The Spanish Cavalier Part 6

Alcala gave few signs of life during the long weary hours of darkness.

Occasionally he clutched his hand, sometimes his lips slightly moved and his brow was contracted with pain. Once a few scarcely articulate words escaped him: "Not a convent--no, not a convent!" Towards morning, however, the wounded man sank into quiet sleep; and Lucius felt that he could now leave him with a more easy mind.

"It is dawn--you had better depart; thanks, thanks for your kindness to him," murmured Inez, as a slight sound of movement made her aware that Lucius had risen from his seat. The Englishman bent his head to whisper a word of comfort to the poor watcher before he quitted her side.

"Senorita, trust in the mercy of G.o.d, and hope. I believe that your brother will be spared to you yet."

CHAPTER XI.

FAILURE.

Lucius was dizzy from want of sleep when he left the mansion of the Aguileras and went forth into the fresh morning air. But he had no time for repose. He could but partake of a simple breakfast at his lodging before beginning the week's work in the Calle San Francisco.

Lepine's presence in the counting-house and factory was now more indispensable than usual, as he would, at least till a subst.i.tute could be found for Alcala, have to do the young Spaniard's work in addition to his own.

The mind of Lucius Lepine was very full of his friend. What he had seen of the interior of the fine old house in the Calle de San Jose had made Lucius sure of what he had long suspected, that Alcala de Aguilera, though of high lineage and aristocratic bearing, was yet exceedingly poor. Lucius doubted that the wounded man's family would be able to procure for him even the common comforts which his exhausted state required. Never had Lepine been more tempted to wish himself rich. He could give no further pecuniary help; he had cut down already to a very narrow limit his own personal expenses; his savings had been lately forwarded to England to pay for a brother's schooling.

Lucius saw no way of supplying the need of Alcala, unless he could interest his employer in the behalf of his friend. Mr. Pa.s.smore had a well-filled purse, his business profits were large, and the disburs.e.m.e.nt of twenty, thirty, or fifty doubloons would not alter his style of living, or cause the absence of one dainty from his luxurious table.

But Peter Pa.s.smore was not a man from whom it was pleasant to ask a favour, or easy to draw a donation. Lucius, when he made up his mind to plead for a.s.sistance for Alcala, was doing for his friend a thing which nothing short of starvation would have induced him to do for himself.

Lepine had been for two hours in the counting-house before he heard the heavy step and puffing breathing of Mr. Pa.s.smore.

"So your friend, the picador, was yesterday carried home dead," was the first sentence with which the master of the iron-works greeted his clerk.

"Not dead, sir, I am thankful to say, but gored and sorely injured,"

was the reply.

"How he escaped with life is a miracle," said the manufacturer; "but of course the chulos went to his help. It was indeed a sight to make one hold one's breath! The bull, a magnificent brute, rushed on with the force of a steam-engine. The horse received the goring thrust full in his chest, so was put at once out of pain, more lucky than the wretched hacks usually are. Of all barbarous sports invented by man or by demon, bull-fighting is to my mind the most atrocious."

"The sufferings which I witnessed last night," said Lucius, "make me more ready than ever to subscribe to that opinion;" and he gave a graphic description of what he had seen in the Calle de San Jose, but as briefly as possible, for Pa.s.smore was never a patient listener, at least to the tale of other's woe. But the glimpse given by Lucius of the poverty of Alcala's home made the manufacturer more indignant than ever.

"Not the means of getting comforts!" he exclaimed, striking his flabby hand on the desk; "then why, in the name of common sense, did the madman, when in the receipt of a handsome salary--punctually paid--choose to ruin not only himself but his family, in order to gratify some fantastic, most incomprehensible whim of his own?"

"I understand that De Aguilera had some mistaken idea of honour,"

began Lucius; but his employer would not suffer him to finish the sentence.

"Honour! fiddlestick and nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Pa.s.smore. "What has a clerk in an ironware factory to do with honour? Nay, you need not fire up, young man; the blow does not hit you. My notion of true honour is for a man to pay his way and earn his pay; and I'm satisfied that you do both. But for this wretched Spanish pride I've no patience! It is anything but honourable in a man to take the bread from the mouths of his family by squandering all his money on finery only fit for the stage; it is anything but honourable to cheat his employer by spending on bull-sticking the time which should have been given to book-keeping--a much wiser, safer, and, to any man with an atom of sense, a far more agreeable employment!"

Lucius saw that it was utterly useless to attempt to draw a single dollar from Mr. Pa.s.smore for the relief of the Aguileras. He was disappointed, but scarcely surprised. It was impossible to refute what the manufacturer had said, however unpalatable truth might be, conveyed in a manner so coa.r.s.e.

Another disappointment awaited Lucius Lepine. After a day of unusual toil, rendered more irksome by the heat of the weather acting on a frame wearied by a long night of watching, Lucius, as soon as his work was done, set out for the Calle de San Jose. He was anxious to know the state of his friend, and again to take his place by his bedside.

Should the improvement in Alcala's state continue--and Lucius, who was hopeful by nature, regarded recovery as probable--what opportunities there would be during his convalescence for quiet religious converse!

Lucius felt that he could and would say by the bedside what he could not say in the counting-house or the Prado. Aguilera would have to pa.s.s many long weary hours of confinement in his apartment, and then his mind would be free to receive the good seed of the Word.

"Into how rich a soil," thought the young Englishman, "that seed will be dropped; and who can estimate what may be the result, not only to Alcala, but to others whom he may influence! The man who dared face a horrible death for love or honour, must become a Christian hero if once he embrace evangelical truth."

It was with a feeling of triumph, that made him forget for awhile personal weariness and anxiety for his friend, that Lucius glanced again at the placard-covered boarding which had arrested his attention on the Sat.u.r.day night preceding the bull-fight. The invitation to the Plaza de Toros had either been torn down as out of date, or covered with more recent advertis.e.m.e.nts; the charge from the Bishop of Cadiz, in all the clearness of its black type, remained there still. Lucius smiled at the thought that he himself was about to join the band of those who were attacking Rome in her stronghold; his second attempt to strike at superst.i.tious error was, he trusted, not likely to end like his first.

Lucius soon found himself at the entrance of the Aguilera mansion. The grating at the end of the arched pa.s.sage was shut, which it had not been on the occasions of his two previous visits.

The Englishman rang gently, but his summons remained unanswered. He rang again rather more loudly, and then walked up to the grating. He heard a heavy step crossing the patio, and through the perforated iron screen which divided them saw the bent form of Teresa approaching towards him.

"How fares the senor?" inquired Lucius.

"Better, thanks to the blessed Santa Veronica, a lock of whose holy hair has been under the caballero's pillow," was the old woman's reply.

"Pray open the gate; I have come to nurse your master to-night," said Lucius.

"The caballero wants none of your nursing," exclaimed Teresa, in her harshest tone; "and if you wait till I open the gate for you, why, you may stand there till the Guadalquivir runs dry! Away with you and your white Judaism![12] To have the like of you prowling about sick men's beds is enough to make the bones of good old Torquemada[13] shake in the grave!"

Teresa's form vanished from behind the grating, and Lucius, not a little annoyed at this unexpected obstacle to his intercourse with Alcala, returned to his cheerless lodging.

Evening after evening the young Englishman renewed his attempt to gain admission into the mansion of De Aguilera, but always with a similar result. In vain he hoped for a sight of the senorita; she at least, he believed, would not shut out the friend of her brother. Lucius saw no one during repeated visits but the bandy-legged, ill-favoured Chico, or the fanatic Teresa. The latter as jealously guarded the entrance to forbidden ground as ever did fabled dragon of old. As regarded Chico, the case was different. Lucius more than suspected that when this servant answered his summons, the grating might have been unlocked by means of a silver key. But Lucius was too poor to give bribes, and the disappointed Chico became almost as rude as Teresa herself. The young foreigner only exposed himself to insult and abuse by his attempts to visit Alcala.

"This is my just punishment for former neglect of a clear duty," said Lucius to himself one evening, as he turned from the Moorish archway.

"There was a time when an open gate was before me, but now the gate is shut."

FOOTNOTES:

[12] "White Judaism, which includes all kinds of heresy, such as Lutheranism, Freemasonry, and the like." See the Spanish priest's definition of the term, in the seventeenth chapter of Borrows' "Bible in Spain."

[13] A celebrated Spanish inquisitor.

CHAPTER XII.

DARKNESS AND LIGHT.

It is not the tongue of man alone that can speak to the soul of man; G.o.d's rod hath often a solemn voice, and the conscience cannot but hear it. Much was pa.s.sing through the mind of Alcala of which those around him knew nothing, as he lay with closed eyes and silent lips upon his couch of pain. He was often supposed to be sleeping, when thoughts on the deepest subjects were absorbing his mind.

The horror of the bull-fight had been to Alcala what the earthquake was to the jailer of Philippi; it had startled his soul into uttering the cry, "What must I do to be saved?" Not that any dark deed of guilt lay on the young Spaniard's conscience. In a place where the standard of morality is low, De Aguilera had led a life comparatively blameless; the picture of maidenly purity ever before him in the sister whom he tenderly loved, had kept him from many an error.

Alcala had little to reproach himself with as regarded man, but he had become conscious that he had offended his Maker, and had never yet made his peace with his G.o.d.

Alcala's ideas in regard to the Supreme Being were vague, as might be expected in a man who had never studied the Scriptures. The Spaniard did not know G.o.d, and therefore did not love Him. Alcala regarded the Almighty as a Being awful in purity and terrible in justice, who required an unhesitating obedience, an absorbing devotion, which the young man knew had never been rendered by himself. If the horn of the bull had gone a little deeper, if it had sent the sinner to the dread tribunal above, how would the disembodied soul have endured the searching scrutiny of an Omniscient Judge, and what would His awful verdict have been? Such was the question which Alcala asked of his conscience, and conscience gave no answer of peace.

The wounded man rather submitted to than sought the ministrations of Bonifacio; they satisfied neither his heart nor his reason. Alcala heard of the sanct.i.ty of the (so-called) Catholic Church, the efficacy of her sacraments, the power of her priests, the intercession of martyrs, the wonders to be wrought by fragment of wood or morsel of bone,--he heard of all these things with weariness and distaste.

Alcala was as a man perishing of thirst to whom is held out an elaborately chased cup, within which there is not a single drop of life-giving water.

Bonifacio's rebukes were even more trying to the sufferer than were the priest's exhortations. The confessor tried to probe his penitent's conscience, but never laid his finger on the real wound. Alcala's remorse was not for having read some books that did not increase his reverence for the hierarchy of Rome, nor for not having more frequently laid bare his inmost thoughts to a tonsured fellow-sinner.

He could not be argued into believing it to be a crime to have had a Protestant friend. It was not recollection of such transgressions that was troubling the cavalier's soul with the yet unanswered question, "What must I do to be saved?"

Though Alcala never spoke to his sister of his mental struggles, she perceived, with the quick instinct of affection, that his mind was not at ease. Inez saw also that Bonifacio was by no means satisfied with her brother's spiritual state. This was distressing to the gentle Inez. "The pious father," she said to herself, "cannot know how good is Alcala; I do not think that there is a cavalier to be compared to him in all Andalusia."