Part 56 (1/2)

Soon afterwards a lay brother, the same who had admitted Don Juan, entered the room and placed wine on the table before him. ”My lord the prior bade me say your Excellency seemed exhausted, and should refresh yourself ere you depart,” he explained.

Juan motioned it away. He could not trust himself to speak. But did Fray Ricardo imagine he would either eat bread or drink water beneath the roof that sheltered _him_?

Still the poor man lingered, standing before him with the air of one who had something to say which he did not exactly know how to bring out.

”You may tell your lord that I am going,” said Juan, rising wearily, and with a look that certainly told of exhaustion.

”If it please your n.o.ble Excellency--” and the lay brother stopped and hesitated.

”Well?”

”Let his Excellency pardon me. Could his wors.h.i.+p have the misfortune to be related, very distantly no doubt, to one of the heretics who--”

”Don Carlos Alvarez was my brother,” said Juan proudly.

The poor lay brother drew nearer to him, and lowered his voice to a mysterious whisper. ”Senor and your Excellency, he was here in prison for a long time. It was thought that my lord the prior had a kindness for him, and wished him better used than they use the criminals in the Santa Casa. It happened that the prisoner whose cell he shared died the day before his--_removal_. So that the cell was empty, and it fell to my lot to cleanse it. Whilst I was doing it I found this; I think it belonged to him.”

He drew from beneath his serge gown a little book, and handed it to Juan, who seized it as a starving man might seize a piece of bread.

Hastily taking out his purse, he flung it in exchange to the lay brother; and then, just as the matin bells began to ring, he buckled on his sword and went forth.

XLVIII.

San Isodro Once More.

”And if with milder anguish now I bear To think of thee in thy forsaken rest; If from my heart be lifted the despair, The sharp remorse with healing influence pressed.

It is that Thou the sacrifice hast blessed, And filled my spirit, in its inmost cell, With a deep chastened sense that all at last is well.”--Hemans

The cloudless sky above him, the fresh morning air on his cheek, the dew-drops on his feet, Don Juan walked along. The river--his own bright Guadalquivir--glistened in the early suns.h.i.+ne; and soon his pathway led him amidst the gray ruins of old Italica, while among the brambles that half hid them, glittering lizards, startled by his footsteps, ran in and out. But he saw nothing, felt nothing, save the pa.s.sionate pain that burned in his heart. During his interview with Fray Ricardo he had been, practically and for the time, what the prior called him, insane--mad with rage and hate. But now rage was dying out for the present, and giving place to anguish.

Is the worst pang earth has to give that of witnessing the sufferings of our beloved? Or is there yet one keener, more thrilling? That they should suffer alone; no hand near to help, no voice to speak sympathy, no eye to look ”ancient kindness” on their pain. That they should die--die in anguish--and still alone,--

”With eyes turned away, And no last word to say.”

Don Juan was now drinking that bitter cup to its very dregs. What the young brother, his one earthly tie, had been to him, need not here be told; and a.s.suredly he could not have told it. He had been all his life a thing to protect and s.h.i.+eld--as the strong protect the weak, as manhood s.h.i.+elds womanhood and childhood. Had G.o.d but taken him with his own right hand, Juan would have thought it a light matter, a sorrow easily borne. But, instead, He stood afar off--He did not help; whilst men, cruel as fiends from the bottomless pit, did their worst, their very worst, upon him. And with refined self-torture he went through all the horrible details, as far as he knew or could guess them. Nor did he spare to stab his own heart with that keenest weapon of all--”It was _for me_; for me he endured the Question.” The cry of his brother's anguish--anguish borne for him--seemed to sound in his ears and to haunt him: he felt that it would haunt him evermore.

Of course, there was a well of comfort near, which a child's hand might have pointed out to him: ”All is over now; he suffers no longer--he is at rest.” But who ever stoops to drink from that well in the parching thirst of the first hour of such a grief as his? In truth, all was over for Carlos; but all was not over for Juan. He had to pa.s.s through his dark hour as really as Carlos had pa.s.sed through his.

Again the agony almost maddened him; again wild hatred and rage against his brother's torturers rose and surged like a flood within him. And with these were mingled thoughts, too nearly rebellious, of Him whom that brother trusted so firmly and served so faithfully; as if he had used his servant hardly, and forsaken him in his hour of sorest need.

He shrank with horror from every wayfarer he chanced to meet, imagining that his eyes might have looked on his brother's suffering. But at last he came unawares upon the gate of San Isodro. Left unbarred by some accident, it yielded to his touch, and he entered the monastery grounds.

At that very spot, three years ago, the brothers parted, on the day that Carlos avowed his change of faith. Yet not even that remembrance could bring a tear to the hot and angry eyes of Juan. But just then he happened to recollect the book he had received from the lay brother. He took it from its place of concealment, and eagerly began to examine it.

It was almost filled with writing; but not, alas! from that beloved hand. So he flung it aside in bitter disappointment. Then becoming suddenly conscious of bodily weakness, he half sat down, half threw himself on the ground. His vigorous frame and his strong nerves saved him from swooning outright: he only lay sick and faint, the blue sky looking black above him, and a strange, indistinct sound, as of many voices, murmuring in his ears.

By-and-by he became conscious that some one was holding water to his lips, and trying, though with an awkward, trembling hand, to loose his doublet at the throat. He drank, shook off his weakness, and looked about him. A very old man, in a white tunic and brown mantle, was bending over him compa.s.sionately. In another moment he was on his feet; and having briefly thanked the aged monk for his kindness, he turned his face to the gate.

”Nay, my son,” the old man interposed; ”San Isodro is changed--changed!