Part 16 (1/2)
”Ay!” replied Garcia, with a sneering laugh. ”Give thyself wings as a bird, and still stone walls will encircle thee; dwindle into thin air, and gain the outer world, and tell thy tale, and charge Don Luis Garcia with the deed, and who will believe thee? Thinkest thou I would have boasted of my triumphant vengeance to aught who could betray me? Why my very tool, the willing minister of my vengeance--who slew Morales merely because I bade him--might not live, lest he should be tempted to betray me; I slew him with my own hand. What sayest thou now--shall Stanley live, if I say Let him die?”
There was no reply, but he looked in vain for any diminution in the undaunted resolution which still sustained her.
”I go,” he continued, after a pause. ”Yet, once more, I charge thee choose; accept the terms I proffer--be mine--and thou art saved from all further torture thyself, and Stanley lives. Refuse, and the English minion dies; and when thou and I next meet, it will be where torture and executioners wait but my nod to inflict such suffering that thou wilt die a thousand deaths in every pang. And, Jewess--unbeliever as thou art--who will dare believe it more than public justice, or accuse me of other than the zeal, which the service of Christ demands? Choose, and quickly--wilt thou accept my proffers, and be mine? Thou must, at last. What avails this idle folly of tempting torture first?”
”Thou mayest kill my body, but thou canst not pollute my soul,” was the instant reply, and its tones were unchanged. ”And as for Stanley, his life or death is not in thine hands; but if it were, I could not--nay, thus I _would_ not--save him. I reject thy proffers, as I scorn thyself. Now leave me--I have chosen!”
Don Luis did not reply, but Marie beheld his cheek grow livid, and the foam actually gather on his lip; but the calm and holy gaze she had fixed upon him, as he spoke, quailed not, nor changed. The invisible door of her cell closed with a deep, sullen sound, as if her tormentor had thus, in some measure, given vent to the unutterable fury shaking his soul to its centre; and Marie was alone. She stood for many, many minutes, in the fearful dread of his return; and then she raised her hand to her brow, and her lip blanched and quivered, and, with a long, gasping breath, she sunk down upon the cold floor--all the heroine lost in an agonized burst of tears.
CHAPTER XXV.
”Hovers the steel above his head, Suspended by a spider thread: On, on! a life hangs on thy speed; With lightning wing the gallant steed!
Buoy the full heart up! It will sink If it but pause to feel and think.
There is no time to dread his fate: No thought but one--too late, too late!”
MS.
Too soon did Marie realize the power of Don Luis to exercise his threatened vengeance! Two days after that terrible interview, she was again dragged to the hall of judgment: the same questions were proposed as before, whether or not she would denounce the secret followers of her own creed, and confess her late husband's real belief; and the same firm answers given. We shrink in loathing from the delineation of horrible tortures applied to that frail and gentle being--shrink, for we know that such things actually have been; and women--young, lovely, inoffensive as Marie Morales--have endured the same exquisite agony for the same iniquitous purpose! In public, charged to denounce innocent fellow-beings, or suffer; in private--in those dark and fearful cells--exposed to all the horror and terror of such persecution as we have faintly endeavored to describe. It is no picture of the imagination, delighting to dwell on horrors. Would that it were! Its parallel will be found, again and again repeated, in the annals--not of the Inquisition alone--but of every European state where the Romanists held sway.
But Marie's prayer for superhuman strength had been heard. No cry, scarcely a groan, escaped her. She saw Don Luis at her side; she heard his hissing whisper that there was yet time to retract and be released; but she deigned him no reply whatever. It was not his purpose to try her endurance to the utmost in the first, second, or third trial; though, so enraged at her calmness, as scarcely to be able to restrain it even before his colleagues, and with difficulty controlling his fiendish desire to increase the torture to its utmost at once, he remanded her to her dungeon till his further pleasure should be known. She had fainted under the intolerable pain, and lay for many successive hours, too exhausted even to raise to her parched lips the pitcher of water lying near her. And even the gradual cessation of suffering, the sensation of returning power, brought with them the agonized thought, that they did but herald increased and increasing torture.
One night--she knew not how long after she had been remanded to her cell, but, counting by suffering, it felt many weary nights and days--she sunk into a sleep or trance, which transported her to her early home in the Vale of Cedars. Her mother seemed again to stand before her; and she thought, as she heard her caressing voice, and met the glance of her dove-like eyes, she laid her head on her bosom, as she was wont to do in her happy childhood; and peace seemed to sink into her heart so blessedly, so deeply, that the very fever of her frame departed. A voice aroused her with a start; it was so like her mother's, that the dream seemed lingering still.
”Marie, my beloved one,” murmured the voice, and a breath fanned her cheek, as if some one were leaning over her. She unclosed her eyes--the words, the voice, still so kept up the illusion, though the tones were deeper than a woman's, that even the hated dress of a familiar of the Inquisition could not create alarm. ”Hast thou forgotten me, my child? But it matters not now. Say only thou wilt trust me, and safety lies before us. The fiends hold not their h.e.l.lish court to-night; and the arch-fiend himself is far distant, on a sudden summons from the King, which, though the grand Inquisitor might scorn, Don Luis will obey. Wilt come with me, my child?”
”Ay, any where! That voice could not deceive: but 'tis all vain,” she continued, the first accents of awakened hope lost in despondency--”I cannot rise.”
”It needs not. Do thou hold the lantern, Marie; utter not a word--check even thy breath--and the G.o.d of thy fathers shall save thee yet.”
He raised her gently in his arms; and the hope of liberty, of rescue from Don Luis, gave her strength to grasp the light to guide them. She could not trace their way, but she felt they left the dungeon, and traversed many long, damp, and narrow pa.s.sages, seemingly excavated in the solid earth. All was silent, and dark as the tomb; now and then her guide paused, as if to listen; but there was no sound. He knew well the secret paths he trod.
The rapid motion, even the sudden change, almost deprived Marie of consciousness. She was only sensible, by a sudden change from the close, damp, pa.s.sages to the free breezes of night, that she was in the open air, and apparently a much freer path; that still her guide pressed swiftly onwards, apparently scarcely feeling her light weight; that, after a lengthened interval, she was laid tenderly on a soft, luxurious couch--at least, so it seemed, compared with the cold floor of her cell; that the blessed words of thanksgiving that she was safe broke from that strangely familiar voice; and she asked no more--seemed even to wish no more--so completely was all physical power prostrated. She lay calm and still, conscious only that she was saved. Her guide himself for some time disturbed her not; but after changing his dress, and preparing a draught of cooling herbs, he knelt down, raised her head on his knee with almost woman's tenderness, and, holding the draught to her lips, said, gently--
”Drink, beloved child of my sainted sister; there is life and health in the draught.”
Hastily swallowing it, Marie gazed wildly in his face.--The habiliments of the familiar had been changed for those of a Benedictine monk; his cowl thrown back, and the now well remembered countenance of her uncle Julien was beaming over her. In an instant, the arm she could still use was thrown round him, and her head buried in his bosom; every pulse throbbing with the inexpressible joy of finding, when most desolate, one relative to love and save her still.
Julien left not his work of healing and of security incomplete; gradually he decreased, by the constant application of linen bathed in some cooling fluid, the scorching fire which still seemed to burn within the maimed and shrivelled limb; parted the thick ma.s.ses of dishevelled hair from her burning temples, and bathed them with some cooling and reviving essence; gently removed the sable robes, and replaced them, with the dress of a young novice which he had provided; concealed her hair beneath the white linen hood, and then, administering a potion which he knew would produce deep and refres.h.i.+ng sleep, and so effectually calm the fevered nerves, she sunk down on the soft moss and heath which formed her couch, and slept calmly and sweetly as an infant for many hours.
Julien Morales had entered Segovia in his monkish garb, as was frequently his custom, on the evening of the trial.--The excitement of the whole city naturally called forth his queries as to its cause; and the information imparted--the murder of Don Ferdinand, and incomprehensible avowal of Judaism on the part of his niece--demanded a powerful exercise of self-control to prevent, by a betrayal of unusual grief and horror, his near relations.h.i.+p to both parties.
Hovering about the palace, he heard of Isabella's merciful intentions towards Marie; and feeling that his presence might only agitate, and could in nothing avail her, he had resolved on leaving the city without seeing her, when her mysterious disappearance excited all Segovia anew.
Julien Morales alone, perhaps, amidst hundreds, in his own mind solved the mystery at once. Well did he know tire existence of the secret Inquisition. As we narrated in one of our early chapters, the fate of his father had so fixed itself upon his mind, that he had bound himself by a secret, though solemn oath, as his avenger. To accomplish this fully, he had actually spent ten years of his life as familiar in the Inquisition. The fate of Don Luis's predecessor had been plunged in the deepest mystery. Some whispered his death was by a subtle poison; others, that his murderer had sought him in the dead of night, and, instead of treacherously dealing the blow, had awakened him, and bade him confess his crimes--one especially; and acknowledge that if the mandate of the Eternal, ”Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,” were still to govern man, his death was but an act of justice which might not be eluded. Whether these whispered rumors had to do with Julien Morales or not, we leave to the judgment of our readers.--Suffice it, that not only was his vow accomplished, but, during his ten years' residence in these subterranean halls, he naturally became familiarized with all their secret pa.s.sages and invisible means of egress and ingress--not only to the apparently private homes of unoffensive citizens, but into the wild tracts of country scattered round. By one of these he had, in fact, effected his own escape; and in the mild and benevolent Benedictine monk--known alike to the cities and solitudes of Spain--none would have recognized the former familiar of the Inquisition, and still less have imagined him the being which in reality he was--a faithful and believing Jew.
To him, then, it was easy to connect the disappearance of Marie with the existence of the Holy Office, even though he was entirely ignorant of Garcia's ulterior designs. In an agony of apprehension, he resolved on saving her if possible, even while he trembled at the delay which must necessarily ensue ere he could arrange and execute his plans, more especially as it was dangerous to a.s.sociate a second person in their accomplishment. With all his haste and skill he was not in time to save her from the barbarity of her misnamed judges. His very soul was wrung, as he stood amongst the familiars a silent witness of her sufferings; but to interfere was impossible. One thing, however, was favorable. He knew she would not be again disturbed till a sufficient time had elapsed for the recovery of such strength as would enable her to endure further torture; and he had, therefore, some time before him for their flight.
Her voluntary avowal of her faith--aware too, as she was, of the existence of the Inquisition--had, indeed, perplexed the good uncle greatly; but she was in no state, even when partially recovered from physical weakness, to enter into explanation then. He saw she was unhappy, and the loss of her husband might well account for it. To the rumors which had reached him in Segovia, as to the suppositions of the real cause of Stanley's enmity to Morales, and Marie's self-sacrifice, he would not even listen, so completely without foundation did they seem to him.
The second evening after their escape, they left the cave to pursue their journey. Father Ambrose--for so, now he has resumed his monkish garb, we must term Julien--had provided a mule for the novice's use; and thus they leisurely traversed the desolate and mountainous tract forming the boundaries of the provinces now termed old and new Castile. Neither uncle nor niece spoke of their destined goal; Marie intuitively felt she was proceeding to the Vale of Cedars, the only place of safety now for her; but, so engrossed was her mind with the vain thought how to save Arthur, that for herself she could not frame a wish.