Part 45 (1/2)

Rather let us sing together,--

'Vexill Regis prodeunt.'

For you know that between us and our King there stands, and there needs to stand, no human mediator. Do you not, my beloved?”

”I know that _you_ are right,” answered Beatrix, still reading her faith in Don Juan's eyes. ”But we can sing afterwards, whatever you like, and as much as you will. I pray you let us come forth now into the suns.h.i.+ne together. Look, what a glorious morning it is!”

x.x.xIX.

Left Behind.

”They are all gone into a world of light.

And I alone am lingering here.”--Henry Vaughan.

The change of seasons brought little change to those dark cells in the Triana, where neither the glory of summer nor the breath of spring could come. While the world, with its living interests, its hopes and fears, its joys and sorrows, kept surging round them, not even an echo of its many voices reached the doomed ones within, who lay so near, yet so far from all, ”fast bound in misery and iron.”

Not yet had the Deliverer come to Carlos. More than once he had seemed very near. During the summer heats, so terrible in that prison, fever had wasted the captive's already enfeebled frame; but this was the means of prolonging his life, for the eve of the Auto found him unable to walk across his cell. Still he heard without very keen sorrow the fate of his beloved friends, so soon did he hope to follow them.

And yet, month after month, life lingered on. In his circ.u.mstances restoration to health was simply impossible. Not that he endured more than others, or even as much as some. He was not loaded with fetters, or buried in one of the frightful subterranean cells where daylight never entered. Still, when to the many physical sufferings his position entailed was added the weight of sickness, weakness, and utter loneliness, they formed together a burden heavy enough to have crushed even a strong heart to despair.

Long ago the last gleam of human sympathy and kindness had faded from him. Maria Gonsalez was herself a prisoner, receiving such payment as men had to give her for her brave deeds of charity. G.o.d's payment, however, was yet to come, and would be of another sort. Herrera, the under-gaoler, was humane, but very timid; moreover, his duties seldom led him to that part of the prison where Carlos lay. So that he was left dependent upon the tender mercies of Caspar Benevidio, which were indeed cruel.

And yet, in spite of all, he was not crushed, not despairing. The lamp of patient endurance burned on steadily, because it was continually fed with oil by an unseen Hand.

It has been beautifully said, ”The personal love of Christ to you, felt, delighted in, returned, is actually, truly, simply, without exaggeration, the deepest joy and the deepest feeling that the heart of man or woman can know. It will absolutely satisfy your heart. It would satisfy your heart if it were his will that you should spend the rest of your life alone in a dungeon.”

Just this, nothing else, nothing less, sustained Carlos throughout those long slow months of suffering, which had now come to ”add themselves and make the years.” It proved sufficient for him. It has proved sufficient for thousands--G.o.d's unknown saints and martyrs, whose names we shall learn first in heaven.

Those who still occasionally sought access to him, in the hope of transforming the obstinate heretic into a penitent, marvelled greatly at the cheerful calm with which he was wont to receive them and to answer their arguments.

Sometimes he would even brave all the wrath of Benevidio, and raising his voice as loud as he could, he would make the gloomy vaults re-echo to such words as these: ”The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Or these: ”Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but G.o.d is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”

But still it was not in Christ's promise, nor was it to be expected, that his prisoner should never know hours of sorrow, weariness, and heart-sinking. Such hours came sometimes. And on the very morning when Don Juan and Dona Beatriz were going forth together into the spring suns.h.i.+ne through the castle gate of Nuera, Carlos, in his dungeon, was pa.s.sing through one of the darkest of these. He lay on his mat, his face covered with his wasted hands, through which tears were slowly falling. It was but very seldom that he wept now; tears had grown rare and scarce with him.

The evening before, he had received a visit from two Jesuits, bound on the only errand which would have procured their admission there.

Irritated by his bold and ready answers to the usual arguments, they had recourse to declamation. And one of them bethought himself of mentioning the fate of the Lutherans who suffered at the two great Autos of Valladolid. ”Most of the heretics,” said the Jesuit, ”though when they were in prison they were as obstinate as thou art now, yet had their eyes opened in the end to the error of their ways, and accepted reconciliation at the stake. At the last great Act of Faith, held in the presence of King Philip, only Don Carlos de Seso--” Here he stopped, surprised at the agitation of the prisoner, who had heard their threatenings against himself so calmly.

”De Seso! De Seso! Have they murdered him too!” moaned Carlos, and for a few brief moments he gave way to natural emotion. But quickly recovering himself, he said, ”I shall only see him the sooner.”

”Were you acquainted with him?” asked the Jesuit.

”I loved and honoured him. My avowing that cannot hurt him now,”

answered Carlos, who had grown used to the bitter thought that any name would be disgraced, and its owner imperilled, by his mentioning it with affection.

”But if you will do me so much kindness,” he added, ”I pray you to tell me anything you know of his last hours. Any word he spoke.”