The Spanish Brothers: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

by Deborah Alcock

  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 hadbeen 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 ofthis had been given to Carlos on his first arrival in the city; from anidea that the theological student would require a solitary place forstudy and devotion, or, at least, that it would be decorous to supposeso. The room beneath had been occupied by Don Juan, but since hisdeparture it was appropriated by Gonsalvo, who liked solitude, and tookadvantage of his improved health to escape from the ground-floor, towhich his infirmities had long confined him.

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

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

  "Nay, I did trust you."

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

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

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

  "Enough said then," returned Gonsalvo, more coldly. "Farewell; I seeknot to detain you. Farewell; for though we may go forth together, ourpaths 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. Andnow that I think of it (if you could be trusted), you might aid meperhaps. Did you know all, I dare not doubt that you would rejoice todo it."

  "God knows how joyfully I would aid you if I could, Don Gonsalvo. But Ifear 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 possibleyou can dream that prayer of yours will soften hearts harder than thenether millstone?"

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

  "Were you to pour the wealth of El Dorado at the feet of Gonzales deMunebraga, 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 stillsome questions worth the asking. Perchance _you_ can throw a gleam oflight upon this horrible darkness. We are speaking frankly now, and asin 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 longbefore I did, though she is so young--not yet one-and-twenty. She wasthe pupil of Dr. Egidius; but he was wont to say he learned more fromher than she did from him. Her keen, bright intellect cut throughsophistries, and reached truth so quickly. And God gave her abundantlyof 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 usspoke of the joy and strength given to those that suffer for the name ofChrist. I am persuaded He is with her now, and will be with her even tothe end. Could you gain access to her where she is, I think she wouldtell you she possesses a treasure of peace of which neither death norsuffering, neither cruelty of fiends nor worse cruelty of fiend-likemen, can avail to rob her."

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

  "In that they suffer these things?"

  "Yes; a thousand times, yes. In the name of man's honour and woman'sloveliness, are there, in our good city of Seville, neither fathers, norbrothers, nor lovers left alive? No man who thinks the sweetest eyesever seen worth six inches of steel in five skilful fingers? No oneman, save the poor forgotten cripple, Don Gonsalvo Alvarez. But hethanks God this night that he has spared his life, and left strengthenough 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 tellthee--_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 Iwould reach the heart of Gonzales de Munebraga this night. Not withgold. There is another metal of keener temper, which enters in whereeven gold cannot come."

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

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

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

  "Oh, think--"

  "I have thought of everything. And mark me, Don Carlos, I have but oneregret. It is that my weapon deals an instantaneous death. Suchrevenge is poor and flavourless after all. I have heard of poisons whoseleast drop, mingling with the blood, ensures a slow agonizingdeath--time to learn what torture means, and to drain to the dregs thecup filled for others--to curse God and man ere he dies. For a phial ofsuch, 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 hishead 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 captivesfree? 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 withnerves, and brain, and blood. It is a system, a THING, a terribleengine, that moves on in its resistless way, cold and lifeless, withoutwill or feeling. Strong as adamant, it kills, tortures, destroys;obeying laws far away out of our sight. Were Valdez and Munebraga, andall the Board of Inquisitors, dead corpses by the morning light, not asingle 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 byfriends of the prisoners. This, indeed, is the motive which now inducesme 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 tortureand death."

  But Gonsalvo read no answer in the sorrowful face of Carlos to thesearching look of inquiry w
ith which he said this. After a silence hewent on,--

  "Suppose the worst, however. The Holy Office sorely needs a littleblood-letting, and will be much the better for it. Whoever succeeds,Munebraga will have my dagger flashing in his eyes, and will take carehow 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 asthose who slew the Inquisitor Pedro Arbues before the high altar inSaragossa, But"--here the smile faded, and the stern set look returnedto his face--"I shall not pay more, for a man's triumphant vengeance,than those fiends will dare to inflict upon a tender, delicatelynurtured girl for the crime of a mystic meditation, or a few words ofprayer 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 thetorture-room. And just then the first quarter of his hour of gracechimed from the clock of San Vicente. What if he and Pepe should fail tomeet? 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 theloneliness of the long hereafter, away from God's presence, from lightand life and hope? Are you content that you, and she for whom you giveyour life, should be sundered throughout eternity?"

  "Nay; I am casting my lot in with hers. If the Church curses her (pureand holy as she ever was), its anathema shall fall on me too. If onlythe 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 willbar my way," he said.

  "God says, 'Thou shall not kill.'"

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

  "He will do that with him of which, if you but dreamed, it would changeyour fiercest hate into saddest, deepest pity. Have you realized what aspan 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 andfear and pain, ended perhaps by--but that is as he pleases; _ended_, atall events. Then add up the million years, fill them with the joy ofvictory, and the presence and love of Christ himself. Can they not, andwe for them, be content with this?"

  "Are you content with it yourself?" Gonsalvo suddenly interrupted. "Youseek 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 wasa silence; then he resumed: "Turn now to the other side. Would youchange, even this hour, with Gonzales de Munebraga? But take him fromhis wealth, and his pomp, and his sinful luxuries, all defiled withblood, and what remains for him? Everlasting fire, prepared for thedevil 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, DonGonsalvo."

  "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 besidespardon."

  "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, andhe 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 hatredare 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 andwomen are content with words; brave men _act_. Farewell to thee!"

  "One word more, only one." Carlos drew near and laid his hand on hiscousin's arm. "Nay, you _shall_ listen to me. Seemeth it to you a thingincredible that that heart of yours can be changed and softened to alove 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 youdream not now, but which _she_ knows full well. O Don Gonsalvo, betterjoin her where she is going, than wildly, rashly, and most uselesslyperil 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 startedsuddenly. "Already the hour is passing," he exclaimed; "I shall be toolate. Fool that I was, to be almost moved from my purpose by the idlewords of a--The weakness is past now. Still, ere we part, give me thyhand, Don Carlos, for, on my faith, I never liked thee half so well."

  Very sorrowfully Carlos extended it, rather wondering as he did so thatthe energetic Gonsalvo failed to spring from his seat and prepare to begone.

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

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

  "God has spoken to you from heaven," said Carlos solemnly. He felt as ifa miracle had been wrought in his presence. His Protestantism had notfreed him from the superstitions of his age. Had he lived threecenturies later, he would have seen nothing miraculous in the diseasewith which Gonsalvo was stricken, but rather have called it the naturalresult of intense agitation and excitement, acting upon a frame alreadyweakened.

  Yet the reckless Gonsalvo was the more superstitious of the two. He wasat war with the creed in which he had been nurtured; but that older anddeeper kind of superstition which has its root in human nature had, forthis 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 intosin! 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 bringthee back to himself. Oh, my cousin, do not despair. Hope yet in hismercy, for it is great."

  Carlos knelt down beside him, took his passive hand in his, and spokeearnest, loving words of hope and comfort. The last quarter, ere thesingle stroke that should announce that the hour appointed for his ownflight was past, chimed from the clock on the church tower. Yet he didnot move--he had forgotten self. At last, however, he said, "But it maybe something can be done to relieve you. You ought to have medical aidwithout delay. I should have thought of this before. I will rouse thehousehold."

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

  It was too late, the household _was_ roused. A loud authoritativeknocking at the outer gate sent the blood back from the hearts of bothwith sudden and horrible fear.

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

  Gonsalvo was the first to understand all. "The Alguazils of the HolyOffice!" 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; andalready footsteps were on the stairs.

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

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

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

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

  The torch-light within, perhaps the voices, guided the Alguazils to thatroom. 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 hissharpest anguish generous still. Then for one brief moment, that seemedan age, he was deaf to all outward things. Afterwards he was himselfagain.

  And something more than himself perhaps. Now, as in other moments ofintense excitement, the spirit of his race descended on him. When theAlguazils entered, it was Don Carlos Alvarez de Santillanos y Menaya whomet them, with folded arms, with steadfast eye, and pale but dauntlessforehead.

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

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

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

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

  Carlos spoke for the first time. "I am ready to go with you," he saidto 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 inimagination, he knew that the examination of papers and personal effectsusually formed a part of it. And he had no fears for the result, as, inpreparation for his flight, he had carefully destroyed everything thathe thought could implicate himself or any one else.

  "Don Carlos--cousin!" cried Gonsalvo suddenly, as surrounded by theofficers he was about to leave the room. "Vaya con Dios! A braver manthan 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, diedaway in the court.

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