XXVI.

Don Gonsalvo's Revenge

"Our G.o.d, 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 a.s.signed 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 pa.s.sed 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."

"G.o.d 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 Munebrga, 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 hoa.r.s.ely. 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 G.o.d 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 Munebrga 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 Munebrga, 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, Munebrga 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 G.o.d 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,--