"Perhaps you are not sorry to part with it?"

"I deserve that you should say so," answered Gonsalvo, with unwonted gentleness. "But the truth is," he added, with a wan, sickly smile, "nothing can part me from it now, for I have learned almost every word of it by heart."

"How could you, in so short a time, accomplish such a task?" asked Juan, in surprise.

"Easily enough. I was alone long hours of the day, when I could read; and in the silent, sleepless nights I could recall and repeat what I read during the day. But for that I should be in truth what they call me--mad."

"Then you love its words?"

"I _fear_ them," cried Gonsalvo, with strange energy, flinging out his wasted arm over the counterpane. "They are words of life--words of fire. They are, to the Church's words, the priest's threatenings, the priest's pardons, what your limbs, throbbing with healthy vigorous life, are to mine--cold, dead, impotent; or what the living champion--steel from head to heel, the Toledo blade in his strong right hand--is to the painted San Cristofro on the Cathedral door. Because I dare to say so much, my father pretends to think me mad; lest, wrecked as I am in mind and body, I should still find one terrible consolation,--that of flinging the truth for once in the face of the scribes and Pharisees, and then suffering for it--like Don Carlos."

He was silent from exhaustion, and lay with closed eyes and deathlike countenance. After a long pause, he resumed, in a low, weak voice,--

"Some words are good--perhaps. There was San Pablo, who was a blasphemer, and injurious."

"Don Gonsalvo, my brother once said he would give his right hand that you shared his faith."

"Oh, did he?" A quick flush overspread the wan face. "But hark! a step on the stairs! My mother's."

"I am neither afraid nor ashamed to be found here," said Don Juan.

"My poor mother! She has shown me more tenderness of late than I deserved at her hands. Do not let us involve her in trouble."

Juan greeted his aunt with due courtesy, and even attempted some words of condolence upon his cousin's illness. But he saw that the poor lady was terribly disconcerted, and indeed frightened, by his presence there.

And not without cause, since mischief, even to bloodshed, might have followed had Don Manuel or either of his sons found Juan in communication with Gonsalvo. She conjured him to go, adding, by way of inducement,--

"Dona Beatriz is taking the air in the garden."

"Availing myself of your gracious permission, senora my aunt, I shall offer her my homage there; and so I kiss your feet--Adis, Don Gonsalvo."

"Adis, my cousin."

Dona Katarina followed him out of the room.

"He is not sane," she whispered anxiously, laying her hand on his arm; "he is out of his mind. You perceive it clearly, Don Juan?"

"Certainly I shall not dispute it, senora," Juan answered, prudently.

XXIX.

A Friend at Court

"I have a soul and body that exact A comfortable care in many ways."--R. Browning

Don Juan's peril was extreme. Well known as he was to many of the imprisoned Lutherans, it seemed a desperate chance that, amongst the numerous confessions wrung from them, no mention of his name should occur. He knew himself deeply implicated in the crime for which they were suffering--the one unpardonable crime in the eyes of Rome.

Moreover, unlike his brother, whose temperament would have led him to avoid danger by every lawful means, he was by nature brave even to rashness, and bold even to recklessness. It was his custom to wear his heart on his lips; and though of late stern necessity had taught him to conceal what he thought, it was neither his inclination nor his habit to disguise what he felt. Probably, not even his desire to aid Carlos would have prevented his compromising himself by some rash word or deed, had not the soft hand of Dona Beatriz, strong in its weakness, held him back from destruction. Not for one instant could he forget her terrible vow. With this for ever before his eyes, it is little marvel if he was willing to do anything, to bear anything--ay, almost to feign anything--rather than involve her he loved in a fate inconceivably horrible.

And--alas for the brave, honest-hearted, truthful Don Juan Alvarez!--it was often necessary to feign. If he meant to remain in Seville, and to avoid the dungeons of the Inquisition, he must obviate--or remove--suspicion by protesting, both by word and action, his devotion to the Catholic Church, and his hatred of heresy.

Could he stoop to this? Gradually, and more and more, as each day's emergency made it more and more necessary, he did stoop to it. He told himself it was all for his brother's sake. And though such a line of conduct was intensely repugnant to his character, it was not contrary to his principles. To conceal an opinion is one thing, to deny a friend quite another. And while Carlos had found a Friend, Juan had only embraced an opinion.

He himself would have said that he had found Truth--had devoted himself to the cause of Freedom. But where were truth and freedom now, with all the bright antic.i.p.ations of their ultimate triumph which he had been wont to indulge? As far as his native land was concerned (and it must be owned that his mental eye scarcely reached beyond "the Spains"), a single day had blotted out his glowing visions for ever. Almost at the same moment, and as if by some secret preconcerted signal, the leading Protestants in Seville, in Valladolid, all over the kingdom, had been arrested and thrown into prison. Swiftly, silently, with the utmost order and regularity, had the whole thing been accomplished. Every name that Juan had heard Carlos mention with admiration and sympathy was now the name of a helpless captive. The Reformed Church of Spain existed no longer, or existed only in dungeons.

In what quarter the storm had first arisen, that burst so suddenly upon the community of the faithful, Don Juan never knew. It is probable the Holy Office had long been silently watching its prey, waiting for the moment of action to arrive. In Seville, it is said, a spy had been set upon some of Losada's congregation, who revealed their meeting to the Inquisitors. While in Valladolid, the foul treachery of the wife of one of the Protestants furnished the Holy Office with the means of bringing her husband and his friends to the stake.

Don Juan, whose young heart had lately beat so high with hope, now bowed his head in despair. And despairing of freedom, he lost his confidence in truth also. In opinion he was still a decided Lutheran. He accepted every doctrine of the Reformed as against the Roman Catholic creed. But the hold he once had upon these doctrines as living realities was slackened. He did not doubt that justification by faith was a scriptural dogma, but he did not think it necessary to die for it.

Compared with the tremendous interest of the fate of Carlos and the peril of Beatriz, and amidst his desperate struggles to aid the one and shield the other, doctrinal questions grew pale and faint to him.

Nor had he yet learned to throw himself, in utter weakness, upon a strength greater than his own, and a love that knows no limits. He did not feel his weakness: he felt strong, in the strength of a brave heart struggling against cruel wrong; strong to resist, and, if it might be, to conquer his fate.

At first he cherished a hope that his brother was not actually in the secret dungeons of the Inquisition. For so great was the number of the captives, that the public gaols of the city and the convent prisons were full of them; and some had to be lodged even in private houses. As Carlos had been one of the last arrested, there seemed reason to suppose that he might be amongst those thus accommodated; in which case it would be much easier both to communicate with him, and to alleviate his fate, than if he were within the gloomy walls of the Triana; there might be, moreover, the possibility of forming some plan for his deliverance.

But Juan's diligent and persevering search resulted at last in the conviction that his brother was in the "Santa Casa" itself. This conviction sent a chill to his heart. He shuddered to think of his present suffering, whilst he feared the worst for the future, supposing that the Inquisitors would take care to lodge in their own especial fortress those whom they esteemed the most heinous transgressors.

He engaged a lodging in the Triana suburb, which the river, spanned by a bridge of boats, separated from the city. There were several reasons for this choice of residence; but by far the greatest was, that those who lingered beneath the walls of the grim old castle could sometimes see, behind its grated windows, spectral faces raised to catch the few scanty gleams of daylight which fell to their lot. Long weary hours did Juan watch there, hoping to recognize the face he loved. But always in vain.

When he went into the city, it was sometimes for other purposes than to visit Dona Beatriz. It was as often to seek the precincts of the magnificent Cathedral, and to pace up and down that terrace whose ma.s.sive truncated pillars, raised when the Romans founded a heathen temple on the spot, had stood throughout the long ages of Moslem domination. Now the place was consecrated to Christian worship, and yet it was put to no hallowed use. Rich merchants, in many a varying garb, that told of different nations, trod the stately colonnade, and bought and sold and made bargains there. For in those days (strange as seems to us the irreverence of the so-called "ages of faith") that terrace was the royal exchange of Seville, then a mercantile city of great importance. Don Juan Alvarez diligently resorted thither, and held many a close and earnest conversation with a keen-eyed, hawk-nosed Jew, whom he met there.

Isaac Osorio, or more properly, Isaac ben Osorio, was a notorious money-lender, who had often "obliged" Don Manuel's sons, not unfairly requiring heavy interest to counter-balance the hazardous nature of his investments. Callings branded as unlawful are apt to prove particularly gainful. The Jew was willing to "oblige" Don Juan also, upon certain conditions. He was not by any means ignorant of the purpose for which his money was needed. Of course he was himself a Christian in name, for none other would have been permitted to live upon Spanish ground. But by what wrongs, tortures, agonies worse than death, he and those like him had been forced to accept Christian baptism, will never be known until Christ comes again to judge the false Church that has slandered him. Will it be nothing in his sight that millions of the souls for whom he died have been driven to hate his Name--that Name so unutterably precious?

Osorio derived grim satisfaction from the thought that the Christians were now imprisoning, torturing, burning each other. It reminded him of the grand old days in his people's history, when the Lord of hosts was wont to stretch forth his mighty arm and trouble the armies of the aliens, turning every man's hand against his brother. Let the Gentiles bite and devour one another, the child of Abraham could look upon their quarrels with calm indifference. But if he had any sympathy, it was for the weaker side. He was rather disposed to help a Christian youth who was trying to save his brother from the same cruel fangs in which so many sons of Israel had writhed and struggled. Don Juan, therefore, found him accommodating, and even lenient. From time to time he advanced to him considerable sums, first upon the jewels he brought with him from Nuera, and then, alas! upon his patrimony itself.

Not without a keen pang did Juan thus mortgage the inheritance of his fathers. But he began to realize the bitter truth that a flight from Spain, and a new career in some foreign land, would eventually be the only course open to him--if indeed he escaped with life.

Nor would the armies of Spain henceforth be more free to him than her soil. Fortunately, the necessity for rejoining his regiment had not arisen. For the brief war in which he served was over now; and as the promised captaincy had not yet been a.s.signed to him, he was at liberty for the present to remain at home.

He largely bribed the head-gaoler of the inquisitorial prison, besides supplying him liberally with necessaries and comforts for his brother's use. Caspar Benevidio bore the worst of characters, both for cruelty and avarice; still, Juan had no resource but to trust implicitly to his honour, in the hope that at least some portion of what he gave would be allowed to reach the prisoner. But not a single gleam of information about him could be gained from Benevidio, who, like all other servants of the Inquisition, was bound by a solemn oath to reveal nothing that pa.s.sed within its walls.

He also bribed some of the attendants and satellites of the all-powerful Inquisitor, Munebrga. It was his desire to obtain a personal interview with the great man himself, that he might have the opportunity of trying the intercession of Don Dinero, to whose advances he was known to be not altogether obdurate.

For the purpose of soliciting an audience, he repaired one evening to the splendid gardens belonging to the Triana, to await the Inquisitor, who was expected shortly to return from a sail for pleasure on the Guadalquivir. He was sick at heart of the gorgeous tropical plants that surrounded him, of the myrtle-blossoms that were showered on his path; of all that told of the hateful pomp and luxury in which the persecutor lived, while his victims pined unpitied in loathsome dungeons. Yet neither by word, look, nor sign dared he betray the rage that was gnawing his heart.

At length the shouts of the populace, who thronged the river's side, announced the approach of their idol; for such Munebrga was for the time. Clad in costly silks and jewels, and surrounded by a brilliant little court, composed both of churchmen and laymen, the "Lord Inquisitor" stepped from his splendid purple-decked barge. Don Juan threw himself in his way, and modestly requested an audience. His bearing, though perfectly respectful, was certainly less obsequious than that to which Munebrga had been accustomed of late. So the minister of the Holy Office turned from him haughtily, though, as Juan bitterly thought, "his father would have been proud to hold the stirrup for mine." "This is no fitting time to talk of business, senor," he said.

"We are weary to-night, and need repose."

At that moment a Franciscan friar advanced from the group, and with his lowest bow and most reverent manner approached the Inquisitor. "With the gracious permission of my very good lord, I shall address myself to the caballero, and report his errand to your sanct.i.ty. I have the honour of some acquaintance with his Excellency's n.o.ble family."

"As you please, Fray," said the voice accustomed to speak the terrible words that doomed to the rack and the pulley, though no one would have suspected this from the bland, careless good-nature of its tones. "But see that you tarry not so as to lose your supper. Howbeit, there is little need to caution you, or any other son of St. Francis, against undue neglecting of the body."

The son of St. Francis made no answer, either because it was not worth while, or because those who take the crumbs from the rich man's table must ofttimes take his taunts therewith. He disengaged himself from the group, and turned towards Juan a broad, good-humoured, not unintelligent face, which his former pupil recognized immediately.

"Fray Sebastian Gomez!" he exclaimed in astonishment

"And very much at the service of my n.o.ble Senor Don Juan. Will your Excellency deign to bear me company for a little time? In yonder walk there are some rare flowers of rich colouring, which it were worth your while to observe."