Part 54 (1/2)
The prisoner's hands clenched involuntarily with a gesture of despair.
”I know that!” he said sullenly--”The Church can save or kill! What of it? I am now beyond even the power of the Church!”
Del Fortis seated himself on the stone bench.
”Come here!” he said--”Sit down beside me!”
The prisoner obeyed.
”Look at this!”--and he drew an ebony and silver crucifix from his breast--”Fix your eyes upon it, and try, my son,”--here he raised his voice a little--”try to conquer your thoughts of things temporal, and lift them to the things which are eternal! For things temporal do quickly vanish and disperse, but things eternal shall endure for ever!
Humble your soul before G.o.d, and beseech Him with me, to mercifully cleanse the dark stain of sin upon your soul!” Here he began mumbling a Latin prayer, and while engaged in this, he caught the prisoner's hand in a close grip. ”Act--act with me!” he said firmly. ”Fool!--Play a part, as I do! Bend your head close to mine--a.s.sume shame and sorrow even if you cannot feel it! And listen to me well! _You have failed_!”
”I know it!”
The reply came thick and low.
”Why did you make the attempt at all? Who persuaded you?”
The wretched youth lifted his head, and showed a wild white face, in which the piteous eyes, starting from their sockets, looked blind with terror.
”Who persuaded me?” he replied mechanically--”No one! No single one,--but many!”
Del Fortis gripped him firmly by the wrist.
”You lie!” he snarled--”How dare you utter such a calumny! Who were you?
What were you? A miserable starveling--picked up from the streets and saved from penury,--housed and sheltered in our College,--taught and trained and given paid employment by us,--what have _you_ to say of 'persuasion'?--you, who owe your very life to us, and to our charity!”
Roused by this attack, the prisoner, wrenching his hand away from the priest's cruel grasp, sprang upright.
”Wait--wait!” he said breathlessly--”You do not understand! You forget!
All my life I have been under One great influence--all my life I have been taught to dream One great Dream! When I talk of 'persuasion,'
I only mean the persuasion of that force which has surrounded me as closely as the air I breathe!--that spirit which is bound to enter into all who work for you, or with you! Oh no!--neither you nor any member of your Order ever seek openly to 'persuade' any man to any act, whether good or evil--your Rule is much wiser than that!--much more subtle! You issue no actual commands--your power comes chiefly by suggestion! And _with_ you,--working _for_ you--I have thought day and night, night and day, of the glory of Rome!--the dominion of Rome!--the triumph of Rome!
I have learned, under you, to wish for it, to pray for it, to desire it more than my own life!--do you, can you blame me for that? You dare not call it a sin;--for your Order represents it as a virtue that condones all sin!”
Del Fortis was silent, watching him with a kind of curious contempt.
”It grew to be part of me, this Dream!” went on the lad, his eyes now s.h.i.+ning with a feverish brilliancy--”And I began to see wonderful visions, and to hear voices calling me in the daytime,--voices that no one else heard! Once in the College chapel I saw the Blessed Virgin's picture smile! I was copying doc.u.ments for the Vatican then,--and I thought of the Holy Father,--how he was imprisoned in Rome, when he should be Emperor of all the Emperors,--King of all the Kings! I remembered how it was that he had no temporal power,--though all the powers of the earth should be subservient to him!--and my heart beat almost to bursting, and my brain seemed on fire!--but the Blessed Virgin's picture still smiled;--and I knelt down before it and swore that I,--even I, would help to give the whole world back to Rome, even if I died for it!”
He caught his breath with a kind of sob, and looked appealingly at Del Fortis, who, fingering the crucifix he held, sat immovable.
”And then--and then” he went on, ”I heard enough,--while at work in the monastery with you and the brethren,--to strengthen and fire my resolution. I learned that all kings are, in these days, the enemies of the Church. I learned that they were all united in one resolve; and that,--to deprive the Holy Father of temporal power! Then I set myself to study kings. Each, and all of those who sit on thrones to-day pa.s.sed before my view;--all selfish, money-seeking, sensual men!--not one good, true soul among them! Demons they seemed to me,--bent on depriving G.o.d's Evangelist in Rome of his Sacred and Supreme Sovereignty! It made me mad!--and I would have killed all kings, could I have done so with a single thought! Then came a day when you preached openly in the Cathedral against this one King, who should by right have gone to his account this very afternoon!--you told the people how he had refused lands to the Church,--and how by this wicked act he had stopped the progress of religious education, and had put himself, as it were, in the way of Christ who said: 'Suffer little children to come unto Me!' And my dreams of the glory of Rome again took shape--I saw in my mind all the children,--the poor little children of the world, gathered to the knee of the Holy Father, and brought up to obey him and him only!--I remembered my oath before the Blessed Virgin's picture, and all my soul cried out: 'Death to the crowned Tyrant! Death!' For you said--and I believed it--that all who opposed the Holy Father's will, were opposed to the will of G.o.d!--and over and over again I said in my heart: 'Death to the tyrant! Death!' And the words went with me like the response of a litany,--till--till--I saw him before me to-day--a pampered fool, surrounded by women!--a blazoned liar!--and then--” He paused, smiling foolishly; and shaking his head with a slow movement to and fro, he added--”The dagger should have struck home!--it was aimed surely--aimed strongly!--but that woman came between--why did she come? They said she was Lotys!--ha ha!--Lotys, the Revolutionary sybil!--Lotys, the Socialist!--but that could not be,--Lotys is as great an enemy of kings as I am!”
”And an enemy of the Church as well!” said Del Fortis harshly--”Between the Church and Socialism, all Thrones stand on a cracking earth, devoured by fire! But make no mistake about it!--the woman was Lotys!
Socialist and Revolutionary as she may be, she has saved the life of the King. This is so far fortunate--for you! And it is much to be hoped that she herself is not slain by your dagger thrust;--death is far too easy and light a punishment for her and her a.s.sociates! We trust it may please a merciful G.o.d to visit her with more lingering calamity!”
As he said this, he piously kissed the crucifix he held, keeping his shallow dark eyes fixed on the prisoner with the expression of a cat watching a mouse. The half-crazed youth, absorbed in the ideas of his own dementia, still smiled to himself vaguely, and nervously plucked at his fingers, till Del Fortis, growing impatient and forgetting for the moment that they stood in a prison cell, the interior of which might possibly be seen and watched from many points of observation unknown to them, went up to him and shook him roughly by the arm.
”Attention!” he said angrily--”Rouse yourself and hear me! You talk like a fool or a madman,--yet you are neither--neither, you understand?--neither idiot-born nor suddenly crazed;--so, when on your trial do not feign to be what you are not! Such ideas as you have expressed, though they may have their foundation in a desire for good, are evil in their results--yet even out of evil good may come! The power of Rome--the glory of Rome--the dominion of Rome! Rome, supreme Mistress of the world! Would you help the Church to win this great victory? Then now is your chance! G.o.d has given you--you, His poor instrument,--the means to effectually aid His conquest,--to Him be all the praise and thanksgiving! It rests with you to accept His message and perform His work!”