Part 47 (1/2)

XLI.

More about the Penitent.

”Ay, thus thy mother looked, With such a sad, yet half-triumphant smile.

All radiant with deep meaning.”--Hemans

A slight incident, that occurred the following morning, partially broke down the barrier of reserve between the two prisoners. After his early devotions, the penitent laid aside his mantle, took up a besom made of long slips of cane, and proceeded, with great deliberation and gravity, to sweep out the room. The contrast that his stately figure, his n.o.ble air, and the dignity of all his movements, offered to the menial occupation in which he was engaged, was far too pathetic to be ludicrous. Carlos could not but think that he wielded the lowly implement as if it were a chamberlain's staff of office, or a grand marshal's baton. He himself was well accustomed to such tasks; for every prisoner of the Santa Casa, no matter what his rank might be, was his own servant. And it spoke much for the revolution that had taken place in his ideas and feelings, that though taught to look on all servile occupations as ineffably degrading, he had never a.s.sociated a thought of degradation with anything laid upon him to do or to suffer as the prisoner of Christ.

And yet he could not endure to see his aged and stately fellow-prisoner thus occupied. He rose immediately, and earnestly entreated to be allowed to relieve him of the task, pleading that all such duties ought to devolve on him as the younger. At first the penitent resisted, saying that it was part of his penance. But when Carlos continued to urge the point, he yielded; perhaps the more readily because his will, like his other faculties, was weakened for want of exercise. Then, with more apparent interest than he had shown in any of his previous proceedings, he watched the rather slow and difficult movements of his young companion.

”You are lame, senor,” he said, a little abruptly, when Carlos, having finished his work, sat down to rest.

”From the pulley,” Carlos answered quietly; and then his face beamed with a sudden smile, for the secret of the Lord was with him, and he tasted the sweet, strange joy that springs out of suffering borne for Him.

That look was the wire that drew an electric flash of memory from the clouds that veiled the old man's soul. What that sudden flash revealed was a castle gate, at which stood a stately yet slender form robed in silk. In the fair young face tears and smiles were contending; but a smile won the victory, as a little child was held up, and made to kiss a baby-hand in farewell to its father.

In a moment all was gone; only a vague trouble and uneasiness remained, accompanied by that strange sense of having seen or felt just the same thing before, with which we are most of us familiar. Accustomed to solitude, the penitent spoke aloud, perchance unconsciously.

”Why did they bring you here?” he said, in a half fretful tone. ”You hurt me. I have done very well alone all these years.”

”I am sorry to incommode you, senor,” returned Carlos. ”But I did not come here of my own will; neither, unhappily, can I go. I am a prisoner, like yourself; but, unlike you, I am a prisoner under sentence of death.”

For several minutes the penitent did not answer. Then he rose, and taking a step or two towards the place where Carlos sat, gravely extended his hand. ”I fear I have spoken uncourteously,” he said. ”So many years have pa.s.sed since I have conversed with my fellows, that I have well-nigh forgotten how I ought to address them. Do me the favour, senor and my brother, to grant me your pardon.”

Carlos warmly a.s.sured him no offence had been given; and taking the offered hand, he pressed it reverently to his lips. From that moment he loved his fellow-prisoner in his heart.

There was an interval of silence, then the penitent of his own accord resumed the conversation. ”Did I hear you say you are under sentence of death?” he asked.

”I am so actually, though not formally,” Carlos replied. ”In the language of the Holy Office, I am a professed impenitent heretic.”

”And you so young!”

”To be a heretic?”

”No; I meant so young to die.'

”Do I look young--even yet? I should not have thought it. To me the last two years seem like a long life-time.”

”Have you been two years, then, in prison? Poor boy! Yet I have been here ten, fifteen, twenty years--I cannot tell how many. I have lost the account of them.”

Carlos sighed. And such a life was before him, should he be weak enough to surrender his hope. He said, ”Do you really think, senor, that these long years of lonely suffering are less hard to bear than a speedy though violent death?”

”I do not think it matters, as to that,” was the penitent's not very apposite reply. In fact, his mind was not capable, at the time, of dealing with such a question; so he turned from it instinctively. But in the meantime he was remembering, every moment more and more clearly, that a duty had been laid upon him by the authority to which his soul held itself in absolute subjection. And that duty had reference to his fellow-prisoner.

”I am commanded,” he said at last, ”to counsel you to seek the salvation of your soul, by returning to the bosom of the one true Catholic and Apostolic Church, out of which there is no peace and no salvation.”

Carlos saw that he spoke by rote; that his words echoed the thought of another, not his own. It seemed to him, under the circ.u.mstances, scarcely generous to argue. He spared to put forth his mental powers against the aged and broken man, as Juan in like case would have spared to use his strong right arm.