Part 38 (1/2)
Of Fray Constantino, the most contradictory stories were told him. At one time he was a.s.sured that the great preacher had not only admitted his own guilt, but also, on the rack, had informed against his brethren.
Again he was told, and this time with truth, that the Emperor's former chaplain and favourite had been spared the horrors of the Question, but that the eagerly desired evidence against him had been obtained by accident. A lady of rank, one of his chief friends, was amongst the prisoners; and the Inquisitors sent an Alguazil to her house to demand possession of her jewels. Her son, without waiting to ascertain the precise object of the officer's visit, surrendered to him in a panic some books which Fray Constantino had given his mother to conceal.
Amongst them was a volume in his own handwriting, containing the most explicit avowal of the principles of the Reformation. On this being shown to the prisoner, he struggled no longer. ”You have there a full and candid confession of my belief,” he said. And he was now in one of the dark and loathsome subterranean cells of the Triana.
Amongst those who most frequently visited Carlos was the prior of the Dominican convent. This man seemed to take a peculiar interest in the young heretic's fate. He was a good specimen of a character oftener talked about than met with in real life,--the genuine fanatic. When he threatened Carlos, as he spared not to do, with the fire that is never quenched, at least he believed with all his heart that he was in danger of it. Carlos soon perceived this, and accepting his honest intention to benefit him, came to regard him with a kind of friendliness. Besides, the prior listened to what he said with more attention than did most of the others, and even in the prison of the Inquisition a man likes to be listened to, especially when his opportunities of speaking are few and brief.
Many weeks pa.s.sed by, and still Carlos lay on his mat, in weakness and suffering of body, though in calm gladness of spirit. Surgical and medical aid had been afforded him in due course. And it was not the fault of either surgeon or physician that he did not recover. They could stanch wounds and set dislocated joints, but when the springs of life were sapped, how could they renew them? How could they quicken the feeble pulse, or send back life and energy into the broken, exhausted frame? At this time Carlos himself felt certain--even more certain than did his physician--that never again would his footsteps pa.s.s the limits of that narrow cell.
Once, indeed, there came to him a brief and fleeting pang of regret. It was in the spring-time; everywhere else so bright and fair, but making little change in those gloomy cells. Maria Gonsalez now sometimes obtained access to him, partly through Benevidio's increased inattention to all his duties, partly because, any attempt at escape on the part of the captive being obviously out of the question, he was somewhat less jealously watched. And more than once the gaoler's little daughter stole in timidly beside her nurse, bearing some trifling gift for the sick prisoner. To Carlos these visits came like sunbeams; and in a very short time he succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng quite an intimate friends.h.i.+p with the child.
One morning she entered his cell with Maria, carrying a basket, from which she produced, with shy pleasure, a few golden oranges. ”Look, senor,” she said, ”they are good to eat now, for the blossoms are out.[#] I gathered some to show you;” and filling both her hands with the luscious wealth of the orange flowers, she flung them carelessly down on the mat beside him. In her eyes they were of no value compared with the fruit.
[#] The people of Seville do not think the oranges fit to eat until the new blossoms come out in spring.
With Carlos it was far otherwise. The rich perfume that filled the cell filled his heart also with sweet sad dreams, which lasted long after his kindly visitors had left him. The orange-trees had just been in flower last spring when all G.o.d's free earth and sky were shut out from his sight for ever. Only a year ago! What a long, long year it seemed!
And only one year further back he was walking in the orange gardens with Dona Beatriz, in all the delicious intoxication of his first and last dream of youthful love. ”Better here than there, better now than then,”
he murmured, though the tears gathered in his eyes. ”But oh, for one hour of the old free life, one look at orange-trees in flower, or blue skies, or the gra.s.sy slopes and cork-trees of Nuera! Or”--and more painfully intense the yearning grew--”one familiar face, belonging to the past, to show me it was not all a dream, as I am sometimes tempted to think it. Thine, Ruy, if it might be.--O Ruy, Ruy!--But, thank G.o.d, I have not betrayed thee!”
In the afternoon of that day visitors were announced. Carlos was not surprised to see the stern narrow face and white hair of the Dominican prior. But he was a little surprised to observe that the person who followed him wore the gray cowl of St. Francis. The prior merely bestowed the customary salutation upon him, and then, stepping aside, allowed his companion to approach.
But as soon as Carlos saw his face, he raised himself eagerly, and stretching out both his hands, grasped those of the Franciscan. ”Dear Fray Sebastian!” he cried; ”my good, kind tutor!”
”My lord the prior has been graciously pleased to allow me to visit your Excellency.”
”It is truly kind of you, my lord. I thank you heartily,” said Carlos, frankly and promptly turning towards the Dominican, who looked at him with somewhat the air of one who is trying to be stern with a child.
”I have ventured to allow you this indulgence,” he said, ”in the hope that the counsels of one whom you hold in honour may lead you to repentance.”
Carlos turned once more to Fray Sebastian, whose hand he still held.
”It is a great joy to see you,” he said. ”Only to-day I had been longing for a familiar face. And you are changed never a whit since you used to teach me my humanities. How have you come hither? Where have you been all these years?”
Poor Fray Sebastian vainly tried to frame an answer to these simple questions. He had come to that prison straight from Munebrga's splendid patio, where, amidst the gleam of azulejos and of many-coloured marbles, the scent of rare exotics and the music of rippling fountains, he had partaken of a sumptuous mid-day repast. In this dark foul dungeon there was nothing to please the senses, not even G.o.d's free air and light. Everything on which his eye rested was coa.r.s.e, painful, loathsome. By the prisoner's side lay the remains of a meal, in great contrast to his. And the sleeve, fallen back from the hand that held his own, showed deep scars on the wrist. He knew whence they were. Yet the face that was looking in his, with kindling eyes, and a smile on the parted lips, might have been the face of the boy Carlos, when he praised him for a successful task, only for the pain in it, and, far deeper than pain, a look of a.s.sured peace that boyhood could scarcely know.
Repressing a choking sensation, he faltered, ”Senor Don Carlos, it grieves me to the heart to see you here.”
”Do not grieve for me, dear Fray Sebastian; for I tell you truly, I have never known such happy hours as since I came here. At first, indeed, I suffered; there was storm and darkness. But then”--here for a moment his voice failed, and his flushed cheek and quivering lip betrayed the anguish a too hasty movement cost the broken frame. But, recovering himself quickly, he went on: ”Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the sea; and there was a great calm. That calm lasts still. And oftentimes this narrow room seems to me the house of G.o.d, the very gate of heaven.
Moreover,” he added, with a smile of strange brightness, ”there is heaven itself beyond.”
”But, senor and your Excellency, consider the disgrace and sorrow of your n.o.ble family--that is, I mean”--here the speaker paused in perplexity, and met the keen eye of the prior, fixed somewhat scornfully, as he thought, upon him. He was quite conscious that the Dominican was thinking him incapable, and incompetent to the task he had so earnestly solicited. He had sedulously prepared himself for this important interview, had gone through it in imagination beforehand, laying up in his memory several convincing and most pertinent exhortations, which could not fail to benefit his old pupil. But these were of no avail now; in fact, they all vanished from his recollection.
He had just begun something rather vague and incoherent about Holy Church, when the prior broke in.
”Honoured brother,” he said, addressing with scrupulous politeness the member of a rival fraternity, ”the prisoner may be more willing to listen to your pious exhortations, and you may have more freedom in addressing him, if you are left for a brief s.p.a.ce alone together.
Therefore, though it is scarcely regular, I will visit a prisoner in a neighbouring apartment, and return hither for you in due time.”
Fray Sebastian thanked him, and he withdrew, saying as he did so, ”It is not necessary for me to remind my reverend brother that conversation upon worldly matters is strictly forbidden in the Holy House.”
Whether the prior visited the other prisoner or no, it is not for us to inquire; but if he did, his visit was a short one; for it is certain that for some time he paced the gloomy corridor with troubled footsteps.