Part 34 (2/2)
How should he endure the horrible loneliness of the present, the maddening terror of all that was to come? And this life was to _last_.
To last, until it should be succeeded by worse horrors and fiercer anguish. Words of prayer died on his lips. Or, even when he uttered them, it seemed as if G.o.d heard not--as if those thick walls and grated doors shut him out too.
Yet one thing was clear to him from the beginning. Deeper than all other fears within him lay the fear of denying his Lord. Again and again did he repeat, ”When called in question, I will at once confess all.”
For he knew that, according to a law recently enacted by the Holy Office, and sanctioned by the Pope, no subsequent retractation could save a prisoner who had once confessed--he must die. And he desired finally and for ever to put it out of his own power to save his life and lose it.
As every dreary morning dawned upon him, he thought that ere its sun set he might be called to confess his Master's name before the solemn tribunal. At first he awaited the summons with a trembling heart. But as time pa.s.sed on, the delay became more dreadful than the antic.i.p.ated examination. At last he began to long for _any_ change that might break the monotony of his prison-life.
The only person, with the exception of his gaoler, that ever entered his cell, was a member of the Board of Inquisitors, who was obliged by their rules to make a fortnightly inspection of the prisons. But the Dominican monk to whom this duty was relegated merely asked the prisoner a few formal questions: such as, whether he was well, whether he received his appointed provision, whether his warder used him with civility. To these Carlos always answered prudently that he had no complaint to make. At first he was wont to inquire, in his turn, when his case might be expected to come on. To this it would be answered, that there was no hurry about the matter. The Lords Inquisitors had much business on hand, and many more important cases than his to attend to; he must await their leisure and their pleasure.
At length a kind of lethargy stole over him; though it was broken frequently by sharp bursts of anguish. He ceased to take note of time, ceased to make fruitless inquiries of his gaoler, who would never tell him anything. Upon one occasion he asked this man for a Breviary, since he sometimes found it difficult to recall even the gospel words that he knew so well. But he was answered in the set terms the Inquisitors taught their officials, that the book he ought now to study was the book of his own heart, which he should examine diligently, in order to the confession and repentance of his sins.
During the morning hours the outer door of his cell (there were two) was usually left open, in order to admit a little fresh air. At such times he often heard footsteps in the corridors, and doors opening and shutting. With a kind of sick yearning, not unmixed with hope, he longed that some visitant would enter his cell. But none ever came.
Some of the Inquisitors were keen observers and good students of character. They had watched Carlos narrowly before his arrest, and they had arrived at the conclusion that utter and prolonged solitude was the best remedy for his disease.
Such solitude has driven many a weary tortured soul to insanity. But that divine compa.s.sion which no dungeon walls or prison bars avail to shut out, saved Carlos from such a fate.
One morning he knew from the stir outside that some of his fellow-captives had received a visit. But the deep stillness that followed the dying away of footsteps in the corridor was broken by a most unwonted sound. A loud, clear, and even cheerful voice sang out,--
”Vencidos van los frailes; vencidos van!
Corridas van los lobos; corridos van!”
[There go the friars; there they run!
There go the wolves, the wolves are done!][#]
[#] Everything related of Juliano Hernandez is strictly true.
Every nerve and fibre of the lonely captive's heart thrilled responsive to that strain. Evidently the song was one of triumph. But from whose lips? Who could dare to triumph in the abode of misery, the very seat of Satan?
Carlos Alvarez had heard that voice before. A striking peculiarity in the dialect rivetted this fact upon his mind. The words were neither the pure sonorous Castilian that he spoke himself, nor the soft gliding sibilant Andaluz that he heard in Seville, nor yet the patois of the Manchegan peasants around his mountain home. In such accents one, and one alone, had ever spoken in his hearing. And that was the man who said, ”For the joy of bringing food to the peris.h.i.+ng, water to the thirsty, light to those that sit in darkness, rest to the weary and heavy-laden, I have counted the cost, and I shall pay the price right willingly.”
Whatever men had done to the body, it was evident that Juliano Hernandez was still unbroken in heart, strong in hope and courage. A fettered, tortured captive, he was yet enabled, not only to hold his own faith fast, but actually to minister to that of others. His rough rhyme intimated to his fellow-captives that ”the wolves” of Rome were leaving his cell, vanquished by the sword of the Spirit. And that, as he overcame, so might they also.
Carlos heard, understood, and felt from that hour that he was not alone.
Moreover, the grace and strength so richly given to his fellow-sufferer seemed to bring Christ nearer to himself. ”Surely G.o.d is in this place--even here,” he said, ”and I knew it not.” And then, bowing his head, he wept--wept such tears as bring help and healing with them.
Up to this time he had held Christ's hand indeed, else had he ”utterly fainted.” But he held it in the dark. He clung to him desperately, as if for mere life and reason. Now the light began to dawn upon him. He began to see the face of Him to whom he had been clinging. His good and gracious words--such words as, ”Let not your heart be troubled,” ”My peace I give unto you”--became again, as in old times, full of meaning, instinct with life. He ”remembered the years of the right hand of the Most High;” he thought of those days that now seemed so long ago, when, with such thrilling joy, he received the truth from Juliano's book. And he knew that the same joy might be his even in that dreary prison, because the same G.o.d was above him, and the same Lord was ”rich unto all that call upon him.”
On the next occasion when Juliano raised his brave song of victory, Carlos had the courage to respond, by chanting in the vulgar tongue, ”The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the G.o.d of Jacob defend thee. Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion.”
But this brought him a visit from the alcayde, who commanded him to ”forbear that noise.”
”I only chanted a versicle from one of the Psalms,” he explained.
”No matter. Prisoners are not permitted to disturb the Santa Casa,”
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