Part 18

Something in the slight action struck Fray Fernando. One whom he knew long ago had been wont to use it. Exactly thus: the brow just touched, not pressed; the eyes—dark, thoughtful eyes—not covered, but looking out, as it were, a great way off. Of what was he dreaming? And why did the patio of his father’s house at Seville, with everything it contained, from his father’s portrait by Juan de las Roelas down to the least ornament, rise suddenly before his eyes?—But this must not go on. With an effort he dispelled the vision, and once more saw the matador standing before him. “Consider what you wish to do, my friend,” he said kindly.

“I have considered, reverend father,” the matador answered, removing his hand and looking earnestly at the monk, who felt every moment more tormented by thronging memories of the past;—until at length there came a flash of relieving thought—“Last night I must have dreamed some vivid dream of my early home. Doubtless it is that which haunts me now, though memory fails to recall it distinctly.”

Meanwhile, the matador was saying, “It seems to me that it is not well to write. All those I knew think me dead long ago. Perhaps they are dead themselves; for I have been in the galleys nigh upon twenty years.—No, not quite—sixteen years last December. I had my sentence at Seville, in the great _auto-da-fé_.”

“You are then a prisoner of the Holy Office?” Fray Fernando asked, with a vague unaccountable feeling that his dream was coming back to him, and that the scene in which he was acting was a part of it.

“Yes; I hope your reverence will not think the worse of me for that?”

“No; you have probably been drawn aside from the Faith by the subtleties of some designing heretic?”

“That was not exactly my case, father. My crime was not heresy, but daring resistance to the Holy Office.”

“How?” asked Fray Fernando, now thoroughly awake, and startled—nay, alarmed. What if one, concerned in _that_ enterprise, were suddenly to appear and, even in this remote corner of the world, to recognize—

The matador spoke again: “We essayed a desperate deed. We—for to _you_ I fear not to confess all—we dared to attack the Triana itself.”

The blood forsook Fray Fernando’s cheek and lips as he questioned,—“_We!_ Who?”

The matador, embarrassed by the question, not only from the abrupt and startling way in which it was proposed, but from the difficulty of answering without naming names guarded by his loyal heart in sacred silence, replied after a pause,—“I was the leader—I myself.”

“You!” exclaimed the monk, fastening his eyes upon him in amazement. “_You!_—’Tis false.—’Tis not true!”

“Father, I am God’s free-man, though the king’s slave, and I speak the truth as in His presence,” said the matador, with gentle dignity.

Fray Fernando was no longer pale, he was ghastly, and his lips trembled as they faltered, “Your name?”

“At the service of your reverence—Melchior del Salto.”

As one possessed, Fray Fernando sprang from his seat, seized the poor man’s arm, and in tones not loud, yet fierce and wild, exclaimed, “Man, ’tis false! You—whoever you are—you are _not_ Melchior del Salto—An evil spirit takes the form to mock me—_He_ was burned to ashes at the stake.”

“On the faith and truth of a Christian man, Melchior del Salto stands before you. But—but—”

It was the matador’s turn to tremble now and falter. When he spoke again it was with low, imploring voice. “Father,” said he—“_Señor_—for Heaven’s sake take off your hand—sit down—let me look you in the face.”

He need not have so entreated. The friar’s strength was failing through intensity of emotion. He sank unconsciously into the seat. “I am losing my reason,” he murmured. “What did you say?—Who are you?”

“I am Melchior del Salto, reprieved at the last moment, because their reverences received information that it was another hand than his which struck down Tomas Varguez that fatal night. And you—_you_?—Nay, señor, not one word.—You are _Señor Don Alfonso_!”

“Melchior!—Brother risen from the dead!” exclaimed Fray Fernando; and in another moment two hearts that had long been sundered were beating against each other. Then they “lifted up their voices and wept.”

When words were possible, they were broken, faltering, inconsequent.

“Now I know why I loved you from the first,” Melchior del Salto murmured. “I used to listen for the sound of your voice, to watch for the very shadow of your cowl. But, ah, how altered,—señor, my brother!”

“Throughout these long years I believed my brother died for me—the death of fire.”

“And _you_, instead, lost all for that brother’s sake.”

“Oh no; the crime for which I suffered was my own. And you, my brother—you have suffered—how sorely! Sixteen years in the galleys!”

“God has not forsaken me. His goodness and mercy have followed me every step of the way. Till now—at last—He has given me this great crowning joy,—to see your face again!”

Thus they talked, and might have talked till midnight, had not the new bell, recently brought from Spain for the church of Callao, rung out its musical summons to prayer at the vesper hour.

Fray Fernando heard not the sound; but upon Melchior del Salto it had a magical effect. It transformed him instantly into the galley-slave and the matador. “Our hour is long past,” he said. “This must not be. The Englishman will share the blame that is due to me. Besides, the privilege another time may be withheld.”

The thought of sending back his newly-found brother to the cruel slavery in which he had pined so long, seemed absolutely horrible to Fray Fernando. Still, it was inevitable. They must part. Sorrowfully acknowledging the necessity, he accompanied the two galley-slaves to the _San Cristofero_, and excused them to the captain, taking upon himself the blame of their late return. “I will see you to-morrow—early,” he said, as he bade Melchior del Salto farewell.

XXX.

The Magic Stone.

“Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.”

PROV. xix. 6.

Fray Fernando’s thoughts were very busy during his five minutes’ walk from the _San Cristofero_ to his own humble lodging. He came to the determination that he would tell José everything that had happened. He had great reliance on the Indian’s tact and skill in dealing with those who held the destinies of the galley-slaves in their hands. But, independently of this, his adopted son deserved his full confidence, and he should have it.

“José,” he said, “I have something to tell you.”

José, at a moment’s notice, buried the treasures of new knowledge he had just received from Walter Grey, and was longing to examine, in some deep place within his heart, and stood prepared to listen.

“Do you remember the tale I told you in the tampu beside the Apurimac?” asked the monk.

“Every word of it.”

“Shall I lose for ever your love and your reverence, José, if I confess to you that the Don Alfonso of that tale stands before you now?”

José’s countenance showed no emotion; neither horror nor amazement, not even surprise, was depicted there. It was, in fact, no more than for a long time he had suspected. At first the suspicion brought keen sorrow and perplexity to his loyal heart; but he had, fortunately, been able of late to persuade himself that the patre was quite justified in his resistance to Spanish cruelty and oppression. How he reconciled this belief with his respect for the Catholic faith and the authorities of the Church, it is impossible to say. But indeed there were so many unreconciled contradictions in the mind of José, that this one might well pass unnoticed amongst them.

He said very quietly, “I always knew that the patre was a noble amongst his own people. And what did he, in fighting for the deliverance of the oppressed, save to show himself the friend of the Poor—like a child of the Sun?”

Then, in words few and broken by emotion, Fray Fernando told him the strange sequel of the story. But, to his amazement, José listened with cold incredulity. Was the patre quite sure that there was no mistake, no delusion—that the galley-slave was in very truth the person he represented himself to be?

Now, if the patre had told him that he had just been honoured with a visit from the Virgin Mary, José would have received the communication with the deepest reverence and the most unquestioning belief. For it would then have been “a mystery of the Faith;” and José was in the habit of divesting himself of his reason and common sense whenever he entered the temple of the supernatural. Scarcely any marvel could be proposed to him there to which he would hesitate to give implicit credence. But upon the platform of this world and its affairs, and within what he considered the legitimate domain of his reason, he was a shrewd and careful investigator of facts. He inherited the practical ability of his fathers, who were accustomed to decide hard cases, and to do justice and judgment between man and man.

The half astonished, half angry Fray Fernando found he had no alternative save to set his doubts at rest by a full and circumstantial account of his interview with the matador.

This could hardly fail to convince the most sceptical; and once convinced, José was ready to prove himself an invaluable ally.

“We will save him,” he said. “Spain is far away; Spaniards will do anything for gold.”

Fray Fernando pondered. “But I have no gold,” he objected.

“I have,” José answered quietly. “Moreover, the time is favourable. The Commandante has gone to Cuzco. Only the Capitano remains. He has his price. Let me treat with him, patre. Nothing easier for him than to give out that the men are dead.”

“The _men_?”

“Yes; the stake I mean to play for is the deliverance of both—the matador and the Englishman.”

“For Heaven’s sake, José, beware what you do,” cried Fray Fernando in alarm. “You will peril all. The Englishman is a prisoner of the Holy Office.”

“So is the other.”

“Ay; but consider the difference. Melchior was condemned to the galleys full sixteen years ago, in Spain. The matter was never known here; and by this time is well-nigh forgotten everywhere. But Walter Grey—fresh in every man’s mind and memory, and under the very eyes of their reverences who pronounced his sentence!—No, no, José; unless you want to ruin us, you must leave him alone.”

“Well, I can wait,” replied the imperturbable José. And rising from his seat, he began to prepare their frugal supper.

But Fray Fernando could not eat. Out of the fulness of his heart he talked to José of the former days, and of Melchior del Salto; until it became absolutely necessary for him to attend to his evening devotions. When these were over, José prevailed on him to lie down, and at least endeavour to take some rest. Sleep was not possible to him; but it was good to lie motionless in the dark on his mat, to think over the past and the present, and to thank God for His great mercy.

José, when left alone, meditated for a little while on the patre’s strange history, then disinterred his own treasure, and began to examine it.

The bitter disappointment that he felt at first had by no means passed away. He quite believed all that Walter Grey had told him. This, from his point of view, was both natural and reasonable. His forefathers had gone forth to propagate the worship of the Sun, as the best and purest religion they knew. And yet that worship had not wholly satisfied the more intelligent amongst them; and they had turned readily, nay, eagerly, to the Spaniards as the depositaries of a more satisfying faith, which they gladly learned from them. But José had had abundant cause to suspect that the Spaniards were not what they professed to be, the chief favourites of the true, invisible God, nor their kind of worship the most acceptable that could be offered to Him. What more reasonable than to suppose that the wise and powerful English, from whom he hoped so much, would be better instructed?

But, granted that Walter’s words were true, what they revealed was still “a mystery of the Faith,” and nothing more. And in far more educated minds than José’s mist and mystery are closely allied. The hopes that had seemed so real, so substantial, so near, were relegated at once to the land of dreams and shadows. Hence the chill disappointment, the utter helpless sadness, that settled down upon his soul.

After a long interval of desultory brooding, that did not deserve the name of thought, he roused himself, trimmed the lamp Fray Fernando had left lighted, and sat down to read over, yet once more, that sublime psalm—the song of the King who should reign in righteousness.

With kindling eyes, and a beating heart, he followed the description of what the King should be. Step by step his soul seemed lifted upwards, until at last it reached the footstool of God Himself—“The Lord God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.”

“‘Blessed be His holy name for ever,’” José read half aloud, “‘and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and amen!’ His glory—whose? The great King’s? No, God’s—the God of Israel’s. And yet the great King’s also, if Señor Hualter’s words be true—for He is God—God and man—Sufferer, Saviour, Redeemer, King.” Thus for the first time, in all its grandeur, the great Truth broke upon his mind. It was like the uprising of the sun—a rapid tropical sunrise.

Would that King then, he questioned with himself, really come in His glory, take the part of his people, and avenge them upon their enemies, the cruel Spaniards? Might not this, after all, be possible? And if so, what a vengeance His would be! José was neither merciless nor bloodthirsty; he desired no wholesale massacres, no tortures. And yet, as he sat there with the Breviary still open before him, a vivid panorama rose before his eyes. He saw the great square of Cuzco filled with Indians, mounted upon splendid horses, and carrying fire-breathing clubs,—all guarding a grim scaffold draped with black, where a stately Spaniard, with the features of the Viceroy Toledo, was about to bow his haughty head beneath the fatal axe.

But a loud knocking at the outer door dispelled his vision into air. He hastened to unbar it, and confronted a sunburnt mariner from the _San Cristofero_.

At the same moment he became aware that his lamp was useless,—the day was breaking.

“One of the slaves is very ill,” said the mariner. “Will the padre come and see him, for the love of God? Ask him also to bring ‘sa majestad,’ for the man seems to be dying.”

“I will waken the patre,” said José. “Tell me the name of the sick man.”

“He is called the matador.”

Fray Fernando came forth from the inner room. “I have heard all,” he said, looking greatly agitated. “You need not have asked the name. I knew it.”

Quickly and silently he made the necessary preparations. No wonder that José, in his ignorance, looked with trembling awe upon the little silver box, which he was taught to believe actually contained his Creator and his God! Upon this occasion, however, the thought flashed through his mind—“Was the King of whom Señor Hualter spoke really there? If so, how could He be ‘gone away into heaven’?” But it soon gave place to a reflection of a more practical kind,—“The patre has had no food since yesterday forenoon. If he goes forth fasting he may take the calenture.—Patre,” he said aloud, “I pray you drink at least some of this chica ere you go.”

Fray Fernando shook his head. “I shall communicate with him,” he said.

Nothing more was spoken until they were on their way, Fray Fernando bearing the precious viaticum, and José the little silver bell with which he failed not to warn bystanders to show fitting reverence.

Then Fray Fernando said, “If it be possible to remove him, we must do it.”

“What becomes of galley-slaves when they are ill?” José asked.

Fray Fernando sighed. “The only place for them is the hold,” he said. “And that is so dark, and withal so horribly unclean, that, I have heard, many die at the oar rather than enter it.”

“Surely the chihuayhua flower, the emblem of pity, does not grow on your side of the Mother Sea,” said José with quiet bitterness.

“But sometimes there is leave given to bring them on shore to the prison, or to some hospital,” Fray Fernando resumed.

“This man shall come on shore, and neither to prison nor hospital,” José answered determinately. “Here we are, patre. Look, there stands the captain by the helm. I am to deal with him, you understand? But he must bring me to his cabin. I can do nothing within earshot of his men.”

So successfully did José deal with the captain of the _San Cristofero_, that in less than an hour the sick man was taken gently from the dark and horrible hole into which he had been thrown to die, placed on a rude litter made out of a couple of spare planks covered with José’s mantle, and borne carefully to the lodging of Fray Fernando.

“You succeeded marvellously—how did you manage?”—the monk asked of José, so soon as he had rendered Melchior the cares his situation immediately demanded, and had seen that he was slumbering from exhaustion.

“I had, in the clasp of my yacollo, a certain magic stone, which I did but show the captain, and the sight of it bowed his heart at once.”

“And what said he to you?”

“Many things, which seemed utter unreason. Such as these: ‘Pray devoutly and hammer on stoutly.’ That ‘the golden load is a burden light,’ and that he was not like the tailor of Campijo, or Campillo, or some such place, who wrought for nothing, and found his customers in thread.”

“What answer made you to his litany of proverbs?”

“None; save to give him that glimpse of the magic stone. And to tell him I knew the poor fellow was dying (which in truth I know not at all); and that if he died on shore, there would be no man the wiser—but one man the wealthier. But had I known these were proverbs, I might have favoured him in return with one of ours, from the lips of the wise Inca Pacha-cutec: ‘Anger and passion may be cured; but folly is incurable.’ And of all the follies under God’s heaven, the worst, as I think, is that of the white men, who will do nothing for pity and for mercy, for the fear of God and the love of man; but everything for gold and silver, or for children’s toys of coloured or sparkling stones.”

Fray Fernando sighed. “You have done well, José,” he said. “But I fear the deliverance has come too late.”

“Nay, patre. Our people indeed die easily; but the white man is strong, and he clings to life as the lianas cling to the forest trees. With care and God’s blessing, I think we may save him yet.”

XXXI.

The Years that the Canker-worm hath Eaten.

“Tell him, when he is a man, to reverence the dreams of his youth.”

SCHILLER.

Melchior del Salto felt as if heaven had begun already for him. It was no wonder. His limbs, freed from their galling fetters, lay in luxurious rest on a couch of vicuña-skin; his toil-worn, well-nigh crippled frame was stretched at ease the whole day long; and his ears, so sadly used to blasphemies and cries of pain, had only to drink in the gentle tones of Fray Fernando, or the quiet words of José. He was very happy, and deeply thankful. Still, he did not recover. He had no disease; he was only worn out—“used up.” It was time. Sixteen years was a good term of service at the oar, even for a strong man.

Melchior’s strength had been failing for more than a year; though the lengthened swoon, that drew attention to the fact, was caused by the agitation of his interview with Fray Fernando. He afterwards told his foster-brother that deliverance from bondage had come to him just at the right moment: not too soon, else he might have had to return to a strange unfamiliar world, like a ghost come back from the dead; not too late, since it was good to rest for a little while, ere he went forth on his journey to that home wherein he should rest for ever.

Only one regretful thought troubled the calm of those declining hours. And at last, one day, when José had gone to Lima, and Fray Fernando alone was sitting by his side, the secret sorrow found words.

“Do you want anything, my brother?” the monk asked tenderly, noticing that Melchior’s eyes were fixed upon him with an earnest inquiring gaze.

“Nothing, Señor Don Alfonso. Except what I am trying to find, and cannot.”

“Perhaps I could find it for you.”

“Would to God you could!” Melchior answered with a mournful smile. “I am looking, in that worn, old face of yours, for the dear, young, noble face my heart so loved and reverenced in the days gone by.”

“Then indeed you look in vain, my brother. Don Alfonso Garçia de Fanez is dead and buried long ago; and he who sits here is only Fray Fernando, the Franciscan friar.”

“But this I would fain know, señor, and my brother—where is Don Alfonso buried, and what has he left behind him? He should not have passed away without mark or remembrance. For he was made for great things.”

“So seemed many another who has come to ruin, as he.”

“There was no other like Don Alfonso.—Nay, let me speak, señor. In the galleys I spoke but little, and very soon I shall speak no more. You were the passion, the idol, of my boyhood and my youth. And even now I do not wonder. You learned with ease all that other men learn with pain. You knew a thousand things I had never dreamed of, yet you knew all I knew also. You did all that I could do, and better than I.”

“You say too much for me, Melchior.”

“I say the truth, señor. Always you made us feel that you were more than you did; that the ready stroke and spring at the bull-feast, the thrust and parry in the tilting-ring, were but earnests given of great deeds yet to be. O brother, brother, do you not remember all those old talks in the orange-grove by the river-side? All those plans, that came to nothing? How you were to raise a corps of volunteers, and help to rend Ireland (that fair jewel, you called it) from the crown of the English usurper? And how you were then to settle and colonize, taking me with you, and getting for me also a grant of land among the saffron-kilted kernes? My brother Francisco was to be our priest, and Miguel and Ruy to till the ground.”

“Dreams—all dreams!” Fray Fernando answered sadly. “They are no more to me now than the tales José loves to tell us of his Inca forefathers.”

“But, señor, my brother, you yourself told me long ago that the dreams of youth are the flowers, the doings of manhood the fruit. Woe for the flowers that they have fallen, and left no fruit behind!”

“The tree was blighted, and is dead. Whence, then, could the fruit come?”

“That work was mine. There, señor, is the thought that wrings my heart.”

“Put that thought away from you, dear and generous brother,” Fray Fernando eagerly interposed. “It was not your work; it was my fate.”

“What do you mean by that word ‘fate,’ señor? I am a poor ignorant man, yet I know this: it was no fate that happened to me, but the will of God. How much more you—wise, learned, and a churchman!”

“I am learned in nothing, Melchior, save in sorrow.—But this is ungrateful,” he added presently. “God has healed my worst sorrow in giving you back to me.”

“He will heal the rest too,” said Melchior. “And though the flowers faded so long ago, I think the fruit will come yet.”

Fray Fernando sighed. Then his own secret trouble rose half unconsciously to his lips. “I am not at peace with God,” he said. “I have trifled with His grace in His sacraments.”

“I know but one way of making peace with God, señor. That is through Christ. He is our way, and He is our peace.”

Fray Fernando looked somewhat surprised. “How do you know that, Melchior?” he asked.

“Because, Señor Don Alfonso, I have trod the way, and I have found the peace.”