Part 25

“At last, I laid my hand in hers, and I said, ‘Mother, if he lives, I will bring him back to you, God helping me.’ How I came to promise that, without fear or faltering, dead against all human probability of fulfilment, to this hour I know not. The words seemed put into my mouth; I could not but speak them. I knew she knew _the worst_; and whether or not my rash promise gave her any comfort, I could scarcely tell. But you all know, comrades, a promise is a promise. If a man cannot redeem it, he can die in the effort; and death wipes all scores out. So I sold my share in the _Royal Tudor_; and it brought me a goodly sum, for God had prospered us. We bought the _Sea Snake_, then almost ready for the Spanish Main. My father helped largely therein; and, moreover, invested a share for my brother James, who must needs go out with me. These gentlemen, my friends, have shares also. We were chartered for the Pacific, to get sandal-wood.”

“Ay, sandal-wood, to be sure!—and _nothing_ else!” It was young James Noble who spoke, glancing round the board with a significant smile.

“Hold thy tongue, lad!” said Captain Noble. “Nothing else that matters now,—especially in the presence of these honourable gentlemen;” and he looked at Fray Fernando and José.

“Who, as our captain seems to have forgotten, do not understand a word he has been saying for the last ten minutes,” said the chaplain.

“Indeed, I did forget,” said Captain George Noble, looking disconcerted. “Prithee, Sir Thomas, ask them to pardon me. Say to them what I would say in their own tongue, if I could. We owe it to their Christian charity that Cousin Walter was kept alive until deliverance came to him. But for them, he tells us, he would have sunk long ago under his bitter and cruel bondage. Thanks, first to God, from whom all goodness comes; then to these, His servants—‘This our brother was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found.’”

Sir Thomas Hartfield interpreted what was said to Fray Fernando and José. But the hearty clasping of hands and drinking of healths that followed, with true British cheering, needed no interpreter.

One word more in Spanish was addressed to the strangers, and this time it was Walter Grey who spoke. “I have told Cousin George, and all our friends here present, that you are truly one with us in faith and hope. You will come with us to England? And as surely as friends, homes, welcomes await us there, so surely all these are yours as much as they are ours.”

With glistening eye and quivering lip Fray Fernando thanked him, and accepted his offer, for himself and for José.

XLIII.

Foam of the Sea.

“Ask’st thou my home? My pathway wouldst thou know, When from thine eye my floating shadow passed?”

SCHILLER.

It was night—glorious tropical night—surely “not made for slumber.” There was no moon, but her place was well supplied by the soft radiance of large luminous stars—Argo in the zenith, the Southern Cross near the horizon, while, far away towards the north, “the stars of the Great Bear shone with almost fearful magnitude.”[55] Nor was the deep that lieth under less marvellous for glory and for beauty than the sky that stretched above. Beneath the vessel’s keel burned a sheet of living fire, kindled by mysterious phosphoric lights. Jets of flame—blue, and red, and purple—flashed out here and there; while a shoal of dolphins, sporting about the ship, cut the waves in long circling lines, that gleamed and sparkled with prismatic hues.

Two, perhaps three, were enjoying this sight from the deck of the _Sea Snake_. Fray Fernando and Walter Grey sat together, now talking in low quiet words, now silent, but always in true communion each with the other. A little further off José stood, leaning against a mast, either wrapped in his own thoughts or sharing those of his friends.

The strength of all three had been sorely wasted by previous sufferings; but quiet of mind, fresh sea air, and unbounded care and kindness from every one on board the English ship, were gradually restoring them. Even Fray Fernando, whose recovery had at first been looked on as more than doubtful, both by others and by himself, was now improving day by day. A little while ago José,—who, as ever, waited upon him with the most devoted love,—said to him, his dark face glowing with thankful joy, “I knew it, patre, from the very hour they rescued us; you will not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Only his limbs, enfeebled and well-nigh crippled by long confinement, had not yet regained, if ever they would regain, their former strength and activity. Two or three turns up and down the deck were still abundant exercise for him.

And now Walter Grey was pouring into his sympathizing ear a detailed description of the quiet English home, “among the rose-hung lanes of Kent,” that would, he hoped, be his home also. He was confident that his mother and Fray Fernando would thoroughly understand and admire each other. He could talk and think of that mother now, not indeed without deep penitence for his wrong-doing, but without the aching remorseful pain, the great shadow of doubt and dread, which had lain on his heart so long. He thanked God for keeping alive her hope for him throughout those sad years. For he knew that, with her, hope meant prayer; and he believed that, but for the prayers which, like unseen angels, kept guard about him, he would not now be sitting on the deck of the _Sea Snake_ a free and thankful man, but dead long ago in his despair and anguish.

Something of this he even ventured to hint to Fray Fernando; for in starlight much may be spoken that the glare of day would frighten into silence.

“Yes,” Fray Fernando answered, after a thoughtful pause, “I do rejoice, Walter, at the prospect of seeing your happy English home. If a measure of strength is given back to me—and I begin to think God means to give it—He will find work for His servant, with whom He hath ever dealt so graciously, beneath the stars of the northern hemisphere, as well as under the Southern Cross—and for my José too.”

“Ah! as to that,” said Walter, in a lighter tone, but very heartily, “Don José Viracocha Inca will be a great hero amongst us. We shall never keep such a wonder in our quiet home. The Queen and the Court will rob us of him all too quickly.”

At that moment the captain’s loud, cheerful voice was heard from the fore-deck, “Cousin Walter, I want you here.”

Walter rose, saying to Fray Fernando, “I will come back as soon as I can.”

When he was gone, José came slowly forward and stood before the monk.

“Patre,” he said, and his voice was low and sorrowful,—“patre, listen to me.”

“My son, what is it?” Fray Fernando questioned, startled by his tone.

“My father, be patient with me. I have that to say which wrings my heart.” Here he paused; then, suddenly pointing to the luminous waters, he exclaimed, “Look there, patre!” A sportive dolphin had described a larger circle than usual; it burned for a moment, a diamond ring of flashing foam, then faded quickly away. “Viracocha is but the foam of the sea. He comes and goes like that.”

“I do not understand you, José. What are you talking of?” asked the bewildered Fray Fernando.

“My father, if Christ the King were now to call your son and servant to His home, instead of yours, would you not give him up?”

Fray Fernando trembled and grew very pale. “What mean these strange words?” he faltered. “Are you ill?”

“No, patre.”

“I know well you have suffered, and far more than you would ever acknowledge. But surely life is coming back to you, as it is to me. Is it not so? Speak to me, José—my son José!” There was anguish in his tone.

“Yes, patre, life is coming back to me; and with life, a message from my King. Patre, patre,—I know not how to tell that message. Yet, woe is me if I withhold it—if I fail to obey!”

“A message! What message, José?”

“‘Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.’”

Fray Fernando started—shuddered, as if an arrow on an errand of death had suddenly pierced his heart.

“José, you may be deceived—mistaken,” he said hurriedly. “When first did you feel or fancy this?”

“Patre, when I lay in the dark hold of the _Trionfo_, He stooped from His golden throne, looked with pitying eye upon my great anguish for my people, and gave me rest and peace. Even with that peace came that message first. But I only smiled in my heart, and said to Him, ‘Inca, thou knowest all. I would speak for Thee if I could, but Thou art calling me instead to die for Thee.’ But when He took us both out of the horrible pit, gave me the dying charge of Don Francisco Solis to deliver, and then restored you to life, I heard his voice again.—Patre, it is just this way with me. In my sore hunger and thirst He reached me, with His own right hand, golden fruit from the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. I ate, and thirst and hunger passed away. I was satisfied. But within the golden fruit the seed lies hid; and he who eats the fruit must needs plant the seed. That charge is laid upon him.”

“And you would leave me, José?” The words were quiet, but depths of tenderness,—of anguish,—of entreaty, lay veiled beneath them.

José’s dusky countenance grew pale, and his steadfast lip trembled. Unconsciously he wrung his hands together in the bitter pain of his heart. “Had the King asked my life,” he said with deep emotion, “it were given readily. Now, He asks more. But He cannot ask too much—not too much!” After a pause he added, in a more natural voice, “Still, I have no right to make my burnt-offering of that which belongs to another man. Nor would He accept such. Wherefore, patre, if you—you who bought me, you who own me—if you forbid me to do this thing, I yield, and I go with you to England.”

Fray Fernando’s heart leaped to his lips. The dreaded separation averted, José his—his altogether, his for ever—all for one word! And yet, sorely as he longed to do it, he _could not_ speak that word. He dared not.

At last he said, evasively, “I scarcely understand yet what it is you purpose.”

“Patre, in a few days the _Sea Snake_ must put in at a place on the coast of the mainland known to the captain, to take in water for the long voyage. Thence I can make my way back to my own country and my own people, and give them the message that burns on my heart and on my lip—the message of love from their King and mine.”

“And travel first many hundred leagues through unknown lands, filled with barbarous tribes? José! José! you will never reach Peru alive.”

“Haply yes; haply no. Alike in either case it is well with me.”

“And then,” Fray Fernando continued with anxious haste, “even suppose you do, there are the priests and friars. You will be hunted down as a heretic.”

José smiled, and pointed to the waves beneath them. “The white men know as little what we talk and think among ourselves as we know the thoughts of God’s innocent creatures down yonder,” he said. “Once with my people, I am safe. But for _you_, patre—” His voice faltered, died away.

After a long pause he resumed, stretching out his right hand,—“Yet, if you are willing to send me forth on this service, and bid me God-speed,—take this hand of mine in yours.”

There was a struggle in Fray Fernando’s heart. Not long if measured by time,—not five minutes’ work, perhaps. Yet he was years older when it ended. He took the thin brown hand in his and pressed it. “God’s will be done in thee and me,” he said firmly.

“Amen,” José murmured, and turned to go. But turning back, he added, the trembling of his voice kept under by an iron will, “Patre, I think that on the happy shores of the good land beyond the sea, God will make His promise true to you, who have left all for His sake—‘an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands.’”

Far away on the other side of the world, in a region José never knew, stands a wild mountain famed in song. Near its summit is a lonely rock, consecrated by a strange legend. It is said that he who dares to sleep upon it will be found at daybreak with life extinct;—with reason fled for ever;—or else endowed with the matchless gift of song, heir to the poet’s immortal crown. There are lonely places of conflict to which souls are sometimes led, not unlike the rock of Cader Idris. Sore is the peril of madness—of despair, which means death; but if God answers His servant from the secret place of thunder, and with His own right hand upholds and delivers him, he will come down from that mountain with face transfigured, and lips baptized with living fire. It is to such God gives His messages. And those messages they must needs deliver, or die.

Days and nights glided by, noiselessly and all too swiftly,—until at last there came a day unlike any before or after. A day “much to be remembered,” marked evermore in Fray Fernando’s calendar, though not with white.

All through its sultry hours the sun blazed down upon the grimy hull of the _Sea Snake_, lying moored in a quiet bay. Dense woods of lofty smooth-stemmed palms with fan like feathery crowns, and luxuriant thick-leaved ceibas, met the pebbly beach, and fringed the bay on either side; while the one bold headland of granite that formed its southern extremity stood out into the sea, bare and bleak, save for a solitary cluster of graceful cocoa-palms that crowned its summit. Already it is late in the afternoon. The last water-cask has been rolled on board; the last loiterer has come back from the woods with his spoil of cocoa-nuts and bananas. The wind is favourable; the sails are set; soon the shores of the New World will glimmer and fade away beneath the eyes that watch them from the deck of the _Sea Snake_. If it were only on this fair earth that watching loving eyes must look their last!

Every one on board, from the captain to the cabin-boy, has wrung the brown hand of José, and prayed God to speed him on his way. And more than one manly eye has glistened through unaccustomed tears at his earnest, simple words of grateful farewell. Walter Grey he has embraced, with a fervent “God be with thee, true friend.”

And now, as he stands for the last time on the deck of the English ship, all see him—but he sees only one.

Yet once more he turns to Fray Fernando, kneels at his feet—“My father, bless thy son.”

Fray Fernando raises him, folds him in his arms—“God’s best blessings rest on thee, now and ever—my son—my son!” Heart beats against heart, lip burns against lip, in one long passionate embrace. But the end must be. “We shall meet—yet,” Fray Fernando murmurs.

“When they come from the East and from the West to the feast of the great King,” José answered. Then the white-robed figure descended the ship’s side, entered the little boat, and was rowed on shore. There were others besides Fray Fernando who could not see for tears how it disappeared into the forest.

But by-and-by, as the ship sailed leisurely along under the headland, José Viracocha was seen once more. Beneath the tall graceful palms, the feathery fringes of their great leaves quivering in the evening breeze, and the crimson-tinted clouds of sunset glowing over them, he stood, a statue of bronze, his dark hair floating loose as he waved his scarlet cap in parting salutation.

“Child of the Sun—Child of Light! God guard and keep thee, until one day He set us both in His light together!” Fray Fernando prayed weeping.

But the sun set; the ship sailed on; the cocoa-palms, the rocky headland, the forest-clad shore faded into distance, and were seen no more. And with them passed away the Foam of the Sea. Never more, except in dreams, did those dark wistful eyes look into Fray Fernando’s, or that beloved voice breathe any song or legend from the “lengua del Inca” into his listening ear. Never more on earth.

XLIV.

Old England Again.

“Waft, waft, ye winds, His story: And you, ye waters, roll, Till, like a sea of glory, It spreads from pole to pole. Till o’er our ransomed nature The Lamb for sinners slain, Redeemer, King, Creator, In bliss returns to reign.”

HEBER.

Once more we revisit the old manor-house in Kent. It is the evening hour. The great hall no longer looks gloomy and cheerless, for a noble wood-fire blazes and crackles on the hearth, lamps are lighted, and servants are passing to and fro, placing bread and meat and ale upon a board spread with snowy drapery. And soon the family take their seats around it. A tall fair-haired man presides, wearing a cassock and Geneva bands—the Reverend Walter Grey, known far and near as a faithful shepherd of souls and true servant of his divine Master. Opposite sits his pretty, useful, loving wife, Dame Lilias—after the fashion of those times still often called Dame Lilias Noble. There are two fair children, glowing with health and happiness, and just now clinging lovingly to a gray-haired lady, whose thoughtful chastened face wears that look, rarely seen, but unmistakable, of one who has passed through suffering into peace,—who has trod the great water-floods upheld by a Saviour’s hand, and ever afterwards retains the memory of that touch. Lastly, there sits beside Walter Grey a man whom certainly “no one could have passed without remark.” His dress is plain, and might be taken for that of an English merchant or yeoman; but southern suns have browned his cheek and kindled the fire that burns in his dark eye. His frame is worn; health has never quite returned since that long agony in the hold of the Spanish ship, yet enough is left to him for much labour in the cause dearest to his heart. Here he is only an honoured guest; his home lies far away, amidst the din and smoke of that great city whither come the exiles from foreign lands to whose wants of soul and body he delights to minister.

On this occasion Fray Fernando has come down to Kent to be present at the baptism of Walter’s third and youngest child, for whom he has promised to answer at the font.

One absorbing topic fills all hearts to-night, and would have filled all mouths, but for tender consideration for the feelings of the Spanish guest. It was the year 1588—the glorious year of “England’s Salamis.” Scarcely has one moon run her course since “the great Armada, boastfully called ‘Invincible,’ was, by thirty of Her Majesty’s ships of war and a few of our own merchants, beaten and jostled together, even from the Lizard in Cornwall—first to Portland, from Portland to Calais, and from Calais driven with squibs from their anchors, were chased out of sight of England, round about Scotland and Ireland.”[56] Even now, as then, England has good reason to give thanks for the result of that conflict. And even now, as then, England ascribes the glory, not to her gallant navy or her stout merchantmen, not to the brave hearts and hands of her dauntless sons, but to Him, and Him alone, who was unto her “a strong tower from the face of her enemies,” and who “blew with His wind, and they were scattered.”

Just then the great nation’s heart was thrilling with the joy of deliverance from a near and terrible danger. There were many private as well as public causes of rejoicing. The gentle heart of Lilias was very glad, since her three brave brothers, Harry, George, and James, were safe and well, and honoured for signal gallantry in the hour of danger. Nor was Fray Fernando without his interest in the great event, though he did not allude to it until, the pleasant social meal and the family worship that succeeded it being over, all had retired to their places of rest, except himself and Walter Grey.

As they sat together by the fire, Walter addressed his friend in Spanish. “We are determined to keep possession of you this time,” he said; “I hope you are prepared.”

Fray Fernando shook his head, and answered in the same language. “But for your letter, and the pressing message sent me through your good uncle, I should not have left London at all. Those crowds of miserable soldiers and seamen, my poor unhappy countrymen, who are now in the city, waiting for the means of transport beyond the seas, need all, and more than all, that one man can do for them.”

“You must own, at all events,” said Walter, “that our gracious Queen is behaving with a large-hearted generosity that beseems her well, in sending these her enemies, who came to destroy her and her people, freely to their homes again.”

“True,” said Fray Fernando. “And your uncle and others contribute in a noble and Christian spirit to the relief and comfort of the prisoners; thus returning good for evil. Nor am I without hope that some of these poor captives may take home with them, instead of the English spoils they thought to gain, a treasure of which they never dreamed,—even the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God grant it! He only knows how my heart yearns over those my brethren according to the flesh.”

“I have some thoughts,” Walter answered, “of going back with you, and helping for a season in your good work; that is, if I can provide for my duties here.” And then he talked a little of his own parish with its cares and interests, of Lilias, and of the children.

“You have not yet told me,” Fray Fernando said, “what name you have chosen for my god-son.”

“We are all agreed,” Walter replied with a smile, “in giving him the English form of a dear friend’s honoured name—Ferdinand.”

“Nay, my friend, not so,” returned Fray Fernando. “Do not choose _that_ name.”

“And why not, my friend and father?”

“For many reasons. In the first place, it is no name of mine. My true baptismal name, unused for half a lifetime, would be strange to your ears, and indeed to my own now. But if, indeed, you list to please the wayward fancy of a lonely man, then call your boy for me by the name of the patriarch’s best loved son—the separate from his brethren, upon whom the blessing came—‘Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.’”

“So be it then, with all my heart,” said Walter Grey; “and God add his blessing to the child. It is a name that I too have cause to remember with grateful love.” After a pause, he asked rather suddenly, “Father, do you ever revisit in dreams that far-distant land where you and I first saw each other’s faces?”

“Indeed, Walter,” Fray Fernando answered, with a smile half bright, half sorrowful, “I dream of little else. Night after night I seem to gaze upon the snowy line of the Andes as we used to see them from Callao, or the grand peaks of crystal that pierce the sky of Cerro Blanco; or perchance I look down from the height on the lovely vale of Nasca winding far beneath. Sometimes I wander through those marvellous tropical forests, pushing my way amongst the thick shrubs and the tangled lianas, and gathering great white and purple flowers—dream-flowers, yet not more wonderful than those I have actually seen and touched. Anon we are floating over crystal seas, with the mild light of the Southern Cross shining in the far heavens above us. All is so real, so present, that I cannot choose but take it for a pledge that these eyes shall yet behold again that new, familiar world beyond the western wave. Yes, Walter, when the King comes, and this beautiful ruined earth is cleansed and renovated, and made fit for His throne and habitation, I dare to cherish a hope that my foot shall press those shores once more—that I shall walk there with—with—” But here his voice failed,—died away into that silence which is more eloquent than many words, and often like a fragrant balm preserves and consecrates our dearest names.

After a pause of sympathy, Walter resumed—“There is much for the King to do when He comes.”