XXV.
Waiting
"Our night is dreary, and dim our day,
And if thou turn thy face away,
We are sinful, feeble, and helpless dust,
And have none to look to and none to trust."
Hogg.
Thus was Carlos roused from the dull apathy of forced inaction. With the courage and energy that are born of hope, he made the few and simple preparations for his flight that were in his power. He also visited as many as he could of his afflicted friends, feeling that his ministry among them was now drawing to a close.
He rejoined his uncle's family as usual at the evening meal. Don Balthazar, the empleado, was not present at its commencement, but soon came in, looking so much disturbed that his father asked, "What is amiss?"
"There is nothing amiss, señor and my father," answered the young man, as he raised a large cup of Manzanilla to his lips.
"Is there any news in the city?" asked his brother Don Manuel.
Don Balthazar set down the empty cup. "No great news," he answered. "A curse upon those Lutheran dogs that are setting the place in an uproar."
"What! more arrests," said Don Manuel the elder. "It is awful. The number reached eight hundred yesterday. Who is taken now?"
"A priest from the country, Doctor Juan Gonzalez, and a friar named Olmedo. But that is nothing. They might take all the Churchmen in all the Spains, and fling them into the lowest dungeons of the Triana for me. It is a different matter when we come to speak of ladies – ladies, too, of the first families and highest consideration."
A slight shudder, and a kind of forward movement, as if to catch what was coming, passed round the table. But Don Balthazar seemed reluctant to say more.
"Is it any of our acquaintances?" asked the sharp, high-pitched voice of Doña Sancha at last.
"Every one is acquainted with Don Pedro Garçia de Xeres y Bohorques. It is – I tremble to tell you – his daughter."
"Which?" cried Gonsalvo, in tones that turned the gaze of all on his livid face and fierce eager eyes.
"St. Iago, brother! You need not look thus at me. Is it my fault? – It is the learned one, of course, Doña Maria. Poor lady, she may well wish now that she had never meddled with anything beyond her Breviary."
"Our Lady and all the saints defend us! Doña Maria in prison for heresy – horrible! Who will be safe now?" the ladies exclaimed, crossing themselves shudderingly.
But the men used stronger language. Fierce and bitter were the anathemas they heaped upon heresy and heretics. Yet it is only just to say that, had they dared, they might have spoken differently. Probably in their secret hearts they meant the curses less for the victims than for their oppressors; and had Spain been a land in which men might speak what they thought, Gonzales de Munebrãga would have been devoted to a lower place in hell than Luther or Calvin.
Only two were silent. Before the eye of Carlos rose the sweet thoughtful face of the young girl, as he had seen it last, radiant with the faith and hope kindled by the sublime words of heavenly promise spoken by Losada. But the sight of another face – still, rigid, deathlike – drove that vision away. Gonsalvo sat opposite to him at the table. And had he never heard the strange story Doña Inez told him, that look would have revealed it all.
Neither curse nor prayer passed the white lips of Gonsalvo. Not one of all the bitter words, found so readily on slighter occasions, came now to his aid. The fiercest outburst of passion would have seemed less terrible to Carlos than this unnatural silence.
Yet none of the others, after the first moment, appeared to notice it. Or if they did observe anything strange in the look and manner of Gonsalvo, it was imputed to physical pain, from which he often suffered, but for which he rejected, and even resented, sympathy, until at last it ceased to be offered him. Having given what expression they dared to their outraged feelings, they once more turned their attention to the unfinished repast. It was not at all a cheerful meal, yet it was duly partaken of, except by Gonsalvo and Carlos, both of whom left the table as soon as they could without attracting attention.
Willingly would Carlos have endeavoured to console his cousin; but he did not dare to speak to him, or even to allow him to guess that he saw the anguish of his soul.
One day still remained to him before his flight. In the morning, though not very early, he set out to finish his farewell visits to his friends. He had not gone many paces from the house, when he observed a gentleman in plain black clothing, with sword and cloak, look at him regardfully as he passed. A moment afterwards the same person, having apparently changed his mind as to the direction in which he wished to go, hurried by him at a rapid pace; and with a murmured "Pardon, señor," thrust a billet into his hand.
Not doubting that one of his friends had sent an emissary to warn him of some danger, Carlos turned into one of the narrow winding lanes with which the semi-oriental city abounds, and finding himself safe from observation, cast a hasty glance at the billet.
His eye just caught the words, "His reverence the Lord Inquisitor – Don Gonsalvo – after midnight – revelations of importance – strict secrecy." What did it all mean? Did the writer wish to inform him that his cousin intended betraying him to the Inquisition? He did not believe it. But the sound of approaching footsteps made him thrust the paper hastily away; and in another moment his sleeve was grasped by Gonsalvo.
"Give it to me," said his cousin in a breathless whisper.
"Give you what?"
"The paper that born idiot and marplot put into thy hands, mistaking thee for me. Curse the fool! Did he not know I was lame?"
Carlos showed the note, still holding it. "Is this what you mean?" he asked.
"You have read it! Honourable!" cried Gonsalvo, with a bitter sneer.
"You are unjust to me. It bears no address; and I could not suppose otherwise than that it was intended for myself. However, I only read the few disconnected words upon which my eye first chanced to fall."
The cousins stood gazing in each other's faces; as those might do that meet in mortal combat, ere they close hand to hand. Each was pondering whether the other was capable of doing him a deadly injury. Yet, after all, each held, at the bottom of his heart, a conviction that the other might be trusted.
Carlos, though he had the greater cause for apprehension, was the first to come to a conclusion. Almost with a smile he handed the note to Gonsalvo. "Whatever yon mysterious billet may mean to Don Gonsalvo," he said, "I am convinced that he means no harm to any one bearing the name of Alvarez de Meñaya."
"You will never repent that word. And it is true – in the sense you speak it," returned Gonsalvo, taking the paper from his hand. At that moment he was irresolute whether to confide in Carlos or no. But the touch of his cousin's hand decided him. It was cold and trembling. One so weak in heart and nerve was obviously unfit to share the burden of a brave man's desperate resolve.
Carlos went his way, firmly believing that Gonsalvo intended no ill to him. But what then did he intend? Had he solicited the Inquisitor for a private midnight interview merely to throw himself at his feet, and with impassioned eloquence to plead the cause of Doña Maria? Were "important revelations" only a blind to procure his admission?
Impossible! who, past the age of infancy, would kneel to the storm to implore it to be still, or to the fire to ask it to subdue its rage? Perhaps some dreamy enthusiast, unacquainted with the world and its ways, might still be found sanguine enough for such a project, but certainly not Don Gonsalvo Alvarez de Meñaya.
Or had he a bribe to offer? Inquisitors, like other Churchmen, were known to be subject to human frailties; of course they would not touch gold, but, according to a well-known Spanish proverb, you were invited to throw it into their cowls. And Munebrãga could scarcely have fed his numerous train of insolent retainers, decked his splendid barge with gold and purple, and brought rare plants and flowers from every known country to his magnificent gardens, without very large additions to the acknowledged income of the Inquisitor-General's deputy. But, again, not all the wealth of the Indies would avail to open the gates of the Triana to an obstinate heretic, however it might modify the views of "his Reverence" upon the merits of a doubtful case. And even to procure a few slight alleviations in the treatment of the accused, would have required a much deeper purse than Gonsalvo's.
Moreover, Carlos saw that the young man was "bitter of soul;" ready for any desperate deed. What if he meant to accuse himself. Amidst the careless profanity in which he had been too wont to indulge, many a word had fallen from his lips that might be contrary to sound doctrine in the estimation of Inquisitors, comparatively lenient as they were to blasphemers. But what possible benefit to Doña Maria would be gained by his throwing himself into the jaws of death? And if it were really his resolve to commit suicide, by way of ending his own miseries, he could surely accomplish the act in a more direct and far less painful manner.
Thus Carlos pondered; but in whatever way he regarded the matter, he could not escape from the idea that his cousin intended some dangerous or fatal step. Gonsalvo was too still, too silent. This was an evil sign. Carlos would have felt comparatively easy about him had he made him shrink and shudder by an outburst of the fiercest, most indignant curses. For the less emotion is wasted in expression, the more remains, like pent-up steam, to drive the engine forward in its course. Moreover, there was an evil light in Gonsalvo's eye; a gleam like that of hope, but hope that was certainly not kindled from above.
Although the very crisis of his own fate was now approaching, and every faculty might have had full occupation nearer home, Carlos was haunted perpetually by the thought of his cousin. It continued to occupy him not only during his visits to his friends, but afterwards in the solitude and silence of his own apartment. We all know the strange perversity with which, in times of suspense and sorrow, the mind will sometimes run riot upon matters irrelevant, and even apparently trivial.
With slow footsteps the hours stole on; miserable hours to Carlos, except in so for as he could spend them in prayer, now his only resource and refuge. After pleading for himself, for Juan, for his dear imprisoned brethren and sisters, he named Gonsalvo; and was led most earnestly to implore God's mercy for his unhappy cousin. As he thought of his misery, so much greater than his own; his loneliness, without God in the world; his sorrow, without hope, – his pleading grew impassioned. And when at last he rose from his knees, it was with that sweet sense that God would hear – nay, that he had heard – which is one of the mysteries of the new life, the precious things that no man knoweth save he that receiveth them.
Then, believing it was nearly midnight, he quickly finished his simple preparations, took his guitar (which had now lain unused for a long time), and sallied forth from his chamber.
XXVI.
Don Gonsalvo's Revenge
"Our God, the all just,
Unto himself reserves this royalty,
The secret chastening of the guilty heart;
The fiery touch, the scourge that purifies —
Leave it with him. Yet make not that thy trust;
For that strong heart of thine – oh, listen yet! —
Must in its depths o'ercome the very wish
Of death or torture to the guilty one,
Ere it can sleep again."
Hemans.
Don Manuel's house had once belonged to a Moorish Cid, or lord. It had been assigned to the first Conde de Nuera, as one of the original conquistadors of Seville; and he had bequeathed it to his second son. It had a turret, after the Moorish fashion, and the upper chamber of this had been given to Carlos on his first arrival in the city; from an idea that the theological student would require a solitary place for study and devotion, or, at least, that it would be decorous to suppose so. The room beneath had been occupied by Don Juan, but since his departure it was appropriated by Gonsalvo, who liked solitude, and took advantage of his improved health to escape from the ground-floor, to which his infirmities had long confined him.
As Carlos stole noiselessly down the narrow winding stair, he noticed a light in his cousin's room. This in itself did not surprise him. But he certainly felt a little disconcerted when, just as he passed the door, Don Gonsalvo opened it, and met him face to face. He also was fully equipped in sword and cloak, and carried a torch in his hand.
"Vaya, vaya, Don Carlos," he said reproachfully; "after all, thou couldst not trust me."
"Nay, I did trust you."
From fear of being overheard, both entered the nearest room – Don Gonsalvo's – and its owner closed the door softly.
"You are stealing away from fear of me, and thereby throwing yourself into the fire. Do it not, Don Carlos; be advised, and do it not." He spoke earnestly, and without a shadow of the old bitterness and sarcasm.
"Nay, it is not thus. My flight was planned ere yesterday; and in concert with one who both can and will provide me with the means of safety. It is best I should go."
"Enough said then," returned Gonsalvo, more coldly. "Farewell; I seek not to detain you. Farewell; for though we may go forth together, our paths divide, and for ever, at the door."
"Your path is perhaps less safe than mine, Don Gonsalvo."
"Talk of what you understand, cousin. My path is safety itself. And now that I think of it (if you could be trusted), you might aid me perhaps. Did you know all, I dare not doubt that you would rejoice to do it."
"God knows how joyfully I would aid you if I could, Don Gonsalvo. But I fear you are bound on a useless, and worse than useless, errand."
"You know not my errand."
"But I know to whom you go this night. Oh, my cousin, is it possible you can dream that prayer of yours will soften hearts harder than the nether millstone?"
"I know the way to one heart; and though it be the hardest of all, I shall reach it."
"Were you to pour the wealth of El Dorado at the feet of Gonzales de Munebrãga, he neither would nor could unloose one bolt of that prison."
Gonsalvo's wild look changed suddenly into one of wistful earnestness, almost of tenderness. He said, lowering his voice, —
"Near as death, the revealer of secrets, may be to me, there are still some questions worth the asking. Perchance you can throw a gleam of light upon this horrible darkness. We are speaking frankly now, and as in God's presence. Tell me, is that charge true?"
"Frankly, and in the sense in which you ask – it is."
The last fatal words Carlos only whispered. Gonsalvo made no answer; but a kind of momentary spasm passed across his face.
Carlos at length went on in a low voice: "She knew the Evangel long before I did, though she is so young – not yet one-and-twenty. She was the pupil of Dr. Egidius; but he was wont to say he learned more from her than she did from him. Her keen, bright intellect cut through sophistries, and reached truth so quickly. And God gave her abundantly of his grace; making her willing, for that truth, to endure all things. Oft have I seen her sweet face kindle and glow whilst he who taught us spoke of the joy and strength given to those that suffer for the name of Christ. I am persuaded He is with her now, and will be with her even to the end. Could you gain access to her where she is, I think she would tell you she possesses a treasure of peace of which neither death nor suffering, neither cruelty of fiends nor worse cruelty of fiend-like men, can avail to rob her."
"She is a saint – she will be a blessed saint in heaven, let them say what they may," murmured Gonsalvo hoarsely. Then the fierce look returned to his face again. "But I think the old Christians of Castile, the men whose good swords made the infidels bite the dust, and planted the cross on their painted towers, are no better than curs and dastards."
"In that they suffer these things?"
"Yes; a thousand times, yes. In the name of man's honour and woman's loveliness, are there, in our good city of Seville, neither fathers, nor brothers, nor lovers left alive? No man who thinks the sweetest eyes ever seen worth six inches of steel in five skilful fingers? No one man, save the poor forgotten cripple, Don Gonsalvo Alvarez. But he thanks God this night that he has spared his life, and left strength enough in his feeble limbs to beat him into a murderer's presence."
"Don Gonsalvo! what do you mean?" cried Carlos, shrinking from him.
"Lower thy voice, an' it please thee. But why should I fear to tell thee —thee, who hast good cause to be the death-foe of Inquisitors? If thou art not cur and dastard too, thou wilt applaud and pray for me. For I suppose heretics pray, at least as well as Inquisitors. I said I would reach the heart of Gonzales de Munebrãga this night. Not with gold. There is another metal of keener temper, which enters in where even gold cannot come."
"Then you mean —murder?" said Carlos, again drawing near him, and laying his hand on his arm. Gonsalvo sank into a seat, half mechanically, half from an instinct that led him to spare the strength he would need so sorely by-and-by.
In the momentary pause that followed, the clock of San Vicente tolled the midnight hour.
"Yes," replied Gonsalvo steadily; "I mean murder – as the shepherd does who strangles the wolf with his paw on the lamb."
"Oh, think – "
"I have thought of everything. And mark me, Don Carlos, I have but one regret. It is that my weapon deals an instantaneous death. Such revenge is poor and flavourless after all. I have heard of poisons whose least drop, mingling with the blood, ensures a slow agonizing death – time to learn what torture means, and to drain to the dregs the cup filled for others – to curse God and man ere he dies. For a phial of such, wherewith to anoint my blade, I would sell my soul to-night."
"O Gonsalvo, this is horrible! They are wild, wicked words you speak. Pray God to pardon you!"
"I adjure him by his justice to prosper me," said Gonsalvo, raising his head defiantly.
"He will not prosper you. And do you dream that such a mad achievement (suppose you even succeed in it) will open prison-doors and set captives free? Alas! alas! that we are not at the mercy of a tyrant's will. For tyrants, the worst of them, sometimes relent; and – they are mortal. That which is crushing us is not a living being, an organism with nerves, and brain, and blood. It is a system, a THING, a terrible engine, that moves on in its resistless way, cold and lifeless, without will or feeling. Strong as adamant, it kills, tortures, destroys; obeying laws far away out of our sight. Were Valdez and Munebrãga, and all the Board of Inquisitors, dead corpses by the morning light, not a single dungeon in the Triana would open its pitiless gate."
"I do not believe that," replied Gonsalvo, rather more quietly. "Surely there must be some confusion, of which advantage may be taken by friends of the prisoners. This, indeed, is the motive which now induces me to confide in you. You may know those who, if they had the chance, could strike a shrewd blow to save their dearest on earth from torture and death."
But Gonsalvo read no answer in the sorrowful face of Carlos to the searching look of inquiry with which he said this. After a silence he went on, —
"Suppose the worst, however. The Holy Office sorely needs a little blood-letting, and will be much the better for it. Whoever succeeds, Munebrãga will have my dagger flashing in his eyes, and will take care how he deals with his prisoners, and whom he arrests."
"I implore you to think of yourself," said Carlos.
Gonsalvo smiled. "I know I shall pay the forfeit," he said, "even as those who slew the Inquisitor Pedro Arbues before the high altar in Saragossa. But" – here the smile faded, and the stern set look returned to his face – "I shall not pay more, for a man's triumphant vengeance, than those fiends will dare to inflict upon a tender, delicately nurtured girl for the crime of a mystic meditation, or a few words of prayer not properly rounded off with an Ave."
"True. But then you will suffer alone. She has God with her."
"I can suffer alone."
For that word Carlos envied him. He shrank in terror from loneliness, from suffering, shuddering at the very thought of the dungeon and the torture-room. And just then the first quarter of his hour of grace chimed from the clock of San Vicente. What if he and Pepe should fail to meet? He would not think of that now. Whatever happened, Gonsalvo must be saved. He went on, —
"Here you can suffer alone and be strong. But how will you endure the loneliness of the long hereafter, away from God's presence, from light and life and hope? Are you content that you, and she for whom you give your life, should be sundered throughout eternity?"
"Nay; I am casting my lot in with hers. If the Church curses her (pure and holy as she ever was), its anathema shall fall on me too. If only the Church's key opens heaven, she and I will both stand without."
"Yet you know she will enter heaven. Shall you?"
Gonsalvo hesitated. "It will not be the blood of a villain that will bar my way," he said.
"God says, 'Thou shalt not kill.'"
"Then what will he do with Gonzales de Munebrãga?"
"He will do that with him of which, if you but dreamed, it would change your fiercest hate into saddest, deepest pity. Have you realized what a span is our life here compared with the countless ages of eternity? Think! For God's chosen a few weeks, or months at most, of solitude and fear and pain, ended perhaps by – but that is as he pleases; ended, at all events. Then add up the million years, fill them with the joy of victory, and the presence and love of Christ himself. Can they not, and we for them, be content with this?"
"Are you content with it yourself?" Gonsalvo suddenly interrupted. "You seek flight."
The glow faded from the face of Carlos, and his eyes sank to the ground. "Christ has not called me yet," he answered in a lower tone. There was a silence; then he resumed: "Turn now to the other side. Would you change, even this hour, with Gonzales de Munebrãga? But take him from his wealth, and his pomp, and his sinful luxuries, all defiled with blood, and what remains for him? Everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."
"Everlasting fire!" Gonsalvo repeated, as if the thought pleased him.
"Leave him in God's hand. It is a stronger hand than yours, Don Gonsalvo."
"Everlasting fire! I would send him there to-night."
"And whither would you send your own sinful soul?"
"God might pardon, though the Church cursed."
"Possibly. But to enter God's heaven you need something besides pardon."
"What?" asked Gonsalvo, half wearily, half incredulously.
"'Holiness; without which no man can see the Lord.'"
"Holiness?" Gonsalvo questioned, as if the word was strange to him, and he attached no meaning to it.
"Yes," Carlos went on, with intense and ever increasing earnestness; "unless, even from that passionate heart of yours, revenge and hatred are banished, you can never see God, never come where – "
"Hold thy peace, trifler!" Gonsalvo interrupted with angry impatience. "Too long have I tarried, listening to thine idle talk. Priests and women are content with words; brave men act. Farewell to thee!"
"One word more, only one." Carlos drew near and laid his hand on his cousin's arm. "Nay, you shall listen to me. Seemeth it to you a thing incredible that that heart of yours can be changed and softened to a love like His who prayed on the cross for his murderers? Yet it can be. He can do it. He gives pardon, holiness, peace. Peace of which you dream not now, but which she knows full well. O Don Gonsalvo, better join her where she is going, than wildly, rashly, and most uselessly peril your soul to avenge her!"
"Uselessly! Were that true indeed – "
"Ay de mi! who can doubt it?"
"Would I had time for thought!"
"Take it, in God's name, and pray him to keep you from a great crime."
For a few moments he sat still – still as the dead. Then he started suddenly. "Already the hour is passing," he exclaimed; "I shall be too late. Fool that I was, to be almost moved from my purpose by the idle words of a – The weakness is past now. Still, ere we part, give me thy hand, Don Carlos, for, on my faith, I never liked thee half so well."
Very sorrowfully Carlos extended it, rather wondering as he did so that the energetic Gonsalvo failed to spring from his seat and prepare to be gone.
Gonsalvo stirred not, even to take the offered hand. A deathlike paleness overspread his face, and a cry of terror had well nigh broken from his lips. But he choked it back. "Something is strangely wrong with me," he faltered. "I cannot move. I feel dead —dead– from the waist down."
"God has spoken to you from heaven," said Carlos solemnly. He felt as if a miracle had been wrought in his presence. His Protestantism had not freed him from the superstitions of his age. Had he lived three centuries later, he would have seen nothing miraculous in the disease with which Gonsalvo was stricken, but rather have called it the natural result of intense agitation and excitement, acting upon a frame already weakened.
Yet the reckless Gonsalvo was the more superstitious of the two. He was at war with the creed in which he had been nurtured; but that older and deeper kind of superstition which has its root in human nature had, for this very reason, a stronger hold upon him.
"Dead – dead!" he repeated, the words falling from his lips in broken, awe-struck whispers. "The limbs I misused! The feet that led me into sin! God – God have mercy upon me! It is thy hand!"
"It is his hand; a sign he has not forsaken thee; that he means to bring thee back to himself. Oh, my cousin, do not despair. Hope yet in his mercy, for it is great."
Carlos knelt down beside him, took his passive hand in his, and spoke earnest, loving words of hope and comfort. The last quarter, ere the single stroke that should announce that the hour appointed for his own flight was past, chimed from the clock on the church tower. Yet he did not move – he had forgotten self. At last, however, he said, "But it may be something can be done to relieve you. You ought to have medical aid without delay. I should have thought of this before. I will rouse the household."
"No; that would endanger you. Go on your way, and bid the porter do it when you are gone."
It was too late, the household was roused. A loud authoritative knocking at the outer gate sent the blood back from the hearts of both with sudden and horrible fear.
There was a sound of opening gates, followed by footsteps – voices – cries.
Gonsalvo was the first to understand all. "The Alguazils of the Holy Office!" he exclaimed.
"I am lost!" cried Carlos, large drops gathering on his brow.
"Conceal yourself," said Gonsalvo; but he knew his words were vain. Already his quick ear had caught the sound of his cousin's name; and already footsteps were on the stairs.
Carlos glanced round the room. For a moment his eye rested on the window, eighty feet above the ground. Better spring from it and perish! No, that would be self-murder. In God's name he would await them manfully.
"You will be searched," Gonsalvo whispered hurriedly; "have you aught about your person that may add to your danger?"
Carlos drew from its place of concealment the heroic Juliano's treasured gift.
"I will hide it," said his cousin; and taking it hastily, he slipped it beneath his inner vest, where it lay in strange neighbourhood with a small, exquisitely tempered poniard, destined never to be used.
The torch-light within, perhaps the voices, guided the Alguazils to that room. A hand was placed on the door. "They are coming, Don Carlos," cried Gonsalvo; "I am thy murderer."
"No – no fault of thine. Always remember that," said Carlos, in his sharpest anguish generous still. Then for one brief moment, that seemed an age, he was deaf to all outward things. Afterwards he was himself again.
And something more than himself perhaps. Now, as in other moments of intense excitement, the spirit of his race descended on him. When the Alguazils entered, it was Don Carlos Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya who met them, with folded arms, with steadfast eye, and pale but dauntless forehead.
All was quiet, regular, and most orderly. Don Manuel, roused from his slumbers, appeared with the Alguazils, and respectfully requested a sight of the warrant upon which they proceeded.
It was produced; and all could see that it was duly signed, and sealed with the famous seal – the sword and olive branch, the dog with the flaming brand, the sorely outraged, "Justitia et misericordia."
Had Don Manuel Alvarez been king of all the Spains, and Carlos his heir-apparent, he dared not have offered the least resistance then. He had no wish to resist, however; he bowed obsequiously, and protested his own and his family's devotion to the Faith and the Holy Office. But he added (perhaps merely as a matter of form), that he could bring many witnesses of unimpeachable character to testify to his nephew's orthodoxy, and hoped to succeed in clearing him from whatever odious imputation had induced their Reverences to order his arrest.
Meanwhile Gonsalvo gnashed his teeth in impotent rage and despair. He would have bartered his life for two minutes of health and strength in which to rush suddenly on the Alguazils, and give Carlos time to escape, let the consequences of such frantic audacity be what they might. But the bands of disease, stronger than iron, made the body a prison for the indignant, tortured spirit.
Carlos spoke for the first time. "I am ready to go with you," he said to the chief of the Alguazils. "Do you wish to examine my apartment? You are welcome. It is the chamber over this."
Having gone over every detail of such a scene a thousand times in imagination, he knew that the examination of papers and personal effects usually formed a part of it. And he had no fears for the result, as, in preparation for his flight, he had carefully destroyed everything that he thought could implicate himself or any one else.