"To-morrow night my lips will be dust, my voice silent for ever. So you may well bear with me for a little while to-day."

"Speak then; but be brief."

"It gives me the last pang I think to know on earth, to part thus from you; for you have shown me true kindness. I owe you, not forgiveness as an enemy, but grat.i.tude as a sincere though mistaken friend. I shall pray for you--"

"An impenitent heretic's prayers--"

"Will do my lord the prior no harm; and there may come a day when he will not be sorry he had them."

There was a short pause. "Have you anything else to say?" asked the prior rather more gently.

"Only one word, senor." He turned and looked at the dead. "I know you loved him well. You will deal gently with his dust, will you not? A grave is not much to ask for him. You will give it; I trust you."

The stern set face relaxed a little before that pleading look. "It is you who have sought to rob him of a grave," said the prior--"you who have defamed him of heresy. But your testimony is invalid; and, as I have said, I believe you not."

With this declaration of purely official disbelief, he left the room.

His colleague lingered a moment. "You plead for the senseless dust that can neither feel nor suffer," he said; "you can pity that. How is it you cannot pity yourself?"

"That which you destroy to-morrow is not myself. It is only my garment, my tent. Yet even over that Christ watches. He can raise it glorious from the ashes of the Quemadero as easily as from the church where the bones of my fathers sleep. For I am his, soul and body--the purchase of his blood. And why should it be a marvel in your eyes that I rejoice to give my life for him who gave his own for me?"

"G.o.d grant thee even yet to die in his grace!" answered the Inquisitor, somewhat moved. "I do not despair of thee. I will pray for thee, and visit thee again to-night." So saying, he hastened after the prior.

For a season Carlos sat motionless, his soul filled to overflowing with a calm, deep tide of awed and wondering joy. No room was there for any thought save one--"I shall see His face; I shall be with Him for ever."

Over the Thing that lay between he could spring as joyously as a child might leap across a brook to reach his father's outstretched hand.

At length his eye fell, perhaps by accident, on the little writing-book which lay near. He drew it towards him, and having found out the place where the last entry was made, wrote rapidly beneath it,--

"To depart and to be with Christ is far better. My beloved father is gone to him in peace to-day. I too go in peace, though by a rougher path, to-morrow. Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

"CARLOS ALVAREZ DE SANTILLANOS Y MENAYA."

And with a strange consciousness that he had now signed his name for the last time, he carefully affixed to it his own especial "rubrica," or sign-manual.

Then came one thought of earth--only one--the last. "G.o.d, in his great mercy, grant that my brother may be far away! I would not that he saw my face to-morrow. For the pain and the shame can be seen of all; while that which changes them to glory no man knoweth, save he that receiveth it. But, wherever thou art, G.o.d bless thee, my Ruy!" And drawing the book towards him again, he added, as if by a sudden impulse, to what he had already written, "G.o.d bless thee, my Ruy!"

Soon afterwards the Alguazils arrived to conduct him back to the Triana.

Then, turning to his dead once more, he kissed the pale forehead, saying, "Farewell, for a little while. Thou didst never taste death; nor shall I. Instead of thee and me, Christ drank that cup."

And then, for the second time, the gate of the Triana opened to receive Don Carlos Alvarez. At sunrise next morning its gloomy portals were unlocked, and he, with others, pa.s.sed forth from beneath their shadow.

Not to return again to that dark prison, there to linger out the slow and solitary hours of grief and pain. His warfare was accomplished, his victory was won. Long before the sun had arisen again upon the weary blood-stained earth, a brighter sun arose for him who had done with earth. All his desire was granted, all his longings were fulfilled. He saw the face of Christ, and he was with Him for ever.

XLVI.

Is it too Late?

"Death upon his face Is rather shine than shade; A tender shine by looks beloved made: He seemeth dying in a quiet place."--E. B. Browning.

The mountain-snow lay white around the old castle of Nuera; but within there was light and warmth. Joy and gladness were there also, "thanksgiving and the voice of melody;" for Dona Beatrix, graver and paler than of old, and with the brilliant l.u.s.tre of her dark eyes subdued to a kind of dewy softness, was singing a cradle-song beside the cot where her first-born slept.

The babe had just been baptized by Fray Sebastian. With a pleading, wistful look had Dolores asked her lord, the day before, what name he wished his son to bear. But he only answered, "The heir of our house always bears the name of Juan." Another name was far dearer to memory; but not yet could he accustom his lips to utter it, or his ear to bear the sound.

Now he came slowly into the room, holding in his hand an unsealed letter. Dona Beatriz looked up. "He sleeps," she said.

"Then let him sleep on, senora mia."

"But will you not look? See, how pretty he is! How he smiles in his sleep! And those dear small hands--"

"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, G.o.d 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.d has given me to the bitter heritage of a slave."

"A slave!" repeated Dona Beatriz, almost with a cry. "Now Heaven help us, Don Juan; are you mad? You, of n.o.blest lineage--you, Alvarez de Menaya--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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d would have him to do.

Moreover, this letter of the duke demands an answer, Yea or Nay."

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

"Come in, Dolores."

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