Part 47 (2/2)

After a moment's thought, he replied,--

”May I ask of your courtesy, senor and my father, to bear with me for a little while, that I may frankly disclose to you my real belief?”

Appeal could never be made in vain to that penitent's courtesy. No heresy, that could have been proposed, would have shocked him half so much as the supposition that one Castilian gentleman could be uncourteous to another, upon any account. ”Do me the favour to state your opinions, senor,” he responded, with a bow, ”and I will honour myself by giving them my best attention.”

Carlos was little used to language such as this. It induced him to speak his mind more freely than he had been able to do for the last two years. But, mindful of his experience with old Father Bernardo at San Isodro, he did not speak of doctrines, he spoke of a Person. In words simple enough for a child to understand, but with a heart glowing with faith and love, he told of what He was when he walked on earth, of what He is at the right hand of the Father, of what He has done and is doing still for every soul that trusts him.

Certainly the faded eye brightened; and something like a look of interest began to dawn in the mournfully still and pa.s.sive countenance.

For a time Carlos was aware that his listener followed every word, and he spoke slowly, on purpose to allow him so to do. But then there came a change. The listening look pa.s.sed out of the eyes; and yet they did not wander once from the speaker's face. The expression of the whole countenance was gradually altered, from one of rather painful attention to the dreamy look of a man who hears sweet music, and gives free course to the emotions it is calculated to awaken. In truth, the voice of Carlos was sweet music in his fellow-captive's ear; and he would willingly have sat thus for ever, gazing at him and enjoying it.

Carlos thought that if this was their reverences' idea of ”a satisfactory penitent,” they were not difficult to satisfy. And he marvelled increasingly that so astute a man as the Dominican prior should have put the task of his conversion into such hands. For the piety so lauded in the penitent appeared to him mere pa.s.siveness--the submission of a soul out of which all resisting forces had been crushed.

”It is only life that resists,” he thought; ”the dead they can move whithersoever they will.”

Intolerance always sets a premium on mental stagnation. Nay, it actually produces it; it ”makes a desert, and calls it peace.” And what the Inquisition did for the penitent, that it has done also for the penitent's fair fatherland. Was the resurrection of dead and buried faculties possible for _him_? Is such a resurrection possible for _it_?

And yet, in spite of the deadness of heart and brain, which he doubted not was the result of cruel suffering, Carlos loved his fellow-prisoner every hour more and more. He could not tell why; he only knew that ”his soul was knit” to his.

When Carlos, for fear of fatiguing him, brought his explanations to a close, both relapsed into silence; and the remainder of the day pa.s.sed without much further conversation, but with a constant interchange of little kindnesses and courtesies. The first sight that greeted the eyes of Carlos when he awoke the next morning, was that of the penitent kneeling before the pictured Madonna, his lips motionless, his hands crossed on his breast, and his face far more earnest with feeling--it might be thought with devotion--than he had ever seen it yet.

Carlos was moved, but saddened. It grieved him sore that his aged fellow-prisoner should pour out the last costly libation of love and trust left in his desolated heart before the shrine of that which was no G.o.d. And a great longing awoke within him to lead back this weary and heavy-laden one to the only Being who could give him true rest.

”If, indeed, he is one of G.o.d's chosen, of his loved and redeemed ones, he will be led back,” thought Carlos, who had spent the past two years in thinking out many things for himself. Certain aspects of truth, which may be either strong cordials or rank poisons, as they are used, had grown gradually clear to him. Opposed to the Dominican prior upon most subjects, he was at one with him upon that of predestination. For he had need to be a.s.sured, when the great water floods prevailed, that the chain which kept him from drifting away with them was a strong one.

And therefore he had followed it up, link by link, until he came at last to that eternal purpose of G.o.d in which it was fast anch.o.r.ed. Since the day that he first learned it, he had lived in the light of that great centre truth, ”I have loved thee”--_thee_ individually. But as he lay in the gloomy prison, sentenced to die, something more was revealed to him. ”I have loved thee _with an everlasting love, therefore_ with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.” The value of this truth, to him as to others, lay in the double aspect of that word ”everlasting;” its look forward to the boundless future, as well as backward on the mysterious past. The one was a pledge and a.s.surance of the other. And now he was taking to his heart the comfort it gave, for the penitent as well as for himself. But it made him, not less, but more anxious to be G.o.d's fellow-worker in bringing him back to the truth.

In the meantime, however, he was quite mistaken as to the feelings with which the old man knelt before the pictured Virgin and Child. His heart was stirred by no mystic devotion to the Queen of Heaven, but by some very human feelings, which had long lain dormant, but which were now being gradually awakened there. He was thinking not of heaven, but of earth, and of ”earth's warm beating joy and dole.” And what attracted him to that spot was only the representation of womanhood and childhood, recalling, though far off and faintly, the fair young wife and babe from whom he had been cruelly torn years and years ago.

A little later, as the two prisoners sat over the bread and fruit that formed their morning meal, the penitent began to speak more frankly than he had done before. ”I was quite afraid of you, senor, when you first came,” he said.

”And perhaps I was not guiltless of the same feeling towards you,”

Carlos answered. ”It is no marvel. Companions in sorrow, such as we are, have great power either to help or to hurt one another.”

”You may truly say that,” returned the penitent. ”In fact, I once suffered so cruelly from the treachery of a fellow-prisoner, that it is not unnatural I should be suspicious.”

”How was that, senor?”

”It was very long ago, soon after my arrest. And yet, not soon. For weary months of darkness and solitude, I cannot tell how many, I held out--I mean to say, I continued impenitent.”

”Did you?” asked Carlos with interest. ”I thought as much.”

”Do not think ill of me, I entreat of you, senor,” said the penitent anxiously. ”I am _reconciled_. I have returned to the bosom of the true Church, and I belong to her. I have confessed and received absolution. I have even had the Holy Sacrament; and if ill, or in danger of death, it is promised I shall receive 'su majestad'[#] at any time. And I have abjured and detested all the heresies I learned from De Valero.”

[#] ”His Majesty,” the ordinary term applied by Spaniards to the Host.

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