Chapter 5

"Do not fly me!" she cried. "You are my beloved; but far is it from Matilda's wish to draw you from the paths of virtue. All I ask is to see you, to converse with you, to adore you!"

Confusion and resentment mingled in Ambrosio's mind with secret pleasure that a young and lovely woman had thus for his sake abandoned the world. But he recognised the need for austerity.

"Matilda," he said, "you must leave the abbey to-morrow."

"Cruel, cruel!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands in agony. "Farewell, my friend! And yet, methinks, I would fain bear with me some token of your regard."

"What shall I give you?"

"Anything--one of those flowers will be sufficient."

Ambrosio approached a bush, and stooped to pick one of the flowers. He uttered a piercing cry, and Matilda rushed towards him.

"A serpent," he said in a faint voice, "concealed among the roses."

With loud shrieks the distressed Matilda summoned assistance. Ambrosio was carried to the abbey, his wound was examined, and the surgeon pronounced that there was no hope. He had been stung by a centipedoro, and would not live three days.

Mournfully the monks left the bedside, and Ambrosio was entrusted to the care of the despairing Matilda. Next morning the surgeon was astonished to find that the inflammation had subsided, and when he probed the wound no traces of the venom were perceptible.

"A miracle! A miracle!" cried the monks. Joyfully they proclaimed that St. Francis had saved the life of their sainted abbot.

But Ambrosio was still weak and languid, and again the monks left him in Matilda's care. As he listened to an old ballad sung by her sweet voice, he found renewed pleasure in her society, and was conscious of the influence upon him of her beauty. For three days she nursed him, while he watched her with increasing fondness. But on the next day she came not. A lay-brother entered instead.

"Hasten, reverend father," said he. "Young Rosario lies at the point of death, and he earnestly requests to see you."

In deep agitation he followed the lay-brother to Matilda's apartment. Her face glowed at the sight of him. "Leave me, my brethren," she said to the monks; much have I to tell this holy man in private."

"Father, I am poisoned," she said, when they had gone, "but the poison once circulated in your veins."

"Matilda!"

"I loosened the bandage from your arm; I drew out the poison with my lips. I feel death at my heart."

"And you have sacrificed yourself for me! Is there, indeed, no hope?"

"There is but one means of life in my power--a dangerous and dreadful means; life would be purchased at too dear a rate--unless it were permitted me to live for you."

"Then live for me," cried the infatuated monk, clasping her in his arms. "Live for me!"

"Then," she cried joyfully, "no dangers shall appall me. Swear that you will never inquire by what means I shall preserve myself, and procure for me the key of the burying-ground common to us and the sisterhood of St. Clare."

When Ambrosio had obtained the key, Matilda left him. She returned radiant with joy.

"I have succeeded!" she cried. "I shall live, Ambrosio--shall live for you!"

_III.--Unavailing Remorse_

Raymond and Lorenzo had gone to the rendezvous appointed in the letter, and had waited to be joined by Agnes and to enable her to escape from the convent.

But Agnes had not come, and the two friends withdrew in deep mortification. Presently arrived a message from Raymond's uncle, the cardinal, enclosing the Pope's bull ordering that Agnes should be released from her vows, and restored to her relatives. Lorenzo at once conveyed the bull to the prioress.

"It is out of my power to obey this order," said she, in a voice of anger which she strove in vain to disguise. "Agnes is dead!"

Lorenzo hastened with the fatal news to Raymond, whose terrible affliction led to a dangerous illness.

One morning, as Ambrosio was leaving the chapel after listening to many penitents--he was the favourite confessor in Madrid--Antonia stepped timidly up to him and begged him to visit her mother, who was stretched on a bed of sickness. Charmed with her beauty and innocence, he consented.

The monk retired to his cell, whither he was pursued by Antonia's image. "What would be too dear a price," he meditated, "for this lovely girl's affections?"

Not once but often did Ambrosio visit Antonia and her mother; and each time he saw the innocent girl his love increased. Matilda, who had first opened his heart to love, saw the change, and penetrated his secret.

"Since your love can no longer be mine," she said to him sadly, "I request the next best gift--your confidence and friendship. You love Antonia, but you love her despairingly. I come to point out the road to success."

"Oh, impossible!"

"To those who dare, nothing is impossible. Listen! My guardian was a man of uncommon knowledge, and from him I had training in the arts of magic. One terrible power he gave me--the power of raising a demon. I shuddered at the thought of employing it, until it became my only means of saving my life--a life that you prized. For your sake I performed the mystic rites in the sepulchre of St. Clare. For your sake I will perform them again."

"No, no, Matilda!" cried the monk, "I will not ally myself with God's enemy."

"Look!" Matilda held before him a mirror of polished steel, its borders marked with various strange characters. A mist spread over the surface; it cleared, and Ambrosio gazed upon the countenance of Antonia in all its beauty.

"I yield!" he cried passionately. "Matilda, I follow you!"

They passed into the churchyard; they reached the entry to the vaults; Ambrosio tremblingly followed Matilda down the staircase. They went through narrow passages strewn with skulls and bones, and reached a spacious cavern. Matilda drew a circle around herself, and another around him; bending low, she muttered a few indistinct sentences, and a thin, blue, sulphurous flame arose from the ground.

Suddenly she uttered a piercing shriek, and plunged a poniard into her left arm; the blood poured down, a dark cloud arose, and a clap of thunder was heard. Then a full strain of melodious music sounded and the demon stood before them.

He was a youth of perfect face and form. Crimson wings extended from his shoulders; many-coloured fires played about his locks; but there was a wildness in his eyes, a mysterious melancholy in his features, that betrayed the fallen angel.

Matilda conversed with him in unintelligible language; he bowed submissively, and gave to her a silver branch, imitating myrtle, that he bore in his right hand. The music was heard again, and ceased; the cloud spread itself afresh; the demon vanished.

"With this branch," said Matilda, "every door will open before you. You may gain access to Antonia; a touch of the branch will send her into a deep sleep, and you may carry her away whither you will."

Ashamed and fearful, yet borne away by his love, the monk set forth. The bolts of Antonia's house flew back, and the doors opened before the silver myrtle.

But as he passed stealthily through the house a woman confronted him. It was Antonia's mother, roused by a fearful dream.

"Monster of hypocrisy!" she cried in fury. "I had already suspected you, but I kept silence. Now I will unmask you, villain!"

"Forgive me, lady!" begged the terrified monk. "I swear by all that is holy------"

"No! All Madrid shall shudder at your perfidy."

He turned to fly. She seized him and screamed for help. He grasped her by the throat with all his strength, strangled her, and flung her to the ground, where she lay motionless. After a minute of horror-struck shuddering, the murderer fled. He entered the abbey unobserved, and having shut himself into his cell, he abandoned his soul to the tortures of unavailing remorse.

_IV.--A Living Death_

"Do not despair," counselled Matilda, when the monk revealed his failure. "Your crime is unsuspected. Antonia may still be yours. The prioress of St. Clare has a mysterious liquor, the effect of which is to give those who drink it the appearance of death for three days. Procure some of this liquor, visit Antonia, and cause her to drink it; have her body conveyed to a sepulchre in the vaults of St. Clare."

Ambrosio hastened to secure a phial of the mysterious potion. He went to comfort Antonia in her distress, and contrived to pour a few drops from the phial into a draught that she was taking. In a few hours he heard that she was dead, and her body was conveyed to the vaults.

Meanwhile, Lorenzo had learned, not indeed that his sister was alive, but that she had been the victim of terrible cruelty. A nun, who had been Agnes's friend, hinted at atrocious vengeance taken by the prioress for Agnes's attempt to escape. She suggested that Lorenzo should bring the officers of the Inquisition with him and arrest the prioress during a public procession of the nuns in honour of St Clare.

Accordingly, as the prioress passed along the street among her nuns with a devout and sanctified air, the officers advanced and arrested her.

"Ah!" she cried frantically, "I am betrayed!"

"Betrayed!" replied the nun who had revealed the secret to Lorenzo. "I charge the prioress with murder!"

She told how Agnes had been secretly poisoned by the prioress. The mob, mad with indignation, rushed to the convent determined to destroy it. Lorenzo and the officers hastened to endeavour to do what they could to save the convent and the terrified nuns who had taken refuge there.

Antonia's heart throbbed, her eyes opened; she raised herself and cast a wild look around her. Her clothing was a shroud; she lay in a coffin among other coffins in a damp and hideous vault. Confronting her with a lantern in his hand, and eyeing her greedily, stood Ambrosio.

"Where am I?" she said abruptly. "How came I here? Let me go!"

"Why these terrors, Antonia?" replied the abbot. "What fear you from me--from one who adores you? You are imagined dead; society is for ever lost to you. You are absolutely in my power!"

She screamed, and strove to escape; he clutched at her and struggled to detain her. Suddenly Matilda entered in haste.

"The mob has set fire to the convent," she said to Ambrosio, "and the abbey is in danger. Don Lorenzo and the officers are searching the vaults. You cannot escape; you must remain here. They may not, perhaps, enter this vault."

Antonia heard that rescue was at hand.

"Help! help!" she screamed, and ran out of the vault. The abbot pursued her in desperation; he caught her; he could not stifle her cries. Frantic in his desire to escape, he grasped Matilda's dagger, plunged it twice in the bosom of Antonia, and fled back to the vault. It was too late he had been seen, the glare of torches filled the vault, and Ambrosio and Matilda were seized and bound by the officers of the Inquisition.

Meanwhile, Lorenzo, running to and fro, had flashed his lantern upon a creature so wretched, so emaciated, that he doubted to think her woman. He stopped petrified with horror.

"Two days, and yet no food!" she moaned. "No hope, no comfort!" Suddenly she looked up and addressed him.

"Do you bring me food, or do you bring me death?"

"I come," he replied, "to relieve your sorrows."

"God, is it possible? Oh, yes! Yes, it is!"--she fainted. Lorenzo carried her in his arms to the nuns above.

Loud shrieks summoned him below again. Hastening after the officers, he saw a woman bleeding on the ground. He went to her; it was his beloved Antonia. She was dying; with a few sweet words of farewell, her spirit passed away.

Broken-hearted, he returned. He had lost Antonia, but he was to learn that Agnes was restored to him. The woman he had rescued was indeed his sister, saved from a living death and brought back to life and love.

_V.--Lucifer_

Ambrosio was tortured into confession, and condemned to be burned at the stake. Matilda, terrified at the sight of her fellow-criminal's torments, confessed without torture, and was sentenced to be burned at his side.

They were to perish at midnight, and as the monk, in panic-stricken despair, awaited the awful hour, suddenly Matilda stood before him, beautifully attired, with a look of wild pleasure in her eyes.

"Matilda!" he cried, "how have you gained entrance?"

"Ambrosio," she replied, "I am free. For life and liberty I have sold my soul to Lucifer. Dare you do the same?"

The monk shuddered.

"I cannot renounce my God," he said.

"Fool! What hope have you of God's mercy?" She handed him a book. "If you repent of your folly, read the first four lines in the seventh page backwards." She vanished.

A fearful struggle raged in the monk's spirit. What hope had he in any case of escaping eternal torment? And yet--was not the Almighty's mercy infinite? Then the thought of the stake and the flames entered his mind and appalled him.

At last the fatal hour came. The steps of his gaolers were heard in the passage. In uttermost terror he opened the book and ran over the lines, and straightway the fiend appeared--not seraph-like as when he appeared formerly, but dark, hideous, and gigantic, with hissing snakes coiling around his brows.

He placed a parchment before Ambrosio.

"Bear me hence!" cried the monk.

"Will you be mine, body and soul?" said the demon. "Resolve while there is time!"

"I must!"

"Sign, then!" Lucifer thrust a pen into the flesh of Ambrosio's arm, and the monk signed. A moment later he was carried through the roof of the dungeon into mid-air.

The demon bore him with arrow-like speed to the brink of a precipice in the Sierra Morena.

"Carry me to Matilda!" gasped the monk.

"Wretch!" answered Lucifer. "For what did you stipulate but rescue from the Inquisition? Learn that when you signed, the steps in the corridor were the steps of those who were bringing you a pardon. But now you are mine beyond reprieve, to all eternity, and alive you quit not these mountains."

Darting his talons into the monk's shaven crown, he sprang with him from the rock. From a dreadful height he flung him headlong, and the torrent bore away with it the shattered corpse of Ambrosio.

* * * * *

ELIZA LYNN LINTON

Joshua Davidson

Mrs. Lynn Linton, daughter of a vicar of Crosthwaite, was born at Keswick, England, Feb. 10, 1822. At the age of three-and-twenty she embarked on a literary career, and as a journalist, magazine contributor, and novelist wrote vigorously for over fifty years. Before her marriage, in 1858, to W.J. Linton, the eminent wood-engraver, who was also a poet, she had served on the staff of the "Morning Chronicle," as Paris correspondent. Later, she contributed to "All the Year Round," and to the "Saturday Review." After nine years of married life, the Lintons parted amicably. In 1872 Mrs. Lynn Linton published "The True History of Joshua Davidson," a powerfully simple story that has had much influence on working-class thought. "Christopher Kirkland," a later story, is largely autobiographical. Mrs. Linton died in London on July 14, 1898. She was a trenchant critic of what she regarded as tendencies towards degeneration in modern women.

_I.--A Cornish Christ_

Joshua Davidson was the only son of a village carpenter, born in the small hamlet of Trevalga, on the North Cornwall coast, in the year 1835. There was nothing very remarkable about Joshua's childhood. He was always a quiet, thoughtful boy, and from his earliest years noticeably pious. He had a habit of asking why, and of reasoning out a principle, from quite a little lad, which displeased people, so that he did not get all the credit from the schoolmaster and the clergyman to which his diligence and good conduct entitled him.

He was never well looked on by the vicar since a famous scene that took place in the church one Sunday. After catechism was over, Joshua stood out before the rest, just in his rough country clothes as he was, and said very respectfully to the vicar, "Mr. Grand, if you please I would like to ask you a few questions."

"Certainly, my lad. What have you to say?" said Mr. Grand rather shortly.

"If we say, sir, that Jesus Christ was God," said Joshua, "surely all that He said and did must be real right? There cannot be a better way than His?"

"Surely not, my lad," Mr. Grand made answer.

"And His apostles and disciples, they showed the way, too?" said Joshua.

"And they showed the way, too, as you say; and if you come up to half they taught you'll do well, Joshua."

The vicar laughed a little laugh as he said this, but it was a laugh, Joshua's mother said, that seemed to mean the same thing as a "scat"-- our Cornish word for a blow--only the boy didn't seem to see it.

"Yes; but, sir, if we are Christians, why don't we live as Christians?" said Joshua.

"Ah, indeed, why don't we?" said Mr. Grand. "Because of the wickedness of the human heart; because of the world, the flesh, and the devil."

"Then, sir, if you feel this, why don't you and all the clergy live like the apostles, and give what you have to the poor?" cried Joshua, clasping his hands and making a step forward, the tears in his eyes.

"Why do you live in a fine house, and have grand dinners, and let Peggy Bray nearly starve in that old mud hut of hers, and Widow Tregellis there, with her six children, and no fire or clothing for them? I can't make it out, sir!"

"Who has been putting these bad thoughts into your head?" said Mr. Grand sternly.

"No one, sir. I have been thinking for myself. Michael, out by Lion's Den, is called an infidel--he calls himself one. And you preached last Sunday that no infidel can be saved. But Michael helped Peggy and her child when the orphan fund people took away her pension; and he worked early and late for Widow Tregellis and her children, and shared with them all he had, going short for them many a time. And I can't help thinking, sir, that Christ would have helped Peggy, and that Michael, being an infidel and such a good man, is something like that second son in the parable who said he would not do his Lord's will when he was ordered, but who went all the same------"

"And that your vicar is like the first?" interrupted Mr. Grand angrily.

"Well, yes, sir, if you please," said Joshua quite modestly, but very fervently.

There was a stir among the ladies and gentlemen when Joshua said this; and some laughed a little, under their breath, and others lifted up their eyebrows and said, "What an extraordinary boy!" But Mr. Grand was very angry, and said, in a severe tone, "These things are beyond the knowledge of an ignorant lad like you, Joshua. I consider you have done a very impertinent thing to-day, and I shall mark you for it!"

"I meant no harm. I meant only the truth and to hear the things of God," repeated Joshua sadly, as he took his seat among his companions, who tittered.

And so Joshua was not well looked on by the clergyman, who was his enemy, as one may say, ever after.

"Mother," said Joshua, "I mean, when I grow up, to live as our Lord and Saviour lived when He was on the earth."

"He is our example, lad," said his mother. "But I doubt lest you fall by over-boldness."

_II.--Faith That Moveth Mountains_

Joshua did not leave home early. He wrought at his father's bench, and was content to bide with his people. But his spirit was not dead if his life was uneventful. He gathered about him a few youths of his own age, and held with them prayer-meetings and Bible readings, either at home in his father's house, or in the fields when the throng was too great for the cottage.

No one ever knew Joshua tell the shadow of a lie, or go back from his word, or play at pretence. And he had such an odd way of coming right home to us. He seemed to have felt all that we felt, and to have thought all our thoughts.

The youths that Joshua got together as his friends were as well-conditioned a set of lads as you would wish to see--sober, industrious, chaste. Their aim was to be thorough and like Christ. Joshua's great hope was to bring back the world to the simplicity and broad humanity of Christ's acted life, and he could not understand how it had been let drop.

He was but a young man at this time, remember--enthusiastic, with little or no scientific knowledge, and putting the direct interposition of God above the natural law. Wherefore, he accepted the text about faith removing mountains as literally true. And one evening he went down into the Rocky Valley, earnest to try conclusions with God's promise, and sure of proving it true.

He prayed to God to grant us this manifestation--to redeem His promise. Not a shadow of doubt chilled or slacked him. As he stood there in the softening twilight, with his arms raised above his head and his face turned up to the sky, his countenance glowed as Moses' of old. He seemed inspired, transported beyond himself, beyond humanity.

He commanded the stone to move in God's name, and because Christ had promised. But the rock stood still, and a stonechat went and perched on it.

Another time he took up a viper in his hand, quoting the passage, "They shall take up serpents." But the beast stung him, and he was ill for days after.

"Take my advice," said the doctor. "Put all these thoughts out of your head. Get some work to do in a new part of the country, fall in love with some nice girl, and marry as soon as you can make a home for her. That's the only life for you, depend upon it."

"God has given me other thoughts," said Joshua, "and I must obey them."

The doctor said afterwards that he was quite touched at the lad's sweetness and wrong-headedness combined.

The failure of these trials of faith perplexed us all, and profoundly afflicted Joshua. "Friends," he said at last, "it seems to me--indeed, I think we must all see it now--that His Word is not to be accepted literally. The laws of nature are supreme, and even faith cannot change them. Can it be," he then said solemnly, "that much of the Word is a parable--that Christ was truly, as He says of Himself, the corner-stone, but not the whole building--and that we have to carry on the work in His spirit, but in our own way, and not merely to try and repeat His acts?"

It was after this that we noticed a certain restlessness in Joshua. But in time he had an offer to go up to London to follow his trade at a large house in the City, and got me a job as well, that I might be alongside of him. For we were like brothers. A few days before he went, Joshua happened to be coming out of his father's workshop just as Mr. Grand was passing, driving the neat pair-horse phaeton he had lately bought.

"Well, Joshua, and how are you doing? And why have you not been to church lately?" said the parson, pulling up.

"Well, sir," said Joshua, "I don't go to church, you know."

"A new light on your own account, hey?" and he laughed as if he mocked him.

"No, sir; only a seeker."

"The old path's not good enough for you?"

"I must answer for my conscience to God, sir," said Joshua.

"And your clergyman, appointed by God and the state to be your guide, what of him? Has he no authority in his own parish?"

"Look here, sir," said Joshua, quite respectfully; "I deny your appointment as a God-given leader of souls. The Church is but the old priesthood as it existed in the days of our Lord. I see no sacrifice of the world, no brotherhood with the poor----"

"The poor!" interrupted Mr. Grand disdainfully. "What would you have, you young fool? The poor have the laws of their country to protect them, and the Gospel preached to them for their salvation."

"Why, sir, the poor of our day are the lepers of Christ's, and who among you Christian priests consorts with them? Who ranks the man above his station, or the soul above the man?"