours to ask of you," he continued: "one, to allow me free intercourse with my betrothed; the other, to permit me"--his voice faltered, stopped. With a great effort he resumed--"to permit me to examine my brother's room, and whatever effects he may have left there."

"Now you speak more rationally," said his uncle, mistaking the self-control of indignant pride for genuine calmness. "But as to your brother's effects, you may spare your pains; for the Alguazils set the seal of the Holy Office upon them on the night of his arrest, and they have since carried them away. As to the other matter, what Doña Beatriz may think of the connection, after the infamy in which your branch of the family is involved, I cannot tell."

A burning flush mounted to Juan's cheek as he answered, "I trust my betrothed; even as I trust my brother."

"You can see the lady herself. She may be better able than I to persuade you to consult for your own safety. For if you are not a madman, you will return at once to Nuera, which you ought never to have quitted; or you will take the earliest opportunity of rejoining the army."

"I shall not stir from Seville till I obtain my brother's deliverance; or--" Juan did not name the other alternative. Involuntarily he placed his hand on his belt, in which he had concealed certain old family jewels, which he believed would produce a considerable sum of money; for his last faint hope for Carlos lay in a judicious appeal to the all-powerful "Don Dinero."[#]

[#] The Lord Dollar.

"You will never leave it, then," said Don Manuel. "And you must hold me excused from aiding and abetting your folly. Your brother's business has cost me and mine more than enough already. I had rather ten thousand times that a man had died of the plague in my house, were it for the scandal's sake alone! Nor, bad as it is, is the scandal all. Since that miserable night, my unhappy son Gonsalvo, in whose apartment the arrest took place, has been sick unto death, and out of his mind."

"Don Gonsalvo! What brought my brother to his room?"

"The devil, whose servant he is, may know; I do not. He was found there, in his sword and cloak, as if ready to go forth, when the officers came."

"Did he leave no message--no word for me?"

"Not one word. I know not if he spoke at all, save to offer to show the Alguazils his personal effects. To do him justice, nothing suspicious was found amongst them. But the less said on the subject the better. I wash my hands of it, and of him. I thought he would have done honour to the family; but he has proved its sorest disgrace."

"Señor, what you say of him you say of me also," said Juan, glowing white with anger. "And already I have heard quite enough."

"That is as you please, Señor Don Juan."

"I shall only trespass upon you for the favour you have promised me--permission to wait upon Doña Beatriz."

"I shall apprise her of your presence, and give her leave to act as she sees fit." And glad to put an end to the interview, Don Manuel left the room.

Juan sank into a seat once more, and gave himself up to an agony of grief for his brother.

So absorbed was he in his sorrow, that a light footstep entered and approached unheard by him. At last a small hand touched his arm. He started and looked up. Whatever his anguish of heart might be, he was still the loyal lover of Doña Beatriz. So the next moment found him on his knees saluting that hand with his lips. And then followed certain ceremonies abundantly interesting to those who enact them, but apt to prove tedious when described.

"My lady's devoted slave," said Don Juan, using the ordinary language of the time, "bears a breaking heart to-day. We knew neither father nor mother; there were but the two of us."

"Did you not receive my letter, praying you to remain at Nuera?" asked the lady.

"Pardon me, queen of my heart, in that I dared to disregard a wish of yours. But I knew his danger, and I came to save him. Alas! too late."

"I am not sure that I do pardon you, Don Juan."

"Then, I presume so far as to say, that I know Doña Beatriz better than she knows herself. Indeed, had I acted otherwise, she would scarce have pardoned me. How would it have been possible for me to consult for my own safety, leaving him alone and unaided, in such fearful peril?"

"You acknowledge there is peril--to you?"

"There may be, señora."

"Ay de mi! Why, in Heaven's name, have you thus involved yourself? O Don Juan, you have dealt very cruelly with me!"

"Light of my eyes, life of my life, what mean you by these words?"

"Was it not cruel to allow your brother, with his gentle, winning ways, and his soft specious words, to lead you step by step from the faith of our fathers, until he had you entangled in I know not what horrible heresies, and made you put in peril your honour, your liberty, your life--everything?"

"We only sought Truth."

"Truth!" echoed the lady, with a contemptuous stamp of her small foot and twirl of her fan. "What is Truth? What good will Truth do me if those cruel men drag you from your bed at midnight, take you to that dreadful place, stretch you on the rack?" But that last horror was too much to bear; Doña Beatrix hid her face in her hands, and wept and sobbed passionately.

Juan soothed her with every tender, lover-like art. "I will be very prudent, dearest lady," he said at last; adding, as he gazed on her beautiful face, "I have too much to live for not to hold life very precious."

"Will you promise to fly--to leave the city now, before suspicions are awakened which may make flight impossible?"

"My first and my only love, I would die to fulfil your slightest wish. But this thing I cannot do."

"And wherefore not, Señor Don Juan?"

"Can you ask? I must hazard everything, spend everything, in the chance--if there be a chance--of saving him, or, at least, of softening his fate."

"Then God help us both," said Doña Beatriz.

"Amen! Pray to him day and night, señora. Perhaps he may have pity on us."

"There is no chance of saving Don Carlos. Know you not that of all the prisoners the Holy House receives, scarce one in a thousand goes forth again to take his place in the world?"

Juan shook his head. He knew well that his task was almost hopeless; yet, even by Doña Beatriz, he was not to be moved from his determination.

But he thanked her in strong, passionate words for her faith in him and her truth to him. "No sorrow can divide us, my beloved," he said, "nor even what they call shame, falsely as they speak therein. You are my star, that shines on me throughout the darkness."

"I have promised."

"My uncle's family may seek to divide us, and I think they will. But the lady of my heart will not heed their idle words?"

Doña Beatriz smiled. "I am a Lavella," she said. "Do you not know our motto?--'True unto death.'"

"It is a glorious motto. May it be mine too."

"Take heed what you do, Don Juan. If you love me, you will look well to your footsteps, since, wherever they lead, mine are bound to follow." Saying this, she rose, and stood gazing in his face with flushed cheek and kindling eyes.

The words were such as might thrill any lover's heart with joy and gratitude. Yet there was something in the look which accompanied them that changed joy and gratitude into vague fear and apprehension. The light in that dark eye seemed borrowed from the fire of some sublime but terrible resolve within. Juan's heart quailed, though he knew not why, as he said, "My queen should never tread except through flowery paths."

Doña Beatriz took up a little golden crucifiz that, attached to a rosary of coral beads, hung from her girdle. "You see this cross, Don Juan?"

"Yes, señora mia."