The Spanish Brothers

"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."35

"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 Juderia36– 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."

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 mothers name!") – "my wife! my babe! O God, in thy great mercy, still this hungering and thirsting of the heart!"