THE SPANISH BROTHERS (continued 8)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Come in, Dolores."

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

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

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

"No; but they have brought tidings."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That fire is without the gate," he said at last. "Pray for the souls that are passing in anguish now."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XLVII.

The Dominican Prior.

"Oh, deep is a wounded heart, and strong

A voice that cries against mighty wrong!

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

Doth the ire of a crushed affection light."--Hemans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well?"

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

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

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

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

XLVIII.

San Isodro Once More.

"And if with milder anguish now I bear

To think of thee in thy forsaken rest;

If from my heart be lifted the despair,

The sharp remorse with healing influence pressed.

It is that Thou the sacrifice hast blessed,

And filled my spirit, in its inmost cell,

With a deep chastened sense that all at last is well."--Hemans

The cloudless sky above him, the fresh morning air on his cheek, the dew-drops on his feet, Don Juan walked along. The river--his own bright Guadalquivir--glistened in the early sunshine; and soon his pathway led him amidst the gray ruins of old Italica, while among the brambles that half hid them, glittering lizards, startled by his footsteps, ran in and out. But he saw nothing, felt nothing, save the passionate pain that burned in his heart. During his interview with Fray Ricardo he had been, practically and for the time, what the prior called him, insane--mad with rage and hate. But now rage was dying out for the present, and giving place to anguish.

Is the worst pang earth has to give that of witnessing the sufferings of our beloved? Or is there yet one keener, more thrilling? That they should suffer alone; no hand near to help, no voice to speak sympathy, no eye to look "ancient kindness" on their pain. That they should die--die in anguish--and still alone,--

"With eyes turned away,

And no last word to say."

Don Juan was now drinking that bitter cup to its very dregs. What the young brother, his one earthly tie, had been to him, need not here be told; and assuredly he could not have told it. He had been all his life a thing to protect and shield--as the strong protect the weak, as manhood shields womanhood and childhood. Had God but taken him with his own right hand, Juan would have thought it a light matter, a sorrow easily borne. But, instead, He stood afar off--He did not help; whilst men, cruel as fiends from the bottomless pit, did their worst, their very worst, upon him. And with refined self-torture he went through all the horrible details, as far as he knew or could guess them. Nor did he spare to stab his own heart with that keenest weapon of all--"It was for me; for me he endured the Question." The cry of his brother's anguish--anguish borne for him--seemed to sound in his ears and to haunt him: he felt that it would haunt him evermore.

Of course, there was a well of comfort near, which a child's hand might have pointed out to him: "All is over now; he suffers no longer--he is at rest." But who ever stoops to drink from that well in the parching thirst of the first hour of such a grief as his? In truth, all was over for Carlos; but all was not over for Juan. He had to pass through his dark hour as really as Carlos had passed through his.

Again the agony almost maddened him; again wild hatred and rage against his brother's torturers rose and surged like a flood within him. And with these were mingled thoughts, too nearly rebellious, of Him whom that brother trusted so firmly and served so faithfully; as if he had used his servant hardly, and forsaken him in his hour of sorest need.

He shrank with horror from every wayfarer he chanced to meet, imagining that his eyes might have looked on his brother's suffering. But at last he came unawares upon the gate of San Isodro. Left unbarred by some accident, it yielded to his touch, and he entered the monastery grounds. At that very spot, three years ago, the brothers parted, on the day that Carlos avowed his change of faith. Yet not even that remembrance could bring a tear to the hot and angry eyes of Juan. But just then he happened to recollect the book he had received from the lay brother. He took it from its place of concealment, and eagerly began to examine it. It was almost filled with writing; but not, alas! from that beloved hand. So he flung it aside in bitter disappointment. Then becoming suddenly conscious of bodily weakness, he half sat down, half threw himself on the ground. His vigorous frame and his strong nerves saved him from swooning outright: he only lay sick and faint, the blue sky looking black above him, and a strange, indistinct sound, as of many voices, murmuring in his ears.

By-and-by he became conscious that some one was holding water to his lips, and trying, though with an awkward, trembling hand, to loose his doublet at the throat. He drank, shook off his weakness, and looked about him. A very old man, in a white tunic and brown mantle, was bending over him compassionately. In another moment he was on his feet; and having briefly thanked the aged monk for his kindness, he turned his face to the gate.

"Nay, my son," the old man interposed; "San Isodro is changed--changed! Still the sick and weary never left its gates unaided; and they shall not begin now--not now. I pray you come with me to the house, and refresh and rest yourself there."

Juan was not reckless enough to refuse what in truth he sorely needed. He entered the monastery under the guidance of poor old Fray Bernardo, who had been passed by, perhaps in scorn, by the persecutors: and so, after all, he had his wish--he should die and be buried in peace where he had passed his life from boyhood to extreme old age. Yet there was something sad in the thought that the storm that swept by had left untouched the poor, useless, half-withered tree, while it tore down the young and strong and noble oaks, the pride of the now desolated forest.

The few cowed and terrified monks who had been allowed to remain in the convent received Don Juan with great kindness. They set food and wine before him: food he could not touch, but wine he accepted with thankfulness. And they almost insisted on his endeavouring to take some rest; assuring him that when his servant and horses should arrive, they would see them properly cared for, until such time as he might be able to resume his journey.

His journey would not brook delay, as he knew full well. That his young wife might not be a widow and his babe an orphan, he "charged his soul to hold his body strengthened" for the work that both had to do. Back to Nuera for these dear ones as swiftly as the fleetest horses would bear him, then to Seville again, and on board the first ship he could meet with bound for any foreign port,--would the term of grace assigned him by the Inquisitor suffice for all this? Certainly not a moment should be lost.

"I will rest for an hour," he said. "But I pray you, my fathers, do me one kindness first. Is there a man here who witnessed--what was done yesterday?"

A young monk came forward. Juan led him into the cell which had been prepared for him to rest in, and leaning against its little window, with his face turned away, he murmured one agitated question. Three words comprised the answer,--

"Calmly, silently, quickly."

Juan's breast heaved and his strong frame trembled. After a long interval he said, still without looking,--

"Now tell me of the others. Name him no more."

"No less than eight ladies died the martyr's death," said the monk, who cared not, before this auditor, to conceal his own sentiments. "One of them was Señora Maria Gomez; your Excellency probably knows her story. Her three daughters and her sister died with her. When their sentences were read, they embraced on the scaffold, and bade each other farewell with tears. Then they comforted each other with holy words about our Lord and his passion, and the home he was preparing for them above."

Here the young monk paused for a few moments; then went on, his voice still trembling: "There were, moreover, two Englishmen and a Frenchman, who all died bravely. Lastly, there was Juliano Hernandez."

"Ah! tell me of him."

"He died as he had lived. In the morning, when brought out into the court of the Triana, he cried aloud to his fellow-sufferers,--'Courage, comrades! Now must we show ourselves valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ. Let us bear faithful testimony to his truth before men, and in a few hours we shall receive the testimony of his approbation before angels, and triumph with him in heaven.' Though silenced, he continued throughout the day to encourage his companions by his gestures. On the Quemadero, he knelt down and kissed the stone upon which the stake was erected; then thrust his head among the fagots to show his willingness to suffer. But at the end, having raised his hands in prayer, one of the attendant priests--Dr. Rodriguez--mistook the attitude for a sign that he would recant, and made intercession with the Alguazils to give him a last opportunity of speaking. He confessed his faith in a few strong, brief words; and knowing the character of Rodriguez, told him he thought the same himself, but hid his true belief out of fear. The angry priest bade them light the pile at once. It was done; but the guards, with kind cruelty, thrust the martyr through with their lances, so that he passed, without much pain, into the presence of the Lord whom he served as few have been honoured to do."

"And--Fray Constantino?" Juan questioned.

"He was not, for God took him. They had only his dust to burn. They have sought to slander his memory, saying he raised his hand against his own life. But we knew the contrary. It has reached our ears--I dare not tell you how--that he died in the arms of one of our dear brethren from this place--poor young Fray Fernando, who closed his eyes in peace. It was from one of the dark underground cells of the Triana that he passed straight to the glory of God."[#]

[#] At the Auto they produced his effigy, of the size of life, clad in his canon's robe, and with the arms stretched out in the gesture he had been wont to use in preaching; but it caused such a demonstration of feeling among the people, that they were obliged hastily to withdraw it.

It was at this Auto that Maria Gonsalez was sentenced to receive two hundred lashes, and to be imprisoned for ten years, for the kindnesses she had shown the prisoners. An equally severe punishment was awarded to the under-gaoler Herrera for the offence of having allowed a mother and three daughters, who were imprisoned in separate cells, an interview of half an hour; while the many cruelties and peculations of the infamous Benevidio were only chastised by the loss of his situation and lit advantages, and banishment from Seville.

"I thank you for your tidings," said Juan, slowly and faintly. "And now I pray of you to leave me."

After a considerable time, one of the monks softly opened the door of their visitor's cell. He sat on the pallet prepared for him, his head buried in his hands.

"Señor," said the monk, "your servant has arrived, and begs you to excuse his delay. It may be there are some instructions you wish him to receive."

Juan roused himself with an effort.

"Yes," he said; "and I thank you. Will you add to your kindness by bidding him immediately procure for us fresh horses, the best and fleetest that can be had?" He sought his purse; but, remembering in a moment what had become of it, drew a ring from his finger to supply its loss. It was the diamond ring that the Sieur de Ramenais had given him. A keen pang shot through his heart. "No, not that; I cannot part with it." He took two others instead--old family jewels. "Bid him bring these," he said, "to Isaac Ozorio, who dwells in La Juderia[#]--any man there will show him the house; take for them whatever he will give him, and therewith hire fresh horses--the best he can--from the posada where he rested, leaving our own in pledge. Let him also buy provisions for the way; for my business requires haste. I will explain all to you anon."

[#] The Jewish Quarter of Seville.

While the monk did the errand, Don Juan sat still, gazing at the diamond ring. Slowly there came back upon his memory the words spoken by Carlos on the day when the sharp facets cut his hand, unfelt by him: "If He calls me to suffer for him, he may give me such blessed assurance of his love, that in the joy of it pain and fear will vanish."

Could it be possible He had done this? Oh, for some token, to relieve his breaking heart by the assurance that thus it had been! And yet, wherefore seek a sign? Was not the heroic courage, the calm patience, given to that young brother, once so frail and timid, as plain a token of the sunlight of God's peace and presence as is the bow in the cloud of the sun shining in the heavens? True; but not the less was his soul filled with passionate longing for one word--only one word--from the lips that were dust and ashes now. "If God would give me that," he moaned, "I think I could weep for him."

It occurred to him then that he might examine the book more carefully than he had done before. Don Juan, of late, had been no great reader, except of the Spanish Testament. Instead of glancing rapidly through the volume with a practised eye, he carefully began at the beginning and perused several pages with diligence, and with a kind of compelled and painful attention.

The writer of the diary with which the book seemed filled had not prefixed his name. Consequently Juan, who was without a clue to the authorship, saw in it merely the effusions of a penitent, with whose feelings he had but little sympathy. Still, he reflected that if the writer had been his brother's fellow prisoner, some mention of his brother would probably reward his persevering search. So he read on; but he was not greatly interested, until at length he came to one passage which ran thus:--

"Christ and Our Lady forgive me, if it be a sin. Ofttimes, even by prayer and fasting, I cannot prevent my thoughts from wandering to the past. Not to the life I lived, and the part I acted in the great world, for that is dead to me and I to it; but to the dear faces my eyes shall never see again. My Costanza!"--("Costanza!" thought Juan with a start, "that was my mother's name!")--"my wife! my babe! O God, in thy great mercy, still this hungering and thirsting of the heart!"

Immediately beneath this entry was another. "May 21. My Costanza, my beloved wife, is in heaven. It is more than a year ago, but they did not tell me till to-day. Does death only visit the free?"

Yet another entry caught the eye of Juan. "Burning heat to-day. It would be cool enough in the halls of Nuera, on the breezy slope of the Sierra Morena. What does my orphaned Juan Rodrigo there, I wonder?"

"Nuera! Sierra Morena! Juan Rodrigo!" reiterated the astonished reader. What did it all mean? He was stunned and bewildered, so that he had scarcely power left even to form a conjecture. At last it occurred to him to turn to the other end of the book, if perchance some name, affording a clue to the mystery, might be inscribed there.

And then he read, in another, well-known hand, a few calm words, breathing peace and joy, "quietness and assurance for ever."

He pressed the loved handwriting to his lips, to his heart. He sobbed over it and wept; blistering it with such burning tears as scarcely come from a strong man's eyes more than once in a lifetime. Then, flinging himself on his knees, he thanked God--God whom he had doubted, murmured against, almost blasphemed, and who yet had been true to his promise--true to his tried and suffering servant in the hour of need.

When he rose, he took up the book again, and read and reread those precious words. All but the first he thought he could comprehend. "My beloved father is gone to Him in peace." Would the preceding entries throw any light upon that saying!

Once more, with changed feelings and quickened perceptions, he turned back to the records of the penitent's long captivity. Slowly and gradually the secret they revealed unfolded itself before him. The history of the last nine months of his brother's life lay clearly traced; and the light it shed illumined another life also, longer, sadder, less glorious than his.

One entry, almost the last, and traced with a trembling hand, he read over and over, till his eyes grew too dim to see the words.

"He entreats of me to pray for my absent Juan, and to bless him. My son, my first-born, whose face I know not, but whom he has taught me to love, I do bless thee. All blessings rest upon thee--blessings of heaven above, blessings of the earth beneath, blessings of the deep that lieth under! But for thee, Carlos, what shall I say? I have no blessing fit for thee--no word of love deep and strong enough to join with that name of thine. Doth not He say, of whose tenderness thou tellest me ours is but the shadow, 'He will be silent in his love'? But may he read my heart in its silence, and bless thee, and repay thee when thou comest to thy home, where already thy heart is."

It might have been two hours afterwards, when the same friendly monk who had narrated to Don Juan the circumstances of the Auto-da-fé, came to apprise him that his servant had fulfilled his errand, and was waiting with the horses.

Don Juan rose and met him. His face was sad; it would be a sad face always; but there was in it a look as of one who saw the end, and who knew that, however dark the way might be, the end was light everlasting. "Look here, my friend," he said, for no concealment was necessary there; truth could hurt no one. "See how wondrously God has dealt with me and mine. Here is the record of the life and death of my honoured father. For three-and-twenty years he lay in the Dominican monastery, a prisoner for Christ's sake. And to my heroic martyr brother God has given the honour and the joy of unravelling the mystery of his fate, and thus fulfilling our youthful dream. Carlos has found our father!"

He went forth into the hall, and bade the other monks a grateful farewell. Old Fray Bernardo embraced and blessed him with tears, moved by the likeness, now discerned for the first time, between the stately soldier and the noble and gentle youth, whose kindness to him, during his residence at the monastery three years before, he well remembered.

Then Don Juan set his face towards Nuera, with patient endurance, rather sad than stern, upon his brow, and in his heart "a grief as deep as life or thought," but no rebellion, and no despair. Something like resignation had come to him; already he could say, or at least try to say, "Thy will be done." And he foresaw, as in the distance, far off and faintly, a time when he might even be able to share in spirit the joy of the crowned and victorious one, to whom, in the dark prison, face to face with death, God had so wondrously given the desire of his heart, and not denied him the request of his lips.

XLIX.

Farewell.

"My country is there;

Beyond the star pricked with the last peak of snow."--E. B. Browning.

About a fortnight afterwards, a closely veiled lady, dressed in deep mourning, leaned over the side of a merchant vessel, and gazed into the sapphire depths of the Bay of Cadiz. A respectable elderly woman was standing near her, holding her pretty dark-eyed babe. They seemed to be under the protection of a Franciscan friar; and of a stately, handsome serving-man, whose bearing and appearance were rather out of keeping with his supposed rank. It was said amongst the crew that the lady was the widow of a rich Sevillian merchant, who during a residence in London some years before had married an Englishwoman. She was now going to join her kindred in the heretical country, and much compassion was expended on her, as she was said to be very Catholic and very pious. It was a signal proof of these dispositions that she ventured to bring with her, as private chaplain, the Franciscan friar, who, the sailors thought, would probably soon fall a martyr to his attachment to the Faith.

But a few illusions might have been dispelled, if the conversation of the party, when for a brief space they had the deck to themselves, could have been overheard.

"Dost thou mourn that the shores of our Spain are fading from us?" said the lady to the supposed servant.

"Not as I should once have done, my Beatriz; though it is still my fatherland, dearest and best of all lands to me. And you, my beloved?"

"Where thou art is my country, Don Juan. Besides," she added softly, "God is everywhere. And think what it will be to worship him in peace, none making us afraid."

"And you, my brave, true-hearted Dolores?" asked Don Juan.

"Señor Don Juan, my country is there, with those that I love best," said Dolores, with an upward glance of the large wistful eyes, which had yet, in their sorrowful depths, a look of peace unknown in past days. "What is Spain to me--Spain, that would not give to the noblest of them all a few feet of her earth for a grave?"

"Do not let us stain with one bitter thought our last look at those shores," said Don Juan, with the gentleness that was growing upon him of late. "Remember that they who denied a grave to our beloved, are powerless to rob us of one precious memory of him. His grave is in our hearts; his memorial is the faith which every one of us now standing here has learned from him."

"That is true," said Doña Beatriz. "I think that not all thy teaching, Don Juan, made me understand what 'precious faith' is, until I learned it by his death."

"He gave up all for Christ, freely and joyfully," Juan continued. "While I gave up nothing, save as it was wrenched from my unwilling hand. Therefore for him there is the 'abundant entrance,' the 'crown of glory.' For me, at the best, 'Seekest thou great things for thyself, seek them not. But thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.'"

Fray Sebastian drew near at the moment, and happening to overhear the last words, he asked, "Have you any plan, señor, as to whither you will go?"

"I have no plan," Don Juan answered. "But I think God will guide us. I have indeed a dream," he added, after a pause, "which may, or may not, come true eventually. My thoughts often turn to that great New World, where, at least, there should be room for truth and liberty. It was our childhood's dream, to go forth to the New World and to find our father. And the lesser half of it, comparatively worthless as it is, may fitly fall to my lot to fulfil, another worthier than I having done the rest." His voice grew gentler, his whole countenance softened as he continued,--"That the prize was his, not mine, I rejoice. It is but an earnest of the nobler victory, the grander triumph, he enjoys now, amongst those who stand evermore before the King of kings--CALLED, CHOSEN, AND FAITHFUL."

Historical Note.

It may be asked by some thoughtful reader who has followed the narrative of the foregoing pages, How much is fact, how much fiction? As the writer's sole object is to reveal, to enforce, and to illustrate Truth, an answer to the question is gladly supplied. All is fact, except what concerns the personal history of the Brothers and their family. Whatever relates to the rise, progress, and downfall of the Protestant Church in Spain, is strictly historical. Especially may be mentioned the story of the two great Autos at Seville. But much of interest on the subject remains untold, as nothing was taken up but what would naturally amalgamate with the narrative and it was not designed to supersede history, only to stimulate to its study. Except in the instance of a conversation with Juliano Hernandez, another with Don Carlos de Seso, and a few words required by the exigencies of the tale from Losada, the glorious martyr names have been left untouched by the hand of fiction. It was a sense of their sacredness which led the writer to choose for hero a character not historical, but typical and illustrative. But nothing is told of him which did not occur over and over again, if we except the act of mercy which is supposed to have shed a brightness over his last days. He is merely a given example, a specimen of the ordinary fate of such prisoners of the Inquisition as were enabled to remain faithful to the end; and, thank God, these were numerous. He is even a favourable specimen; for the conditions of art require that in a work of fiction a veil should be thrown over some of the worst horrors of persecution. Those who accuse Protestant writers of exaggeration in these matters, little know what they say. Easily could we show greater abominations than these; but we forbear.

As for the joy and triumph ascribed to the steadfast martyr at the close of his career, we have a thousand well-authenticated instances that such has been really given. These embrace all classes and ages, and all varieties of character, and range throughout all time, from the day that Stephen saw Christ sitting on the right hand of God, until the martyrs of Madagascar sang hymns in the fire, and "prayed as long as they had any life; and then they died, softly, gently."

It is not fiction, but truest truth, that He repays his faithful servants an hundred-fold, even in this life, for anything they do or suffer for his name's sake.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.