Part 53 (1/2)

”To-morrow night my lips will be dust, my voice silent for ever. So you may well bear with me for a little while to-day.”

”Speak then; but be brief.”

”It gives me the last pang I think to know on earth, to part thus from you; for you have shown me true kindness. I owe you, not forgiveness as an enemy, but grat.i.tude as a sincere though mistaken friend. I shall pray for you--”

”An impenitent heretic's prayers--”

”Will do my lord the prior no harm; and there may come a day when he will not be sorry he had them.”

There was a short pause. ”Have you anything else to say?” asked the prior rather more gently.

”Only one word, senor.” He turned and looked at the dead. ”I know you loved him well. You will deal gently with his dust, will you not? A grave is not much to ask for him. You will give it; I trust you.”

The stern set face relaxed a little before that pleading look. ”It is you who have sought to rob him of a grave,” said the prior--”you who have defamed him of heresy. But your testimony is invalid; and, as I have said, I believe you not.”

With this declaration of purely official disbelief, he left the room.

His colleague lingered a moment. ”You plead for the senseless dust that can neither feel nor suffer,” he said; ”you can pity that. How is it you cannot pity yourself?”

”That which you destroy to-morrow is not myself. It is only my garment, my tent. Yet even over that Christ watches. He can raise it glorious from the ashes of the Quemadero as easily as from the church where the bones of my fathers sleep. For I am his, soul and body--the purchase of his blood. And why should it be a marvel in your eyes that I rejoice to give my life for him who gave his own for me?”

”G.o.d grant thee even yet to die in his grace!” answered the Inquisitor, somewhat moved. ”I do not despair of thee. I will pray for thee, and visit thee again to-night.” So saying, he hastened after the prior.

For a season Carlos sat motionless, his soul filled to overflowing with a calm, deep tide of awed and wondering joy. No room was there for any thought save one--”I shall see His face; I shall be with Him for ever.”

Over the Thing that lay between he could spring as joyously as a child might leap across a brook to reach his father's outstretched hand.

At length his eye fell, perhaps by accident, on the little writing-book which lay near. He drew it towards him, and having found out the place where the last entry was made, wrote rapidly beneath it,--

”To depart and to be with Christ is far better. My beloved father is gone to him in peace to-day. I too go in peace, though by a rougher path, to-morrow. Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

”CARLOS ALVAREZ DE SANTILLANOS Y MENAYA.”

And with a strange consciousness that he had now signed his name for the last time, he carefully affixed to it his own especial ”rubrica,” or sign-manual.

Then came one thought of earth--only one--the last. ”G.o.d, in his great mercy, grant that my brother may be far away! I would not that he saw my face to-morrow. For the pain and the shame can be seen of all; while that which changes them to glory no man knoweth, save he that receiveth it. But, wherever thou art, G.o.d bless thee, my Ruy!” And drawing the book towards him again, he added, as if by a sudden impulse, to what he had already written, ”G.o.d bless thee, my Ruy!”

Soon afterwards the Alguazils arrived to conduct him back to the Triana.

Then, turning to his dead once more, he kissed the pale forehead, saying, ”Farewell, for a little while. Thou didst never taste death; nor shall I. Instead of thee and me, Christ drank that cup.”

And then, for the second time, the gate of the Triana opened to receive Don Carlos Alvarez. At sunrise next morning its gloomy portals were unlocked, and he, with others, pa.s.sed forth from beneath their shadow.

Not to return again to that dark prison, there to linger out the slow and solitary hours of grief and pain. His warfare was accomplished, his victory was won. Long before the sun had arisen again upon the weary blood-stained earth, a brighter sun arose for him who had done with earth. All his desire was granted, all his longings were fulfilled. He saw the face of Christ, and he was with Him for ever.

XLVI.

Is it too Late?