University of Virginia Library

3. BOOK THIRD.

1. CHAPTER I.

In politics individuals represent power rather than possess it, as, in the commercial
world, money is the representative of value, without having value itself, only as it
answers this purpose. The power of the despot is that of the vices, the passions,
the injustice of those over whom he rules. It is not the proof of any uncommon
attributes in himself. On the contrary, if it proves any thing, it proves the flexibility
of his moral powers, and consequently his real inferiority. He is the creature
of the vices and circumstances which he represents, and when he ceases to be so, he
is overthrown. The existence of a tyrant proves the necessity for one, since it
would be utterly impossible for any individual to enslave a people who are worthy
of freedom. Sylla never slaughtered in Rome until every senator had become a tyrant.
He could no more have succeeded in the time of Tarquin than could Tarquin
himself. The representative of the popular mind, at that time, derived his powers
from the popular virtues.

Roderick was the creature of his time. He represented the people over whom he
ruled. He embodied their craft, their lust, their faithlessness, their cruelty. He was
properly their sovereign, and he was rightly their scourge. He had his uses; and
we may not regret that in overthrowing a once mighty empire, the Moors overthrew
the dominion of the rankest vice and the most reckless profligacy. It is scarcely
possible that they could raise a worse in its stead. Yet Roderick, like Nero, commenced
his reign virtuously. He commenced as the avenger of his father's wrongs,
and the redresser of those under which his people suffered. But he soon found that,
like Nero, he could not rule the people whom he did not represent. He was compelled
to adopt their vices to maintain his rule; since, to be moral where all were
vicious, were to assert a solitude of distinction which must isolate him from all sympathy,
and leave him defenceless to all foes. With a rapid retrogade, which was
good worldly policy, he soon, like the Roman monster whom we have quoted in
comparison, overtook his subjects, and rapidly passed them in his vices. From excess
to excess he pursued his way, until the very shamelessness of his indulgences
produced that revulsion of feeling in the popular sentiment which would seem to be
the legitimate purpose of the tyrant. Men whose own vices had made them monsters,
now paused in their progress, startled into reflection as they beheld the career
of a monster whose vicious and foul practices far surpassed their own most corrupt imaginings;

and the general insecurity under a sway so reckless, at length produced
that individual apprehensiveness which works for virtue, as it prompts the continual
fear of punishment. The minds of the Goths were alienated from their monarch,
not because of his vices, but because their own were outdone. The resources which
he possessed were beyond their rivalry; and as even voluptuousness has its vanity,
they were mortified into hatred of those excesses which they otherwise had been
glad enough to share. They were now as ripe for insurrection as they had been
ready for his rule; and he who had never paused or hesitated in the sacrifice of his
victim, was now destined to become one. But he dreamed not of this. The blindness
which precedes destruction had fallen upon him; and in the vain plenitude of
his power, and in the hardness of his heart, he hurried on, utterly forgetting that he
but indicated the power which he fondly imagined to exist within himself. With a
blindness of judgment, he determined that the trial of Egiza, whom he did not recognise,
should take place in public; and like more modern monarchs, who are but too
prone to convert the offices of justice into pompous ceremonials, he resolved that an
ostentatious display of power should accompany the sentence of the criminal, and
discourage other similar offenders. Had he been a wise tyrant, he would have studiously
avoided such a proceeding. He would have strangled the offender in a prison
which had neither eye nor ear. He would have quelled inquiry as dangerous,
and suppressed those shows, to the popular eye, of power harshly exercised in the
sovereign, which are more apt to occasion sympathy than apprehension in the mind
of the spectator.

“Thou hast heard, my lord Oppas,” said the priest Romano, entering the private
apartments of the archbishop, the morning after the arrest of Egiza; “thou hast heard
that a goodly stroke hath been aimed at the bosom of the defier of God.”

“Ay, my brother; but I have not heard that the defier of God hath been stricken,”
replied Oppas.

“Of a truth, he lives, and the avenger hath been foiled,” said the priest, with a
desponding visage; “but it is something, my father, that the blow should have been
stricken, since it showeth that God lacketh not in agents who seek to do his will.
If there be one to try, there will be two; and the blow that faileth once, or twice,
doth not often fail thrice. There are hands yet which are armed, and hearts which
are willing, my father; and let the word be spoken from on high, and the sign be
shown, and even the poor and humble Romano will be ready for the work of punishment.”

The venerable zealot lifted a dagger from his bosom as he spoke these words, and
lord Oppas beheld in the expression of his eye that Romano needed but the promptings
of a dream by night to enter the palace of king Roderick and do the work of
assassination, if he might, as a good service rendered to the Most High.

“Thou art blessed of Heaven, brother Romano, as thou art so ready to hear and
to obey,” said Oppas, with a respectful deference of manner. “Thou prayest to
know thy labors, and thou seekest to perform them. This is the true servant—and
thou wilt not long wait the call to service. It would seem to await thee even now,
Romano.”

“How?—what mean you, father Oppas? Am I remiss?—am I unmindful? Have
I suffered the words of Heaven to fall upon unheeding ears? Say, tell me, my father,
that I may hasten to bind up the broken places, and amend the errors of forgetfulness.”

“I say not that, my brother,” replied the cunning archbishop; “I would not pretend
to counsel one whom God hath chosen for his own teachings; but I should rather
look to thee for counsel, Romano, and for a direction in the passages which are

difficult. Yet is this thought of mine strong within me, that thy labors are at hand.
Knowest thou the name of him who hath sought to slay king Roderick?”

“No, father; I know not.”

“It is the youth who came with thee into Toledo; he to whom thou gavest the
garments.”

“God is great! He worketh by mystery and in darkness. Who shall fathom
his ways?—who shall declare his purposes? Doth it not seem, father Oppas, that
there was a will and a power in this matter that came from above? Wherefore
should this youth have come so timely to my aid when Roderick had stricken me
down among the hills? Wherefore should he have followed me into Toledo, witless
of all things?—for of himself did he say that he he had no call within the city.
Why should I give him a garment for his protection?—and how should it be that in
the secret gardens of the king, despite of all his guards, he should have made his
way, unless the spirit of God had so devised it, and sent him forward to work out
his vengeance?”

“It is the thought of wisdom, and the faithful servant, Romano; yet the youth
hath failed. The tyrant hath escaped the fatal blow, and the minister of vengeance,
whether through his own weakness, or that Heaven would spare its foe for a longer
space that its accumulated judgments may be more heavy, is now the captive of king
Roderick, reserved in his dungeons for a cruel sentence.”

“But will God suffer his servant to perish, father Oppas? I believe it not. He
will, I think, work out the youth's deliverance; and the safety of Roderick now is
but a blind on his eyes, which shall hood him yet for the executioner. The youth
must escape.”

“Thou speakest thy own labors, Romano. Is it not clear to thee, even as I said
erewhile, that thy tasks were at hand? Thou shalt free this youth; it is thy duty—
thy own lips have pronounced it such; and I doubt not that the God who hath decreed
thy work will give thee strength and wisdom to perform it. And further to
confirm this thought, know that the youth hath been carried to the strong dungeon
of Suintila, whose keeper is”—

“Guisenard, the lieutenant!”

“The same—the same!” said Oppas, eagerly.

“Art sure of this, father Oppas?” demanded Romano.

“As that I live, my brother. I have the words of those who beheld him carried
thither last night in secret.”

“Thou hast spoken rightly, then, my father; the hand of God is in this—for, of a
truth, my power is great upon the mind of Guisenard, who comes to my confessional,
and who will heed the words of reason from my lips.”

“Do I not know this, my brother? Is not thy office plain? What though Jehovah
worketh in secret, the fruits of his labors come forth in light. I knew in my
secret soul that He would reveal to thee what it is fitting thou shouldst know; that
He would point thee to thy tasks, and place thy enemy in thy hands. Thou canst
move Guisenard at thy bidding, and he will deliver up the unholy trust of the tyrant,
when thou shalt show to his sense that it is God's messenger whom he would keep
in bondage, waiting for a cruel death. Yet, my brother, though we obey the will of
God, we are not to be heedless of the wants of man. When Guisenard shall free
the prisoner, it will need that he should fly himself, since the wilful tyrant, upon
whose head Jehovah would accumulate sins that his doom should be the heavier,
would punish the soldier whose fidelity to Holy Church would be falsehood to him.
Guisenard must fly when he has released the youth; and thou shalt provide him the
means of flight, and give him direction for a journey to the Asturias, where the

young prince Pelayo even now gathers an army. Take this purse—it is filled, and
will speed him on his way. Perchance, too, it will prove an argument to his mind,
persuading him to compliance with thy demand. The ignorant mortal will heed
such argument when better ones perchance would fail. It is our pride and pleasure,
Romano, that we seek the will of God, and perform our labors for his love, regardless
of all other reward,”

Romano took the purse, which was well filled with gold, with the air and manner
of one who scorned what he was yet compelled to conceal with care. He readily
recognized the force of the archbishop's suggestion, though he despised the agent
he was required to use.

While they conferred, a royal messenger summoned the archbishop to the palace,
where, in the hall of audience, it was decreed that the examination of Egiza should
take place. A few words more to Romano, and lord Oppas left him to find his way
from a back and private entrance, while he went forth with his train, through the
great gate of his own residence.

2. CHAPTER II.

It was not until the archbishop reached the court of the palace that he knew the
business upon which he had been summoned. When he was told its purport, his
apprehensions began to be greatly aroused. He dreaded lest a discovery of Egiza's
secret would lead to a suspicion of his own. Could they do less than suspect the
uncle, if they could convict the nephew? The probabilities were manifestly against
it. The affair looked inauspicious. It was only by a course of the most daring effrontery
and admirable hypocrisy that Oppas had escaped proscription when Roderick
came into power. It was only by joining in the denunciations against the powers
that had been, and emulating the truckling servility of those who threw themselves
in the path and at the feet of the newly-risen, that Oppas had preserved his
station as the head of the Gothic church. A policy to which Roderick had now become
somewhat indifferent, had prompted him to receive professions from and give
credit for sincerity to all those who were allied to the nobility of the nation, or were
connected with that more insolent aristocracy which assumed the powers and wore
the garb of the established religion. Oppas was a superior politician to Roderick,
and well understood the motives which operated upon the latter in his favor. He
now as readily conceived that the rashness and self-conceit of the despot would make
him less heedful than before how he offended the class of which he was a leading
member. Such were his apprehensions that, could he have left the court in secresy,
he would have done so, and at once fled, with all his personal retainers, to join the
young prince Pelayo, in the Asturian mountains. But this could not be, and he prepared,
with his utmost coolness and address, to meet events and baffle their dangers
as he might.

The first nobleman whom the archbishop encountered as he entered the court of
the palace, contributed to increase his alarm. This person was one of the most respectable
among those of the old nobles who yet remained within the pale of the
court. He well knew the doubtful character of that loyalty which the archbishop
professed; and, with a smile of particular meaning, he thus addressed him:

“What! does the young head still linger upon the old shoulders? Is the old fox
to be caught at last? You are scarcely wise, my lord Oppas. I had not thought it
of you. I had thought, by this time, to have heard that you were far on your way

to the Pyrennees, and rallying the insurgents who are said to lurk in that neighborhood.
Were I in your case, and had I half the sagacity which fame ascribes to you,
I am sure such would have been my speed, and such the direction which I should
have taken.”

The archbishop affected a surprise which he did not feel.

“What mean you, my lord Gerontius? What case is this, which so alarms you
for my safety; and what have I to fear, that I should fly?”

The composure of his manner was admirable as he spoke these words.

“What! you have not heard?” said the other, quickly. “But I must not so far
question your precautions. You surely know of the attempt which has been made
upon the life of king Roderick.”

“Of a truth, I know that,” replied the archbishop; “but how does this concern
me in especial, and why should I fly?”

“You know that the assassin is a monk?”

“I knew not that. I hear that he is a mere youth, but nothing more. Is he in
truth a monk?”

“Ay, of the Caulian schools—so his garb speaks him; and the king is sworn to
rouse you all for it. He couples it with the insolence of the mad priest Romano—
and him he couples with the drones that he drove out from the House of Hercules—
and these he couples with the whole brotherhood—and the whole brotherhood with
the archbishop—and the archbishop with the pope—and the pope with the devil;
and to the devil, if I rightly understand, he is bent to send you all, or such, at least,
as he can lay sudden hands upon. This is the common bruit through the city; and
I held it matter of course that you should have heard it, having, as I well know, in
your own keeping such superior sources of general intelligence. You may conceive
now why it is that I wondered, knowing your prudence, yet seeing you here?”

There was nothing grateful in this speech of the old noble; but Oppas received it
calmly.

“Truly you surprise, if you do not alarm me, my lord Gerontius, These tidings
are new to me, and strange. I had no knowledge that the assassin was a monk—
still less did I deem it probable that our order, which has always been the readiest
to maintain the power of king Roderick, should fall under suspicion of this nature.
Nor can I think now that there is any reason in this rumor. Of whom did you
receive it?”

“Of whom? What a question! Why, from all the mouths of the court, every
prop and pillar of which has its twain. The common tongue is the universal one;
and man never lacks language when he speaks evil of his fellow. I heard it from
Gunderic, the big-bellied, who puffed and blowed, while telling it, to his own exhaustion
and the disquiet of my nostrils: from Sisibert, who apes Edeco, and breathes
nothing but scent and sentiment, and mortally hates sense: from Chilibert, the sleepy,
who proved the importance, not to say the truth—so far as he believed it to be true,
by never once yawning during his narrative: and, to speak guardedly, from a dozen
others, of as long tongue and as little authority.”

“Your own manner, my lord,” said the archbishop, smiling as he spoke, “tells
me what regard you yourself give to this story. I may well be indifferent to the
clamor of the city, when you speak of it so lightly.”

“Nay, do not deceive yourself, my lord bishop, nor let my manner deceive you.
I have learned to smile at most matters, but I do not smile at this. Of a truth, I do
believe that there is something in it. I have reason to know that Roderick looks
suspiciously upon your fraternity, and I bid you be on your guard. I would not
that all our nobles should suffer from a misplaced reliance on a monarch who is but

too apt to forget an old service, as he is perpetually called upon to remember a new
favorite. But, no more. The guards approach. Be cool, Oppas; for the step of
Roderick is hasty and his cheeks are flushed. They come.”

The advice of the nobleman was not lost upon Oppas, though it was scarcely
needed by so old a politician. The guards of Roderick now filled the chamber, and
the despot only lingered at the threshold of the hall, uttering some hasty commands
to one of his attendants. The nobles began to gather; and in the pause which ensued
before the entrance of the king, the archbishop had composed and arranged his
thoughts for the approaching trial.

He had need of all his faculties for this event; and those who had heard of the
uttered hostility of the king toward the priesthood beheld with surprise his composed
demeanor, and wondered at his presence. He knew, much better than they, the imminent
danger in which he stood, as he better knew the person of the criminal, with
whom his own conscience more perfectly identified him, than could any vague suspicion
of the tyrant, based simply upon the garb worn by Egiza. Could the prince
keep his own secret, Oppas felt that he himself might escape; for Egiza had been
little known in Toledo, and seldom or never seen by those who held the confidential
places around Roderick's person. The dread of the lord Oppas was that the prince,
hopeless of favor from Roderick, and desperate with hate, might declare himself in
defiance; and this done, he well knew that not even his sacred profession could save
him from crimination with his nephew, particularly as, from the nature of the disguise
worn by the latter, it must appear to the jealous tyrant that his attempt had
been distinctly authorized by the priesthood, if not by himself. These thoughts
rapidly passed through his mind during the interim which followed the conversation
with the lord Gerontius, and before the entrance of the king. It would be idle to
deny that his apprehensions were great, since he rested his hope upon one or two
contingencies, together with own presence of mind, and watchful use of circumstances
as they arose. But he took his seat, seemingly with little concern, at the
head of the board and near the throne, where it had ever been his custom to sit; and
neither in look, word, manner, nor in the assertion of his state, did he in the slightest
particular relax from the dignity which belonged to him as a man, and that
which he asserted for his sacred office. The seats around him were rapidly filled
up; and if the men of note in that assembly were few—if the essence of character
and talent in those who composed the king's council was such as to accord meetly
with the degraded spirit and vicious debasement of the kingdom, there was certainly
nothing wanting in external show, in rich dresses, the glitter of jewelry and flowing
trains, to make up for the lack of better attributes, or at least to reconcile the mere
spectator to their loss. The Goths affected the pomp of the Romans and the effeminate
voluptuousness of the Greeks; and, for their useless glitter and vain display,
they were but too ready to yield up the more substantial qualities of hardy valor and
national simplicity. It was thus that the court, on the present occasion, fatigued
rather than won the eye with its overloaded splendors; and the profusion of wealth
which it displayed but poorly supplied the place of good taste and propriety. Even
the guards of Roderick, with their tawdry jackets of purple silk, edged with gold fillagree,
and their long spears, the iron heads of which were softened with a deep
gilding, presented but indifferent substitutes for those rough warriors who had made
the Romans pass under the yoke, and had carried their arms without stop or impediment
from the Danube to the Atlantic ocean. The national character was changed.
The reputation of their forefathers was no longer a source of pride to those who affected
superior refinements; and one of the follies of Roderick, which provoked the
sarcasm of the neighboring Moors, was in the assumption of the empty title, along

with the idle glitter, of `King of the Romans;' as if the spirit of the Cæsars dwelt
in the frame of the licentious and arrogant Goth.

The entrance of Roderick was the signal for obeisance and servility. He entered
with a quick, sudden step, which, though hurried, did not prevent him from frequently
pausing to dart hasty and inquiring looks into the faces of all around him.
Once or twice he paused and seemed disposed to speak to one or more persons upon
whom he looked, but as if quelling the desire, or unable through excess of passion
to indulge it, he hurried on toward the throne until his eye caught that of the
archbishop. As it did so, the king paused, with a convulsive movement. His arm
seemed to twich and jerk with the angry feeling in his bosom; but he remained
where he was at the moment, and his brow collected over his eye, while it darted
forth a light like fire upon Oppas, as if it intended to consume him. The archbishop
met his glance without blenching. He knew that this was one of the tyrant's tests.
He was wont to say that “he could look down treason, and drive, with a glance of
his own, that of his enemy to the ground.” But it failed to have this effect on the
present occasion. The eye of Oppas was as true to his purpose as was that of Roderick;
and, while all in the assembly looked alternately from the king to the archbishop,
the former turned away with a ferocious scowl from gazing upon his victim,
to dart angry glances upon the watchful assembly. If his eye failed to terrify that
of the stern archbishop, it was more successful in controlling those of the spectators.
Their acknowledgements of its power were instantaneous. Every face was bent
downward in humility, and the vanity of the despot was satisfied with this tacit acknowledgment
of his superiority. He proceeded to the throne, threw himself into
the seat, and for a few moments a dead silence reigned throughout the apartment.
At length, with a voice hoarse and loud, Roderick broke the silence by addressing
his parasite Edeco, who stood beside him.

“Edeco!”

With a servile gesture and a fawning smile the favorite approached and bent himself
before his master. A brief pause ensued, when Roderick continued:

“Edeco!—But no, no. Thou art not the man. Thou hast counsel fit for other
moods, and lighter matters. I would that lord Bovis were here! I could trust him,
head and heart I could trust him!”

These words, spoken aloud, fully declared the disquiet of the tyrant. He seemed
vexed and bewildered; then, as if resolved, he motioned Edeco back, and, again fixing
his eye upon the archbishop, thus abruptly addressed him:

“So, ho! my lord Oppas! You are not content to rule in the church; you would
sway the state. It is not enough that you claim an entire disposition of souls; you
would usurp that of bodies also. You are choice in your victims. The blood of
kings and princes must stain your altars, and you dispatch your assassins to the very
palace of your master. But you have dared too much for safety, as you have done
too little for success. The church shall not save you; and the insolent head of it,
who sits in Rome and sends out his murderous decrees, as if he were God himself,
to all parts of the earth—he shall not save you; even if he shall have power to save
himself, which is doubtful. I will march troops upon Rome itself, but I will have
justice; and his treasury shall pay my soldiers for the toil of his punishment.”

A shout rent the air from the armed band around, as Roderick finished his furious
tirade. He looked round approvingly upon them, and then his eye rested upon Oppas.
The archbishop, seemingly unmoved, replied to him respectfully.

“If I say to thee, oh king! that thy language surprises even if it does not confound
me, I shall but say what is the truth. That thou hast the power to punish
me for offences, real and imaginary, I nothing question. That thou hast power to

extort tribute from the iron keys of St. Peter, I do not deny thee; for God, of his
own foresight and for his own purposes, not unfrequently suffers injustice to prevail
for a season upon earth, and the axe of the executioner to be stained with the best
blood of his saints. This is no new thing in the history of the church's trials, and
the apostles have testified to its truth. I look not now to find the princes of the
earth perfected in holiness and slow to injustice; and I were but a poor servant of
my master, if I were not at all times ready to seal with my blood the faith which I
profess. If it be, oh king! that thy anger is against the church, of which I am a
most unworthy son, then must I submit to thy decree without murmuring. Yet may
I implore of thee to know of what offence I am guilty, and what is thy complaint
against the holy father?”

The air of the lord Oppas was that of a saint, so meek, so uncomplaining, so resigned
to his fate in consideration of his faith. To a temper like that of Roderick,
such a deportment was irritating in the last degree; nor did it lessen his anger to
listen to the ready acknowledgment of his power which the archbishop had adroitly
given in his reply.

“Now, by Hercules! this exceeds belief. What! thou art ignorant, my lord Oppas?
Thou knowest nothing of the assassin? Thou hast not heard of the villain
who would have slain thy sovereign, when it is the common speech of Toledo?”

“I have not said this, oh king! Of a truth, I know that such is the common
speech of Toledo; but I know nothing of the facts,” was the response of the archbishop;
to which the answer of Roderick was instantaneous:

“Who said thou didst not know? my lord Oppas. I knew thou didst. But thou
dost not justice to thy knowledge. Thou knowest more than the common speech of
Toledo; thou knowest the assassin—thou hadst knowledge of his mission. Wilt
thou dare deny that?”

“If thou commandest me to speak, oh king! I do deny that I had knowledge of
the assassin, as such.”

“But thou knowest him?” exclaimed the king, eagerly.

“That I know not,” replied the wily archbishop; “for, as yet, I have not seen
him. It may be that he is known to me. I will not say.”

“He is—he must be! He wears thy accursed garments—he comes of thy own
black brood—he ministers to thy church!” exclaimed the fierce monarch. “But I
will set him before thee; ye shall see and speak with each other; and I trust to hear
the truth—for as surely as yonder streams the blessed sun upon the marble of this
floor, so certainly shall the blood of one, or both, or all of you, stream in atonement
for this crime, which I hold to have come from your secret counsels together.”

“Let it be, oh Roderick! as thou hast said!” exclaimed the archbishop, confidently.
“Let the criminal be set before us; if he be of the church, it may be that
I shall know him; yet, if he be, I trust to show that the crime he purposed was the
meditation of his own heart, and came from no counsels of mine, or of the holy
brotherhood.”

The king gave a signal to Edeco, who disappeared.

“Holy brotherhood!” exclaimed Roderick, in scorn; “I know your holiness, my
lord Oppas, and the holiness of the brotherhood; and, as you know it also, it makes
not in your favor, in my mind, that you should so reverently speak of it. But here
comes Edeco. Look, my lord bishop, for the prisoner cometh. See that you forget
not your friends; see that your faith holds firm, and denies not the knowledge of a
brother.”

This was the moment of trial for the archbishop, and he addressed all his energies
to meet it—for all eyes were upon him as he gazed. In boldness only—in the

utmost confidence—could he hope to avoid suspicion. A moment's pause, or hesitation—an
averted look, an agitating apprehension, he well knew—as he was closely
watched by the monarch and by many who would have been but too happy to avail
themselves of his fall to omit noticing his confusion—would confirm the suspicions
of Roderick—and his resolution was taken. Rising, as the guards appeared with
the prisoner, he himself addressed them:

“Bring forward the assassin, that I may look upon him! You shall see, oh
king! that I dread not the contact with this man, which is to confound me—satisfied
as I am that I know him not as an assassin, even though I may have knowledge of
him as a priest.”

The unhappy Egiza, still clothed in the monkish habiliments of Romano, was
brought forward accordingly. He had heard the words of the archbishop—and, indeed,
they were intended quite as much for his ears as for those of the king. They
gave him a clue to the position in which Oppas stood, and taught him the danger of
his uncle—not on the score of his relationship, but as he was a member of the same
religious fraternity. This was enough for the prince. His resolve was taken; and
had he not already determined upon answering nothing that could lead to a discovery
of his secret, this would have made him do so. He met the eye of the archbishop
with as much indifference as he could command.

“My son, who art thou?” demanded Oppas.

The youth paused a moment ere he replied, as if uncertain whether to do so or
not. He then spoke:

“Who are you, that ask?”

“Slave!” cried the furious Roderick, half rising from his throne, and grasping a
javelin; “Speak, slave! and answer, or thy tongue shall be torn from thy jaws by
the roots!”

“Thou wilt have less answer then than now,” was the calm reply; “and wilt
add another proof to the folly, not less than the tyranny of thy sway. Art thou
answered?”

A dozen violent hands were laid upon the criminal as he uttered himself thus; and
this violence on the part of his subjects disarmed that of the despot. He did not like
to behold so much of ready impulse, even though in defence of his own authority, on
the part of those whom he only required to obey; and to the surprise and consternation
of the forward courtiers, his rebuke was by no means gentle.

“How now, my lords; wherefore this violence? Unhand the man, I say. Ye
are too bold. Think you if I had needed that weapon should be used, I should ask
for yours? Am I so feeble of arm that ye come thus to my aid ere I summon you?
Had I needed this free service, and were there danger in the deed, ye had not been
so quick of action. I should have waited for you long, and called for ye in vain.
Ye had been more ready to help the foe, than the monarch who claimed your rightful
service and needed your succor. Give back, and let the slave answer freely. If
he is ready to abide the axe-man, he hath a right to speak. He hath but little time
for insolence, and I am curious to learn his phrase. You have more matter for his
ear, my lord Oppas. Speak to him freely, else you greatly disparage the brotherhood.”

“I know nothing of the man, oh Roderick! and wist not what to ask of him,”
said the archbishop. The king scrutinized him as he spoke this denial, but he detected
nothing in the inflexible features of the speaker to give the least color to his
suspicions.

“Then I will question him myself!” he exclaimed, turning from his unsatisfactory
examination of the archbishop's face, to one equally unsatisfactory and much

more annoying, which he bestowed upon that of the prisoner. After a few seconds,
during which he gazed at Egiza as though he would read the very thoughts of his
secret soul, he abruptly asked:

“Who are you?”

“A man—your foe!” was the reply.

“We shall try your manhood, slave; for your enmity we care not. We shall
subdue both. But ere your limbs writhe under the torture, be wise and answer.
What name bear you?—whence come you? Speak—unfold the truth, and rely
upon our mercy to save, where strict justice would have us destroy.”

The prisoner replied, without a moment's pause:

“I fear not your torture, and your mercy I despise—for I believe not in your assurances.
I have no name—I am without a country. There is one question you
have not asked, which I might yet answer.”

“What question?” demanded the king.

“You seem not curious to know wherefore I strove to slay you—wherefore I invaded
your gardens of infamy and aimed my dagger at your heart! Why is this indifference?”

“Insolent! Wherefore should I demand that which is so evident. Hast thou
not the garments of the monk upon thee? Art thou not one of the creatures that
fattened at the public charge in the House of Hercules? Answer, slave! Wert
thou not sent upon thy base mission by this same priest? Did not thy charge come
from the lord Oppas?”

“No!—thou knowest, Roderick, that it did not. Thou well knowest the motive
of my hatred, and the cause which moved me to aim my dagger at thy life. It was
not for the church, not for the priest, not for any sect, not for my own ambition, that
I strove to slay thee; but for humanity, for virtue, for innocence. Before thy court,
in the presence of the aged and the noble whom I see around thee, will I declare the
occasion of my attempt upon thee; and if all honorable feeling be not gone from the
court—if there be husbands and fathers among them, to whom the virtue of the wife
or the daughter is dear, they will rise against thee as with one spirit, and strike at
thy heart with a dagger as keen and much more fortunate than mine.”

The fury of Roderick could scarcely be restrained, and he was about to rise, and
would probably have hurled the javelin, which he now clutched in his convulsive
fingers, at the bosom of Egiza, but for the archbishop, who beheld, as he thought, a
fitting moment to interpose. He saw that the suspicions of the king—if, indeed, he
had ever, in reality, entertained them—were, in great part, diverted from himself by
the fearlessness of the prisoner; and he now only feared that the provocation given
by the prince, would be such as might prompt Roderick to inflict upon him a sudden
death. This he aimed to avert by a new proposition.

“The prisoner,” he said, “oh king! declares that he hath neither name or country;
but, as I must profess myself deeply interested in the habit which he wears, will
it be permitted me, Roderick, to propose to him a few questions in private, in order
that I may learn from him the motive for a course which is so very strange and
criminal.”

“Ha!—to counsel him to further insolence!” cried Roderick, his jealousy of the
priest reawakening. “No, my lord Oppas, no! Let him speak without counsel, as
I shall look for you to speak. Ye are traitors, both; and I will trust ye not from
my sight together.”

“I ask it not, king Roderick; in your sight let me speak to this man—but let the
guards be withdrawn. I care not what ye do with him: I am prepared for all that
you may think fit to do with me: but, as a servant of the church, I would examine

him who wears its garments, that I may the better learn the source of his iniquity,
and move his conscience to atonement. What should you fear? He cannot escape,
nor can I. Your guards are around us—your eye is upon us; you but suffer the
criminal to make his confession, if it pleases him, in secret.”

“Ay, to thee. He has already made it, I doubt not; but as his doom is fixed,
which all your pleading and all his confession may never change, take the privilege
which you pray for. Let the guards fall back, Edeco, and suffer the holy brothers
to speak together!”

The archbishop did not seem to heed the sneer with which the indulgence was
granted; he was only too well satisfied to avail himself of the privilege. Approaching
Egiza, with a slow and dignified manner, which was carefully studied, as he
well knew that it was closely observed, he at once addressed himself to the leading
object which he had in view.

“He has no guess of your secret, Egiza,” said Oppas, in the lowest tones; “suffer
it not to escape you. You will be doomed to death, and I myself will propose
your sentence, the better to avoid suspicion; but fear nothing, I have already taken
order for your rescue, and to-night you will hear of me in your dungeon from one
on whom you may rely. He will bear a token from me, and you will go with him;
but ask him nothing—and be sure you tell him nothing. Be of good cheer—bear
with the tyrant as you may, but provoke him not; his day will soon be ended—he
is on the precipice. Let us but escape this danger, and we triumph.”

“But the lady Cava?” said the prince, in similar tones, overlooking the present
difficulty in his way, and only solicitous for her whom he loved; “tell me of her,
my father; say that she is safe, that all is well with her, that she is out of the
clutches of this monster, and—in honor.”

“She is with the queen,” said Oppas, evasively.

“Speed—send a letter to her father, if thou canst, for I dread to think of the doom
which is before her.”

“Let us make thee free to-night, Egiza, and thou canst do more than this—thou
canst free her. But, meanwhile, say nothing to chafe the tyrant who has thee in
his grasp. Be not afraid when thou hearest me declare thy doom, for, of a surety,
I have but this one mode to escape suspicion. Reply to him in a subdued spirit,
lest, in his anger, he command the torture for thee.”

The youth shuddered, and replied:

“I will try; but I fear me, I should curse the tyrant, though my last breath lingered
at his will. Do what thou canst, my father; I leave it all to thee.”

The voice of Roderick arrested their conference, but not before the main points of
it, as the archbishop had desired, were sufficiently discussed.

“Well, my lord Oppas, to what condition of mind have you brought your worthy
brother? Methinks you have had sufficient time to hear his secrets—ay, and to unfold
your own. To what doth he confess?”

“He will confess nothing, oh king! neither his name nor the place from which
he comes. He is obdurate: I know him not.”

“What!—he will not say to you that his brothers of the House of Hercules sent
him to avenge their wrongs? He wears their garb; he might reveal to you, having,
I doubt not, so much of your lordship's sympathy. But I have an argument—nay,
two of them—which shall make him wiser. What ho, there! guards, advance the
prisoner. Hearken, slave!—you shall have your life—nay, your freedom—if you
will confess the truth. Say that you were sent by these priests, who style themselves
of Hercules, and I give you your life. Be wise; for as I have good cause to
suspect their fidelity toward our government, I am willing to reward in the most

generous manner the person who shall prove to my conviction their almost known
treason.”

“I were guilty of falsehood, were I to say so. Thou, Roderick, well knowest
the cause for which I set upon thee; and to silence the further wrong which thy
speech would cast upon innocent men, I will declare all the circumstances which led
to my assault.”

But Roderick had no wish that the truth should be spoken. It was to suppress
the truth that he suggested to the prisoner what his confession should be, and offered
him his life—an offer which he meant not to comply with—in compensation for the
lie. The game of the tyrant was well understood by all parties. The resolution of
Egiza enraged him, and he ordered him to the torture. Fortunately for the youth,
the guards announced the approach of the queen. Roderick scowled fearfully, as he
heard the announcement. He knew the gentleness of Egilona, and readily divined
that, having heard that he sat in judgment upon a criminal, she came—as was frequently
the case—to intercede between the judge and his victim, and soften the severities
of punishment. Way was made for her train, and she entered the hall of state
with the wonted ceremonials. Roderick deigned not to rise at her approach, and she
sat down on the seat below him, unnoticed. But the effect of her presence was obvious
to all. As if he had given no order for the torture of the prisoner, the king, assuming
a milder tone and manner, addressed the lord Oppas:

“The prisoner, my lord bishop, is well tutored. To whom he owes the counsel
which makes him thus obdurate, is a matter beyond my judgment, although not beyond
my suspicion. You have heard his crime—a crime which, were the criminal
a noble of this land, would call for his head. But, as the offender is of the church,
a priest, and one who, had he been successful, might have become a saint, the offence,
perchance, in thy mind will seem light, and worthy of no such punishment.
Give me to know thy thought.”

The reply of the archbishop was calmly but gravely uttered, and without a moment's
hesitation.

“His offence, oh king! I hold to be of a most damnable kind; and whether the
offender be priest or noble, its punishment should be the same. If I am to say—as
it would seem to be your desire, oh king! that I should—what the punishment of
the criminal should be, I would say death by the axe, as in the case of all similar
offenders.”

“Ha!” exclaimed the king, who evidently anticipated no such response. Suspecting
the seeming monk before him of a connection with the brotherhood whose
habit he wore, he looked to hear from the archbishop some exhortation to mercy—
some appeal from justice to humanity. Surprised and disappointed, he turned upon
the speaker and scanned him with looks of the keenest inquiry.

“Truly!” he exclaimed, after a brief pause, and a laugh of mingled scorn and
good nature, “truly, my lord bishop, thou art less tender of thy fellowship than I
had looked to find thee. This fellow should be an Arian, a schismatic, a backslider
from the square law and the round, since thou shufflest him down the wind with so
little concern. Wilt thou mutter for him a prayer, my lord bishop? Doth it come
within thy charity to say masses for a soul whose carcass thou art so ready to resign?
If it does, go to thy beads at once, and quickly, for thy decree will I adopt.
The assassin dies within an hour.”

The eye of the unhappy Egiza turned involuntarily upon that of the archbishop.
The suddenness of the sentence—the brief period of life which it allotted him—cutting
him off, as it did, from all hope of assistance such as the archbishop had promised
him—brought to his bosom, in that moment, all the sense and bitterness of death,

in the conviction of its now unerring certainty. So young—so full of hope—so full
of love, and the warm current of a generous affection—to be torn away from all—
from youth, from life, from love!—the thought was agony; and the thrill which
went through his veins, from the full heart which it convulsed, though he strove to
subdue his emotions, or at least to keep them from exposure, was yet perceptible to
the keen gray eye of the archbishop, though the latter did not seem to watch him.
His overhanging and long eye-brows shaded from others the anxious yet assuring
glance which he gave to the prisoner, the moment after the utterance of his doom
by the king. That doom, though undisputed, was yet to be modified. The archbishop
was not disposed to yield the struggle here. Himself seemingly secure, he
was collected enough to preserve his composure throughout the scene; and with that
temperate manner, which had, more than any thing beside, availed for his safety in
the trial through which he had gone, he replied to the last remarks of Roderick, by
seizing upon one part of his speech which furnished a natural opening for a plea in
mitigation of the sentence.

“King Roderick little knows the servant of Christ, if he thinks that his prayer
can be withheld from the criminal because he belongs not to the true church. Our
mission is for such as he. To save the sinner—to turn him from his path of darkness
into one of light, is the office of the priest; and these offices are more than ever
needed for such as are double offenders—offenders against heaven's laws and the
laws of man. But of little avail would be our prayers for the criminal, if he be not
suffered to pray for himself. I trust, oh king! that it is not your will that the unhappy
man before you should so suddenly be hurried from the presence of his mortal
into that of his Eternal Judge; since such a judgment would be little else than
hurrying his sinful soul into the deeps of eternal damnation.”

The gentle Egilona, for whose ears much of this speech was intended, was silent
no longer. She rose from her seat, which was at the feet of the tyrant, and knelt
humbly before him.

“Surely, surely, my lord, you will hearken to these words of the lord Oppas?”
said she.

“And wherefore? Let the dog die—let him twice, ay, thrice perish! It is his
punishment I seek,” exclaimed the king.

“But not in his sins, oh Roderick!—not in his sins! Let him repent of these—
give him time for prayer, for penitence—that, in the blood of the Redeemer, he may
find purification. I ask not that he may be spared; for the dreadful crime of which
he would have been guilty, if his cruel desire could have been accomplished, deserves
a cruel death. Yet, as his crime was mortal, let not his punishment extend
beyond the boundaries of this narrow life. At least, though you deny life to his
enjoyment, deny not salvation to his hope.”

Thus implored the queenly woman, and the gentle wife. The archbishop knew
that he had said enough, and prudently forebore to urge further suggestion. What,
indeed, could he have added to solicitations urged by beauty, by beauty in tears, in
homage, mingled with religious feeling, and enlivened by personal and devoted love.
Roderick refused at first, chafed and chided next, and at length yielded. The prisoner
was remanded to his dungeon, and five days were allowed to him to reconcile
himself with heaven.

The departure of the king and his train, was the signal for respiration on the part
of the archbishop. He had passed through a narrow and perilous strait, and he now
breathed freely. During the whole conference, and while the danger impended, he
had preserved a calm serenity of countenance, which nothing seemed to affect; so
that, whether guilty, and meriting punishment, or innocent, and likely to suffer from

injustice, he still secured the admiration of those who looked upon him. But now
he trembled. The color fled from his cheeks, as the guards withdrew in attendance
upon the tyrant; his knees grew weak, and he looked around upon the noblemen
who lingered in the hall with timidity and distrust. The involuntary sigh that then
escaped from his lips, drew the lord Gerontius to his side. The old nobleman approached
him with congratulations which were not less sincere than earnest.

“Your head was fairly within the jaws of the wolf, my lord Oppas; and I looked
every moment to see them close upon it. That they did not is the more wonderful,
as they evidently desired to do so. Can you conceive what is your offence, my lord;
for it certainly is not that which is alleged. Methinks the king well enough knows
the motive of the monk, who, it seems, is the father-confessor of the lady Cava, left
with her by count Julian. Such was the speech of one at my side while the trial
was in progress.”

“Of that I know not,” replied Oppas. “He would confess nothing to me. My
offence against the king, I readily conjecture to lie in the shallowness of the royal
treasury, and the supposed fulness of that of Holy Church. Another day will
show.”

“Such was my thought—my fear, I should rather say—for my suit at court will
then be sped much more suddenly than I desire,” said lord Gerontius, with a graver
countenance.

“What suit?” demanded Oppas.

“One that I fear to urge—a suit for money. I need certain sums—which I advanced
to help Roderick to the throne—to keep my estates from the Jews. They are
hovering like kites around me, and await but to see what face I wear on my return
from court to pounce down upon their prey.”

“What favor has been shown you by the king for your services?” inquired the
archbishop.

“Favor! Why, yes, 't is a favor that I am yet neither banished nor beheaded.
These seem to be the sort of favors with which old service has been requited; and I
tremble, therefore, but to speak of mine. The lords Aser and Gnotho—who,
in all Spain, toiled so faithfully and gave so freely to make Roderick what he is?
Yet are they banished, and without receiving one `L'ovogild'[1] of all their expenditures,
in return. You may imagine, therefore, with what fears I should demand
my just dues, and how greatly my apprehensions should, of reason, be increased
when you tell me that the royal treasury is low. I think to go back to my province
in despair, without praying for those kingly favors, which mercy may commute to
banishment or beheading—the latter being the greatest mercy, when the Jews are
already in possession of the body.”

The archbishop had some sympathies in readiness for the knight.

“If my treasury is to fill the royal coffers, it will be a merit that I pay some of the
royal debts. You will not regret to give me the lien upon your estates, my lord,
which the avaricious Jews now hold. Believe me, your indulgence will be much
greater.”

“Regret! Ah, my lord Oppas, you bind me to you for ever, if you save for me
the old dwelling of my fathers.”

He would have spoken his acknowledgments at greater length, but the archbishop
interrupted him:

“Come and sup with me to-night, my lord Gerontius, and I will then provide you
with the money necessary to free your estates from incumbrance. Yet say not

where you go, and let your acknowledgments of service be locked up in your bosom.
I shall expect you.”

The archbishop had secured another ally.

3. CHAPTER III.

That night the lord Oppas received his visiter with a judicious show of satisfaction,
and they supped together without other company. With a delicacy which had
its additional effect upon Gerontius, he obtained from him a knowledge of his debts,
the non-payment of which worked a forfeiture of his estates; and, without a word, he
placed in the possession of the latter a casket containing a sufficient supply of money
to meet his responsibilities. The nobleman was loud in his acknowledgments, the
utterance of which the archbishop gently discouraged.

“I have saved you, my lord Gerontius,” said he, “as I would look for you to
save me, should it so chance that I might need your aid; and as men who regard
each other rightly, and have common interests growing out of common danger, should
always be prepared to serve one another. These are not times, my lord Gerontius,
when wise men should pause to give help, seeing good men struggling with the
waters. It may be that you shall soon repay me for this small succor by a greater
benefit, and one more valued and valuable; but whether you do or not, it gives me
pleasure to make you a debtor to my friendship, by so small a service.”

“I do not esteem it a small service,” said the grateful Gerontius, “and I shall rejoice
in the opportunity which shall enable me to requite thee. It is not now that
we may command money, either from the prince because of past service, or the nobleman
because of ancient fellowship. You shall not suffer loss of this money, my
lord Oppas; for now that your generosity hath enabled me to set at defiance the hungry
vultures that hang over my estates, I shall be the better enabled to linger about
the court, and secure the favorable moment for urging my plea to Roderick.”

The archbishop interrupted the speaker.

“Do not deceive thyself; thou waitest in vain for a favorable moment to urge thy
plea for money. The monarch who is a debtor, like Roderick, yields no such time
to the creditor. Thou wilt but incur danger without profit, to press thy demand for
money at any season upon him.”

“What, then! am I to lose my substance, and behold him who possesses it bestowing
it upon such worthless minions as Edeco?” exclaimed the indignant Gerontius,
in reply.

“Even so; and congratulate thyself that the monarch is not more conscientious.
Were he less reckless than he is, he would extinguish the debt by taking thy head
as a traitor to the realm. Thy very application for the claim, would be a sufficient
argument to prove thee so.”

“And thou thinkest, my lord Oppas, that I shall never get this money from king
Roderick?”

“Of a truth, I do,” was the reply.

“Take back thy casket; I will owe thee nothing which I may never pay. My
only hope to return your loan is in the late justice of the king.”

“No! keep the casket; it is thine, Gerontius, whether thou repayest me or not,”
said Oppas. “If thou takest it not, it will only add to the already large sums which
Roderick has taken from his people, and which he will never return.”

“How! What mean you?” said the other.

“Roderick claims a greater reward for indulgencies than ever did the priesthood,”
responded the archbishop, with a smile. “I said to thee this morning, ere we separated,
that the wrath of the king rose from the shallowness of his own and the supposed
overfulness of the church's coffers, rather than from any belief in his mind
that I was a party with the assassin who aimed to take his life. I discovered that
while the trial was in progress. An hour after I had reached my palace, comes Edoco
to me with a warning that by noon the next day the king would expect supplies
from the church to meet the expenses of the war against Pelayo and the rebels in the
Asturias. Thou seest my treasury will be his ere noon to-morrow; and he must
have all, else my escape were for a brief season only. That casket were but a trifle
taken from the mass; it would add little to my loss—it will be the safety of thy all
to thee.”

“And yet, my lord Oppas,” said Gerontius, “though there be good reason in what
you say, yet I am greatly loath to lose these monies which the king had of me; not
so much, indeed, because I need their use, as that I chafe at such injustice. I am
scarce a man when I dare not demand a right.”

“Methinks,” said Oppas, with a smile, “methinks thou art extravagant, Gerontius,
in thy desires. Who claims to be a man now-a-days, in Iberia? Who is he
that clamors for his right? Thou hast lived too long in the country; and unless
thou learnest wisdom quickly, thy head will be of little use to thee after a week's
wear in Toledo. Take the casket, put it in thy bosom, and let it be of service to
thee—it will be of none to me after to-morrow. Release thyself from the Jews, and
beware how thou speakest of thy claim to Roderick.”

“What! wouldst thou have me yield it utterly?”

“No. Yet speak not of it in what thou sayest to the king. Go to him—lest he
think it suspicious that, having a claim, thou shouldst not place thyself in the way
for its payment. Solicit from him some goodly office, the rewards of which shall
come from the people and not from the royal treasury. To such office he will readily
appoint thee; for a royal officer of the Goth is now little else than a collector
for the royal treasury.”

“But what office could I seek for? I know nothing of such toils. My youth,
thou knowest, has been passed among warriors, and in strife with the wild Basques
and the impetuous Franks. I am a soldier, and better know the weapon than the
pen. In truth, my lord bishop, to confess a truth, what with imperfect eye-sight,
and a heavy hand, I am fain to content myself with signing the blessed cross where
my name should be written.”

The archbishop did not smile at the tacit confession of that ignorance which was
common among the nobles of the time, but, placing his hand upon that of Gerontius,
he said:

“Dost thou think I would have thee a scrivener? No! Thou lovest command
in war, my lord Gerontius. What sayest thou to the military command in thy province?
Go to Roderick—solicit that command—but solicit it as an humble and true
liege, who, if he has lent his sovereign the money which has made him such, is too
wise to remember it.”

Gerontius pledged himself to adopt the advice of Oppas, and lured on by the artful
conversation of the archbishop, he indulged in a freedom of remark hostile to the
king, which put him completely in the power of the former. But neither in word
nor gesture did Oppas suffer him to perceive that he was conscious of his indiscretion.
So far, the object for which the archbishop had toiled was gained, and he had
no desire to alarm the fears of his companion. He had gained an ally, who, in the
possession of power, he trusted to mould to his own desires. It may be well in

this place to add that his schemes were all successful. Roderick was not unwilling
to receive Gerontius with favoring regard, when he asked for nothing from the royal
coffers. His application for office was heard with favor, and the military government
of his province bestowed upon him, with the right to fleece the people at pleasure,
risking nothing more than the forfeiture of his treasure and his post, whenever
the royal necessities should be such as to persuade the king that his coffers were sufficiently
full to supply them.

When Gerontius had retired, his place was supplied by the fanatic Romano, to
whom Oppas reported such portions of the day's proceedings as he deemed it proper
to unfold. He took especial care in the narrative not to forget the demand which
Roderick had made upon the treasury of the church.

“The gold and silver devoted to pious uses,” said he, with a sigh, “will he consume,
my brother, in his sinful pleasures. The creatures of his lust will receive
them; and that which has been consecrated to God, and to the benefit to his ministers,
will be assigned by the lawless tyrant to the reward of all manner of sinfulness
and shame.”

The features of Romano glowed with a savage joy, as he replied:

“But they shall bring death among his pleasures, and they shall turn his sinful
joy into the bitterness of despair. I see the hand and the handwriting, my father—
the hour is nigh; and the hour that they drink from the vessels of gold and silver
which belong to the Lord, in that hour shall the tyrant die.”

The countenance of the archbishop was full of heedful reverence, as he gazed
upon the enthusiastic speaker; but he said nothing.

“Ay, my father, I see it and I know it,” continued the other. “This youth hath
not been spared by the tyrant, but that Heaven hath willed him to the execution of
its vengeance. He hath failed in his blow, but he shall not always fail. The spirit
moves me to release him, and I am strong to do it. This night will I see Guisenard,
who hath him in keeping, and as he hath a becoming reverence for holy things, I
doubt not to move him to a knowledge of his sin, in binding him whom God would
loose, and in keeping back the hand which God hath commanded to strike.”

“Yet should he be stubborn, Romano—should he plead service to Roderick, forgetful
of the duty which he owes to his Maker, as it is but too much the practice
with the guilty worlding to plead—what then wilt thou do, my brother?”

“He will not plead thus, my father; Guisenard is humble, and followeth closely
the commands of his father-in-God. Let one but show him the error of his way—
let one but show him that in this deed he keepeth in bonds the special messenger of
Heaven”—

“But,” said the archbishop, interrupting, “if he should not so readily understand;
for he cannot hope to be blessed with the direct revelation which has been made to
thee”—

“I fear not that, my father,” replied the sanguine zealot—“and even should he
deny me, I fear not that God will work the way out of bondage for His servant,
even as His angel wrought the deliverance of the holy Peter whom the bonds of impious
Herod had fettered fast in his dungeons, and guarded by his soldiers.”

“Alas! my brother; but these are not the days of miracle. God trusts now to
the faith of his people—to their zeal in his cause, and when this fails, the victim
perishes—and it is well then that the victim should perish, since the lukewarmness
of the worshippers merits no such benefactor. We must toil for the prisoner, my
brother, nor wait the coming of that blessed angel who set Peter free from the bonds
of Herod; and in working out this holy design, my brother, the end will sanctify
the necessary means, when all others shall fail thee. The purse I gave thee hath

an argument for the worldling which shall persuade him when light from Heaven
would fail to enlighten his mind; and though I trust that Guisenard will heed thy
counsel, yet thou shouldst not forget to employ the lure of gold, should the pure
silver of thy heavenly eloquence fail to reach his soul—which it were unreasonable
to think, unless, like the master whom he serves, the Lord hath hardened his heart,
as he hardened that of Pharaoh, for his destruction.”

“I will use the gold,” said the other.

“Ay, my brother; thou art chosen for thy work, and thou art bound to its performance.
There must be no idle scruples—no tender misgivings, unworthy of thy
strength, and ungracious in the sight of God, as they would seem to censure His
justice or His judgment. If the Lord hath assigned to this prisoner the holy task of
freeing his people from the bondage of the Egyptians, and if he hath assigned to thee
the no less heavy task of setting the youth free to this service, thou must do it at
every hazard.”

“I will do it!” said the zealot, with uplifted hands, and eyes that streamed with
a fluid fire and rayed out through his long eyelashes with a light like that of wild
insanity.

“Thou wilt try, I well know, my brother—thou wilt try thy pleadings—thy eloquence
shall seek to awaken and fill his mind, and move his heart to humanity;
thou wilt then try the gold which I have given thee, and then”—

“What then? my father,” said Romano, seemingly uncertain what to do in the
event of a failure of those influences upon which he so much relied, and which
were, as yet, the only influences which his mind had proposed to itself.

“Ay, what then, Romano; for the difficulty and the trial now begin. It were
easy for any man to seek to move a jailer by prayers and by the offer of gold to set
free the prisoner whom he hath in bonds. It is for the chosen servant of Heaven
to do more than this; for he is chosen that he may succeed. What, then, if his
prayers fail—if the stubborn jailer be insensible to the wisdom and the plea, and
scorn the temptation of gold and silver—shall the apostle forbear his office? Of a
truth, no! His task has then begun. What, oh my brother! should be thy performance,
if the Lord commissioned thee to take from me the power which I hold
among our people? Wouldst thou not strive to do it, by thy prayers, by thy pleadings,
by the doom which thou wouldst rightly denounce upon me from Heaven?
But if these were unheeded by me—if I scorned thy holy commission, and defied
thy threats—if, like Pharaoh, or Holofernes,”—

“Ah, my father, wherefore dost thou ask? Dost thou think me blind to the duties
which are before me? Believe me, I am ready. I see. I shall free this captive
from his bonds, as the Lord hath appointed. I am chosen for the work, and I
shrink not from it. Count it done, my father—count it done, ere three nights shall
pass away. I go, even now, to Guisenard. I trust to move him as from his own
heart, for I have long esteemed him good, as I know him to be guiltless of wilful
wrong. I will plead with him strongly, even according to the best of my poor ability—and
the gold will I give him, the better to help him in his flight to the Asturias.
Should he not yield to me, and take counsel from Heaven's will— But, I
will not think it. He will hear, he will yield, my father—the Lord will move him;
and should he not”—

The fanatic paused, covered his face with both hands, and remained silent for a
few seconds in this position. Then, suddenly recovering from his musing, he earnestly
grasped the hand of the archbishop, and with increasing wildness concluded
thus:

“The Lord hath strengthened me. I see the path which is before me, and I glory

in my tasks. Oh! my father, it is a blessed feeling when we can throw aside these
frail and foolish attachments which bind us to earth—which bind us in love even
of its vices, its weaknesses, its impiety. The laborer in the vineyard of God hath
need to discard all these enslaving affections. We are never free until we can cast
off those earthly ties which conflict with our duties, and keep us down from that
heaven to which we aspire.”

But little further conversation passed between them. When the fanatic had gone,
the archbishop seemed exhausted. He threw himself along upon a cluster of cushions,
and lay for some moments seemingly in deep thought, or stupor, with his face
covered by his hands. The path was tangled and intricate before him, and he had
need of reflection. Besides, the day's perils had almost enfeebled him. He had escaped
them; but how many were gathering in the vista, now momently opening before
his view! Should he escape them also? Should he triumph in the completion
of his grasping aims—in the attainment of his objects of ambition? What, in truth,
were those objects? Was he indeed struggling only for his nephews; or, with a
more patriotic spirit still, for the rescue of his country from the iron domination of
her oppressor? Neither! The purpose of his mind may best be understood by a
reference to those dishonorable acts and reckless crimes which he meditated even
now, and which he had already practiced and committed. The strong and deep
passions of the man gave double energy to the goadings of ambition, and hopes and
desires which he had never yet breathed to mortal were ever present to his thought,
and ever foremost in all the promptings of his soul. His soliloquy now, as he rose
from the cushions and paced hurriedly the lonely chamber in which he slept, may
give us glimpses of that dark policy the fruits only of which we have been permitted
to see before.

“A little while, a little while, Roderick, and if thy nature be not changed, and if
the stars fight not against me, thy sway shall be humbled. Let thy lusts but prevail
with Cava, and thou makest an enemy in Julian who shall hurl thee from the
throne and from life. Let the fierce soldier but bring his army to this city, and the
game is then mine own. He hath but the soldiers who keep with him at Ceuta—
and these the conflict with Roderick shall greatly lessen. It is then for me to bring
the discontents whom I have made, and the desperates whom I have bought, to bear
upon the strife. My power will decide the scale; and as it is for me to decide, so
will it be for me to sway. Then shall I triumph—not with thy kingdom only, thou
sodden and blinded tyrant, but with possessions which thy vain heart hath too little
known to prize. What hadst thou to do with so pure a spirit, so high, yet gentle a
soul, as inhabits in the bosom of Egilona? What had she to do with thee? She
could not, she cannot love thee. Alas! the shame that thy foul and common touch,
thy free intercourse and debasing converse, should have taken from her perfection,
as they have made it subservient to thee!”

The archbishop paused, and moving to the lattice, gazed forth long and anxiously,
but in utter silence, upon the lights that still shone from the chambers of the royal
palace. It was late in the night when he sought his couch, and then his slumbers
were broken, and troubled with annoying dreams.

4. CHAPTER IV.

Meanwhile, what of the unfortunate Egiza? He was hurried back to his strong
prison in despair. He had seen enough to know that his uncle was himself in danger,
and under suspicion; and as he knew not what course the judgment of Roderick
had taken in reference to him, he with reason questioned his ability to effect his
rescue, as Oppas had promised him in their brief interview. We shall not attempt
to describe his feelings and his fears. The anxiety, the apprehension, the despair—
not for himself, nor for his own life, but for her honor and her safety, who was far
more than life to him. He threw himself upon the floor of his narrow cell, when
the keeper had retired, and wept scalding tears. In this position the keeper found
him, when he brought him his evening repast. The man seemed to regard with a
feeling of compassion the desponding captive before him; and, indeed, a something
of respect, almost amounting to reverence, marked his language and manner while
addressing him—arising, probably, from the belief that his prisoner was a monk, as
his garb denoted.

“Arise, father, arise and eat,” said Guisanard; “you are feeble; your limbs lack
the sustenance of food. Here is that which shall revive you.”

“I need it not,” replied Egiza, faintly; “take it away; I shall not want it. Let
me sleep.”

The reply, though not churlish, was abrupt, and uttered in a manner which was
intended to discourage all further solicitation. The keeper did not urge the youth
but placed the food on a little table beside him, and was about to withdraw in silence;
but his heart seemed touched by the evident self-abandonment of his prisoner,
and as he looked upon his face and watched the noble and delicate features
which the strifes of manhood had not yet seamed with callous furrows, a stronger
sentiment of commiseration penetrated his bosom.

“Father,” said he, “your food is beside you; though you need it not now, perhaps
hunger will come upon you before you sleep; and you will be better able to
meet the trials which are before you, if your body take its needful support. The
water-jug is in the niche where it is cool. Is there aught that I can serve you in
ere I retire?”

The youth barely raised his head as he replied:

“Nothing—I thank you. I need nothing but sleep. I would sleep, since I may
not strive; I would forget, where to remember is to madden. Leave me.”

The keeper obeyed him, but much he wondered at the deep sorrow which the
seeming monk expressed—so unseemly in one so young, and so inconsistent with
the ferocious criminal who had aimed his bloody knife at the bosom of his sovereign.
Guisenard was a worthy man, devout without rage, and executing his trust
with punctilious exactitude, yet without severity. He left his prisoner with a mind
troubled with the thought of that strange inconsistency with which he had been so
struck, between the show of human feeling in the assassin and the deed of wanton
malice which he had striven to commit. His own thoughts in no way helped him
to reconcile the discrepancy, and he unfolded them to his young wife, as they sat
down to their own evening repast, in the corner of the prison which had been assigned
them as their dwelling. But Amreeta was as little skilled in the elucidation
of such mysteries as he, and she diverted all thought of the captive from his mind,
by placing their young boy—the sole and lovely pledge of their union—upon his
knee. He danced the urchin in air, kissed his rosy and full cheeks, and forgot, in
that happy moment, all thoughts and things but such as belonged to the devoted

father While thus he toyed, a signal at the portal demanded his attention. He put
down the boy, and admitted Romano. He stooped for the blessing of the father,
and then led him to the table from which he had just risen. Fresh viands were
placed before the zealot, but he declined to eat.

“Give me but bread, bread and water,” he said; “this dainty food is ungracious,
and of hurt to him who labors for eternal love. My daughter, thou art blessed; and
the boy”—

“Is also blessed, my father, for see the health upon his cheeks—how they glow,
and how his eyes kindle; and he never cries, my father—he is the meekest, most
patient child”—

“Stay, Amreeta—thou art too proud of thy firstborn,” said Guisenard, while a
fond and approving smile played upon his lips. “Stay thy idle self-flattery, for
thy praise of the boy is but praise of thyself. Is thy child healthier, or lovelier, or
better than that of any mother?—will not all speak like thee?”

“Ay, but scarcely with so much truth,” said the confident mother.

“Thou speakest truly, dame,” said Romano, gently; “many mothers may make
a boast, like thee, but few with so much truth. Thou art blessed in thy firstborn,
who is lovely beyond compare, and possessed of no less strength and health than
loveliness; but let us pray thee to make thy boast with humility—for the vain of
heart and the strong in confidence but provoke the wrath of Heaven, which comes
like the tempest suddenly at midnight. The bloom upon those cheeks which is now
a glory in thine eyes, may be pale like death ere the morning.”

The fond mother involuntarily drew the child away from the hands of the priest,
as if the certainty of evil lay in the bare possibility which he had suggested. Romano
smiled, but proceeded:

“Be hopeful, but not proud of thy child, my daughter—for the hope which looks
to the favor of Heaven for its fruition, is a direct admission of its power, and such
admission must ever secure its grace. Thy son is the gift of God: let thy charge of
him be such that in years to come he may be worthy of God's giving. Train not
thy child as if he were thy toy, thy plaything, but as if he were an immortal soul,
worthy of the favor of a God, yet not secure from the dreadful slavery of the devil.
My son,”—turning to Guisenard—“I would speak to thee alone.”

The keeper gave a nod to Amreeta, who, taking her child in her arms, was about
to leave the apartment, but, with a sudden impulse, she knelt before the priest, and
lifting the infant towards him, she implored his blessing. His hand rested a moment
upon her head in benediction, his lips moved, but the prayer which he spoke
was inaudible to mortal ears. He felt the beauty of the scene.

When Amreeta had retired, Romano abruptly addressed Guisenard in the following
manner:

“Of what secret crime hast thou been guilty, oh my son! unknown to and unabsolved
by me, for which the Lord has singled thee out for such a heavy weight of
punishment?”

“How!—what mean you, my father?” replied the pious keeper, in unqualified
alarm.

“Thou hast confessed to me thy frequent sins and errors,” continued the priest,
“and thy penance has been slight and easily borne. Thy confessions were only
of light offences, and such as were readily removed by due atonement and the endurance
of thy penance with a right spirit of humility and an uncomplaining temper
What heinous crime is it thou hast withheld from my ears? Why is it that our
Heavenly Father hath chosen thee for this terrible judgment?”

The consternation of Guisenard underwent due increase as he heard these words,

particularly as the air and manner of the priest was grave and solemn, and adapted
fitly to the singular language which he employed. He dreaded that some terrible
calamity indeed impended over his head, and looked every moment to behold the
cloud part and see himself sink beneath the rushing bolt. Ere he could demand an
explanation, the priest proceeded:

“Thou hast in thy custody a prisoner, newly brought to thee by Edeco?”

“I have, my father,” was the reply.

“Wherefore was he not despatched to the other prisons, by the city barriers?—
why was he sent here to thee, my son?”

“Nay, I know not, my father, unless it be that as this prison is in the heart of
Toledo, it is deemed more secure than all the rest. Thou knowest that the prisoner
is doomed to death—that he hath sought to do murder, even upon the person of the
sovereign.”

“Thou speakest idle things, my son, and I fear that thou hast grievously sinned,
as a just God has willed that thou shouldst be chosen to be the keeper of this
prisoner whom thou holdest in bonds, and of whom thou speakest most ignorantly
This prison is more secure than all the rest, thou sayest—as if any one were secure
when the will of God ordains that the chain shall be broken, that the wall shall part
and the captive be free to walk forth, even as did holy Saint Peter over the prostrate
bodies of his guards. This prisoner is doomed, thou sayest—as if man could
doom and execute when the succor of God is nigh, like a spear that never bends and
a shield that never breaks, to resist the doom, and to destroy the evil judge. And
shalt thou call this holy man a murderer, whom God hath commissioned to destroy?
It were truly an impious speech, my son, and thy penance should be great for its
utterance.”

“I know not, my father,” said Guisenard, after a brief pause; “I know nothing
of the matter of which thou speakest. I am in charge as the keeper of this prison,
under king Roderick, and it is my duty to keep well and securely the captive whom
he sends here in trust. It is not for me to question the decrees of my sovereign, or
to say which I shall heed and which I shall reject. My head were scarce certain
upon my shoulders were I to determine thus.”

“Oh, blind and self-sufficient as thou art!” exclaimed the priest; “thou who
darest not set thy judgment against the will of an earthly prince, yet art not too fearful
to defy that of the Prince of Heaven! I tell thee, my son, that it is God's messenger
that thou keepest in bondage—it is the executioner of His wrath that thou
keepest from the performance of his proper duties.”

“Truly, my father, I should be grievously sad to think that I should do anything
which should be displeasing in the eye of Heaven; and if it were a thing apparent
to my mind that the execution of my earthly trusts, as I have been taught to perform
them duly, were unseemly in the eyes of God, I would fly from the commission
of such an evil as I would fly from the sword and the pestilence. But I cannot
think it evil to obey the king who rules in the nation—nor can I think it evil to detain
under the command of the proper laws, the person of one who hath striven to
murder, in defiance equally of the commandments of Heaven and the laws of earth
Much do I pity the unhappy man who is sent to me for keeping. He is but young
to suffer death.”

“And thinkest thou, vain man, and self-deceiving as thou art, thinkest thou that
he will suffer—that the Almighty Father will leave his servant to perish? Thinkest
thou that He will not break his bonds, and open a way for him through the
walls of his dungeon, scorning your bolts, and heeding none of your common ways
of outlet? He will—look to it—He will; and, if it be that thou shalt not heed the

counsel which I give thee—if, in thy obstinacy and pride of place, thou wilt not
undo thy bolts and bid the man of God depart in peace, then shall the doom fall on
thy head also; for what saith the Lord?—`the chains of the captive shall fall from
his limbs, he shall walk erect in the open places, and his guards shall be slain by a
sword that is secret.”'

“I hear thee in sorrow, my father. What thou sayest to me is beyond my comprehension
and knowledge. I know not that this man is the man of God—I cannot
think it; else would he come not with the commission to slay.”

“As if God slew not his thousands when it needed—as if he smote not in the
high places, in the strength of the palace, in the thick of the host, by hands seen
and hands unseen, by day and by night,” exclaimed Romano, with impetuous and
loud accents.

“I know it, my father; and such I hold to be often the design and the deed of the
Lord. But how are we to know the executioner who is sent, from him who, with
a bad heart, hath deputed himself for murder? If it be that what thou sayest is to
be the rule of common judgment, then would no murderer suffer harm, and then no
good man could walk in peace and security. If it be that this man is of God, and
from God, then will God work out his deliverance without aid from me”—

“He will! He will! vain officer, He will!” replied Romano, interrupting the
speaker. “Fear not that the Lord will not work out his deliverance, and without heeding either thy help or mine. He hath divine agents which are ready to perform
when human agents fear to do, or fail Him. But, out of my love for thee, Guisenard,
would I have moved thee to this service, because I would not see thee come
to harm. Thou shouldst free this holy man, and thou shouldst follow him. Alas!
my son, thy thought, I fear me, is too much upon the lowly cares and devouring
wants of this earth.”

“Of a truth, father, I love the earth, and I love this life, for there are many things
in it to command my love; but I love it not to sin for it; and greatly, to my poor
mind, should I sin, if, heedless of the trust which is given to me by my superiors, I
set this man free, again to murder.”

“Thy superiors! Thy superior is God; Him shouldst thou obey. But let me to
see thy captive, Guisenard; let me mingle my prayers with those of the holy man
in bondage. Would that his bonds were mine, so that I wore the favor which he
wears, and which is the free gift of the Father.”

Guisenard freely complied with the request of the priest, with whose enthusiasm
he seemed to be familiar. He led the way to the cell, and left Romano with the
prisoner

5. CHAPTER V.

Sleep, in the dungeon of Egiza, had kindly come to the relief of its inmate
Care, fatigue, pain, had produced their united and natural effect upon him, and, in
spite of thought, he slept. But he slept not soundly. The jarring and sliding of
the bolts aroused him; and, in the dim light, uncertain of the character of his visiter,
and thinking only of enemies, he at once apprehended that the executioner sent by
Roderick was at hand. He started to his feet, resolved to provoke, by a violent resistance,
a more summary death than that of the axe; but, in the next moment, he
felt how idle was the resolve, since he was weaponless. The anguish of that conviction
who shall describe? The consciousness that he lay, like one bound hand

and foot, having neither the power to fight nor to fly, at the mercy of his enemy,
was humbling and maddening at the same moment. To strive to the last, opposing
blow to blow and skill to skill, would, to the desperate mind, be a rapture of itself,
and would effectually soften, if it did not disarm, death of all its terrors. But to die
without stroke or struggle—to await the blow, effortless, yet anxious—the mind toiling,
yet with a body unperforming, though writhing—is to die of a shame, and an
agony, having stings far beyond those of death. These stings were in the mind of
Egiza, as he felt the helplessness of his situation. But his confidence was not entirely
subdued.

“I have limbs, I have strength, I am still a man!” he exclaimed aloud; “and I
am unbound!”

With these words, he rushed toward the entrance, where the outline of the intruding
person was dimly perceptible. The words of Romano reached the ear of the
captive, ere he approached him, and before he could strike the idle but premeditated
blow.

“Ay, brother; and thou shalt have freedom!” exclaimed the monk.

The progress of the prisoner was arrested; his clenched fingers relaxed, his hands
fell at his sides.

“Who art thou?” he demanded, abruptly. “I thought that thou wert my executioner.”

“No, my brother; I am the poor monk who provided thee with thy garments;
and I come from the Lord, to strengthen thee with hope, so that thy triumph over
thy enemies may be complete.”

As Egiza heard these words, his thought was of the promise of the archbishop
Oppas.

“He hath not, then, deserted me!” he exclaimed.

“Deserted thee, holy brother! the thought was sinful. Never yet did He desert
those who put their crust in His word. He sends me now upon the work of thy
deliverance from the Amalekite; and thought the path is dim before me, and scales
upon my vision still intercept the light that is to guide us forth, yet do I nothing fear
that the gates shall be opened wide, and thy deliverance be as sudden as it is certain.
It may be that, for the more effectual revelation of His power, He may delay thy release
until the latest moment—ay, until the very moment which the Belshazzar of
this land hath decreed for thy destruction. He will set at defiance the decree; He
will defeat the bloody and unrighteous judge; He will give thee vengeance upon thy
enemies.”

In the feverish state of Egiza's mind, such language did not seem exaggerated.
He regarded the monk truly as a fanatic, and as one in the employ of the archbishop;
but he did not for a moment conjecture the sacred light in which he himself appeared
to his companion. Had he done so, he might have felt and spoken in tones of much
greater hesitation and humility, nor shown that composed and sternly elevated mood
which came rather from a despair of all help than a confidence in any heavenly
interposition. The monk, on the other hand, ascribed to this latter cause, the firm
tones, the fearless defiance, the reckless hardihood of the captive's demeanor. He
beheld in his, one who had the very words of the Deity for his assurance, and who,
however he may have doubted his own security for an instant, was too much filled
with sanctity and preternatural strength, to remain doubtful for any longer period.
His deportment toward the youth was that of one who stood in the presence of a
superior intelligence. He regarded Egiza as upon that higher eminence of divine
favor to which his own eyes were turned in hope and holy expectation. So adroitly
had the suggestions of the archbishop been insinuated, which appealed to the monomaniacal

tendencies of the fanatic, that he had ceased, after the first moment of their
utterance, to regard the speaker except as a humble agent for transmitting them from
the divine source of all intelligence to himself. Holding Egiza as one to whom he
was a chosen auxiliar, the escape of the former and the successful prosecution of
his divine mission were, of consequence, paramount aims with himself, through
which alone his ambitious desires could be realized. The rescue of the youth was,
therefore, his greatest object. For this he was not merely ready to suggest plans,
and to undergo toils, but to destroy all who stood in his path, and to pour out his
own blood with as little scruple. The madness which reconciled an otherwise correct
mind, and a heart rather gentle than otherwise, to such extremes, was at the
same time potent enough to color objects and arguments with the same false and
morbid complexion. Then it was that the merely human fears and feelings which
Egiza uttered before him, were all tinctured with a most heavenly coloring. The
vehemence of the youth was zeal for his Master; his despondency a noble humanity,
which had been the true cause of the Deity's selection of him; and the fear of
death, which had moved him to the first show which the captive had made of violence
toward him when entering his dungeon, only sprung from a desire to perform
his work ere he departed for his reward.

“Thou hast well rebuked my impatience, holy father,” replied Egiza, referring to
the supposed eulogy which the monk had passed upon the lord Oppas; “thou hast
only done him justice. He hath been a true friend to me ever, when other friends
failed me; and I look not to find him forget his promise.”

“He spoke to thee, then, my brother. He promised thee; with His own lips He
spoke to and promised thee!” exclaimed, rather than demanded, the excited enthusiast.

“Ay, this very day, with his own lips, he promised to send one to me on whom
I might rely.”

“And I am he! Oh, Blessed among the blessed! the Glory where all is glorious!
Supreme Father! Divine Principle, which is every where, carrying life and
light, doing wonders without ceasing! wherefore is it that the poor worm is so honored
with Thy grace? what am I, that Thou shouldst lift me to Thy holy work? what
are my poor prayers, that Thou shouldst heed them—or my vain wishes, that Thou
shouldst hearken to them? Lord! give me strength and grace, that I prove not unmindful
of Thy service. Strengthen me, oh Redeemer! that I fall not back—that I
yield not to the Tempter, whether on the right side or on the left, but pursuing the
steady light of Thy holy will—which burneth for ever before my eyes, in the sunshine
and in the storm—that I toil on without ceasing, nor weary in the well-doing
which I have begun! Oh my brother!” he exclaimed, now addressing the wondering
Egiza; “Oh, my brother! favored and blessed among men! I joy with a full
heart that I have been chosen to minister to thy release. Thou shalt go forth from
these feeble walls; they shall not restrain thee. I see thy deliverance with my soul,
even as I shall see it with mine eyes; for though the keeper hath once denied me to
let thee go free, yet do I not despair that he will relent, that he will yield to my
prayers, that he will give heed to my warnings, and let thee forth in safety, ere the
doom fall upon him also, even as it shall fall upon the hardened heart of the Pharaoh
who enslaveth this nation.”

“He hath denied thee? Thou hast sought him, my father?” said the prisoner,
to whom the latter part only of the zealot's ravings had been comprehensible.

“He hath, my brother,” was the reply; “but Guisenard is a worthy man, who
meaneth well, and whom I have long tutored. He hath a love and reverence for
me which shall, I trust, move him to my wishes. I have other arguments in store

for him which must prove triumphant over his rebellious heart, though he fear not
the displeasure of Heaven. He will”—

“Hast thou gold?” demanded Egiza, interrupting him. “The man who would
scorn all your arguments and mine, would yield to the reason which is in gold, my
father. Has not the lord Oppas given thee gold for this purpose?”

“Of a truth, he has; but I had forgotten!” The zealot took a heavy purse from
his garment, as he replied; “but how couldst thou know that, my brother, unless
Heaven had opened thine eyes to a divine perfection of sight?”

“'T is but reason, my father, that the lord Oppas should avail himself of an influence
having a power upon most men, in these corrupt and dishonest times,” replied
Egiza.

“'T is a divine instinct, my brother, which makes thee to know it. It must be
that Heaven intends that this gold—as it were to mortify the poor vanity of my
mind which made me to think that my frail arguments could move thy close and
stubborn keeper—is the power which, under God's permission, shall alone set thee
free. Let me go, my brother, that I may make trial of it upon Guisenard,” replied
Romano.

“It will do more than all thy arguments, holy father,” said the melancholy captive,
whose words were nevertheless held to be oracular. “I doubt not that it will
be received as reason, when thy promise of Heaven, and thy threats of its wrath,
would only be heard with laughter or defiance.”

“It must be so, my brother,” replied the monk; “and yet Guisenard hath ever
been a dutiful believer, and a man humble in carriage as in desire. I will speed to
him at once, and make the trial of this yellow temptation; for, as God wills that it
should be tried, it is holy; and the Power that created may well use, for His own
glory, the thing of His creation.”

He was about to depart, when Egiza arrested him:

“Ere thou goest, my father, hast thou not with thee some weapon—some instrument
which shall guard life or give death. If thou hast, give it me: if thou hast
not, bid the lord Oppas provide thee with one, which thou shalt bring me.”

“He hath already done so, my brother; but I had forgotten. But thou knowest,
thou seest all things. I go to plead with Guisenard.”

He gave a dagger to Egiza, and with a few words of respectful benediction, as if
receiving the blessing which he bestowed, he turned away and would have left him;
but when he sought egress from the apartment, he found that the door had been
cautiously fastened upon him also, by the watchful Guisenard.

In the first moment of this discovery, distrusting all men, and inferring danger
from all circumstances, the gloomy Egiza apprehended that the agency of the monk,
as an emissary of the archbishop, had been discovered, and that the plan for his escape
was thus defeated for ever.”

“They have listened—they have heard us, my father; they keep watch over us
both.”

“Fear nothing, my brother,” replied the sanguine Romano, whom no misfortune
seemed to discourage; “the Lord is our strength and our redeemer; He will not deliver
us to our foes. Of a certainty, he will shield thee and give thee release, my
brother; though I—poor and feeble worm that I am, whom He hath only too much
honored already—should be left behind to perish. But I will call to the keeper,
who will give us speech, and show wherefore he hath thus closed the bar upon us.
Guisenard!”

The priest called aloud, while, with the handle of his dagger, Egiza beat upon
the door within.

“At least!” exclaimed the latter, exultingly, while waving the glittering instrument
in the dim chamber in which it was yet distinctly visible; “at least, I have a
sharp weapon which will help me in the struggle. I shall not perish like a chained
beast, whom the sportsman may strike at pleasure, and without fear. If I must
perish, I will perish like a strong man, and some among my enemies shall perish
likewise.”

But there was no cause of present apprehension. The jailer came to the relief of
Romano, whom he quickly permitted to come forth, apologizing gently for the detention
which he said had been unavoidable, as he had been summoned to other duties
in a distant part of the prison. How strong was the disposition, at that moment, on
the part of Egiza, to rush forth also, and to rely upon the strong arm for his release!
But prudence got the better of the ill-advised suggestion. He knew that there were
other and bolted doors through which he must pass; and when he gazed upon the
keeper, and measured his vigorous frame with his eye, he felt that nothing but entire
imbecility of soul on the part of the latter could possibly enable him to succeed.
He resolved patiently to wait events, relying on his uncle, and the zealous Romano,
whom he saw depart with anxiety and regret.

Romano retired with Guisenard to the apartments of the latter; but brief time for
conference was allowed them. A heavy summons at the main portal of the prison,
announced the arrival of others destined for its occupation; and he signified to the
monk the necessity for his leaving.

“It is already beyond the hour, my father; and if the espatorio should hear of
this irregularity, it would go hard with me—it might be the means of losing me my
office.”

“Beware!” exclaimed Romano, anxiously, when he found all his persuasion of
no avail in obtaining permission to continue the conference longer; “beware that
the love of thine office does not make thee forget thy love to God, and thy proper
performance before him. To be the officer of Roderick should not be a desire so
great with thee as to be the servant of Jesus; and in fulfilling thy trust to the one,
and that one the wrong-doer, I warn thee that thou mayst do grievous offence to the
other—and He thy Saviour or thy Destroyer, as thou thyself only shall by thy acts
determine.”

The keeper heard him respectfully, but insisted on the performance of his duties
to his earthly sovereign.

“Another time, my father,” said he, impatiently; “I will hear thee. To-morrow
and to-morrow night; any time before the hour set for extinguishing the lights and
closing the gate.”

Romano prepared to depart, as Guisenard hurried him. The necessity for doing
so seemed to become more and more evident every moment, as the thundering at the
outer entrance grew more and more violent. But the zealot was not content to acknowledge
this necessity, and murmured to the last. He was a little pacified, however,
as, ere he went, the keeper begged for his blessing.

“I give it thee, my son, with the hope that this night the spirit of the Lord shall
come upon thee, and that thou mayst have a better knowledge of what thou hast to
perform; for, in truth, the peril is at hand, and as thou standest as one in a dangerous
place, to whom a step to the right or the left may prove fatal, I pray that thou
mayst have a blessed counsel from Heaven, teaching thee to hearken to those who
know the path of safety, and are ready to guide thee in it. I bless thee, my son,
and I pray that thou mayst be blessed with the divine counsels which we all need,
and thou more greatly than any, in the work which is before thee.”

“Amen! my father,” replied Guisenard, with reverence, as they parted.

Stimulated by the religious fury which filled his bosom, Romano had no desire
for sleep; and, though the hour was late, yet trusting to find Oppas still up, or most
probably not giving the doubt a thought, he proceeded to the archbishop's palace.
He had been waited for. The latter was too deeply interested in the subject of the
monk's mission to resign himself to sleep while the labors of the priest were yet unconsummated;
and his anxiety to hear, though suppressed by the stronger policy
which governed him, was scarcely less active than was that of Romano for speech.
It will not need that we should dwell upon their conference. It is sufficient to say
that the archbishop, still aiming at an entire control over the mind of the zealot, furnished
new arguments and repeated old ones in a novel form, calculated to inflame
his fanaticism, and prevent its rage from subsiding. The religion of the zealot is
most commonly the vanity of a strong but unequal intellect, of a mind in which the
faculties are not equally balanced—some few, and those, perhaps, the most selfish
(such as the imaginative) being too greatly in the ascendant to forbear tyrannizing
over the rest; and whether the man in whom this occurs be of the religion of Jove
or Brahma, of Manco Capac or Mahomet, the mere principles of his professed faith
will have but little influence in modifying the madness under which he moves. Any
religion would serve equally well, in the hands of a cunning prompter, to impel such
a person to the foulest crime, who, in its commission, would never for a moment
question in their own minds, or suffer others to question, the great service they were
rendering to God.

The archbishop was a prompter cunning after this fashion. Cunning, not wisdom,
was the art which he employed. The distinction between these two powers
is not sufficiently dwelt upon. The former pursues an object, whether it be good or
evil, without scrupling to employ in its pursuit every agent that may serve it, whether
right or wrong. Wisdom has but one single aim, and that is right; and she
employs but one set of agents, and those are all right. We should have reason
always to suspect the propriety of employing any other, since, when was it ever
known that the powers of evil came freely to work for the principle of good? Truth
is always single; and if we kept this fact continually in mind, truth would be a common
virtue of the household, which is now a mystery.

But power and perverse passions were the objects for which the archbishop toiled,
not virtue; and the practice of fraud and subtlety, from having been employed by
him for the attainment of these objects, became objects of themselves in time, and
he derived pleasure from their practice. The pursuit of mischief called for his ingenuity,
and the love of the curious and the ingenious is a natural love of man. Had
Oppas not aimed at power—had he not craved the satisfaction of passions which, in
his instance, were denied—he would still have practiced the cunning with which he
controlled and prompted Romano, for a pleasure of its own. But in their use, the
creature which they moved was suffered to behold none of the secret springs. The
art concealed itself, and the heedless fanatic assumed to himself, as innate discoveries,
the various plans and purposes, every one of which the other had insinuated.
Not a word spoken by Oppas was without its signification; and when, that night,
Romano left him, he went forth, ready, as the minister of Heaven's wrath, to commit
any crime that might tend to bring about the purpose which he had constantly
in view

That night and the ensuing day was a weary and a painful time to the prisoner.
The keeper, Guisenard, came more than once to speak with him. The manner of
this man was kind, and in his language he strove to be consoling. He evidently
pitied Egiza on account of his youth, and much he wondered that one wearing the
holy garments of the priesthood should have been prompted to the attempt at crime

which had been charged against him. He was led to think, from the interest which
Romano had taken in him, that there must be some mistake in the matter; and this
led him to yield sundry little indulgencies to Egiza, which were not often bestowed
upon convicts. Water was furnished him for his ablutions, a mirror, and a light;
and when he came to the cell and sat down with the prisoner, Egiza thought he
could see in his features the evidence of that natural spirit of benevolence which had
shown itself in conduct very different from that usually of persons in his occupation.
Guisenard even brought his son into the cell with him, and in the display which he
made of a father's tenderness, his features grew still more softened to the eye of the
prisoner.

“Thou hast friends?” asked the jailer.

“I know not!” was the gloomy reply.

“Thy father lives—or thy mother?”

“No! thank Heaven!”

“What! dost thou rejoice,” exclaimed the other, half revoltingly, “that they are
no more?”

“No! I rejoice that they live not to share with me the terrors of this place—of
their son's shame, and the cruel doom before him.”

“And why didst thou provoke that doom, my father? Why—if thou hadst a
terror of this death which is before thee, and of the shame that comes with it—why
didst thou risk the foul crime for which thou art to suffer?”

“Foul! dost thou call it?” said Egiza, sternly.

“Ay, foul! What other name, my father, for the deed of the assassin? I had
thought that in the solitude of thy dungeon, and the impartial current of thy serious
thoughts, thou too wouldst esteem that to be foul which nothing but the greatest
provocation could excuse, and which I hold in thee to be the fruit of a sudden impulse.”

“And so it was! But the impulse was that of justice, sir keeper! and my sorrow
is that my blow was defeated that would have hurled the base tyrant from life,
and to his deserved hell, in the same instant; for I would have stricken him while
in the full fury of his sin!”

“It is a bad thought, and it were a very cruel deed, my father; and it were God's
providence that thou didst not strike surely!” said the keeper.

“It was a most unhappy fortune for this accursed land that I failed in the blow,
and that the slaves of the tyrant set upon me. Hear me, sir keeper; thou art wedded,
thou hast a child—I see in the dim light of this dungeon that it is lovely. Is
the child of our sex? or of that weaker and fairer, more dependent and suffering,
and therefore dearer sex, which lies at the mercy of man, and, failing in his protection,
is lost! lost! dreadfully and deplorably lost for ever! Is thy child a girl?”

“No, my father!” replied the keeper, startled by the vehemence of the speaker,
and clasping the little one closer in his arm as he spoke; “he is a boy.”

“Thou hast reason thank Heaven, and bless his mother, that gave thee not a
woman child! Else, like me, thou mightst have stood to see her a victim, or struggled
vainly to protect her from the brutal lusts of the tyrant, and perchance of his
slaves. Leave me, sir keeper! leave me! Look not upon me, I pray thee! I am
cursed!”

The tide of thought was overpowering, and for a moment reason seemed to be
swept away by its impetuous torrent from the brain of Egiza. He threw himself
upon his face on the stony floor, and shivered and writhed as if wrung by convulsions.
The child screamed, terrified by the vehement action of the prisoner. The
keeper, to quiet him, withdrew in silence; but he felt more commiseration for the

speaker, and more horror at his approaching doom, than he had conceived it possible
for him to have felt for any criminal, before this revelation reached his ears

6. CHAPTER VI.

That night, the food given to Egiza was from the table of Guisenard, and far
superior in quality to that provided for the prisoners. But he touched it not, though
the keeper in person entreated him to eat. He neither looked upon the food nor the
keeper, but with a moody spirit he turned his face upon the wall, and answered
in monosyllables only to the salutations of Guisenard. From this mood, the
good-natured keeper strove, but vainly, to turn the current of his thoughts. He
spoke of many things, of passing events which he thought might interest him; and
at length he referred to the subject of his assault upon the king: but on this, Egiza
sternly silenced him.

“Enough!” said he, “Enough that I failed in the blow; that I could not save.
I would pray now to forget.”

When Guisenard was about to leave him, the better feelings of the prince predominated,
and he came forward, and with gentle accents prayed the keeper's forgiveness
for any harshness of speech which he might have employed:

“But, in truth,” he said, “I am too wretched to respect any, even those who love
me. I know not what I say.”

He requested Guisenard to lead the monk Romano to his cell, whenever he should
come, and the jailer then retired, more than ever impressed with sympathy for his
suffering prisoner.

When Romano came, he proceeded as usual to the private part of the prison, in
which the keeper dwelt, and partook of his evening meal, along with the family, as
if he were one of them. Guisenard had much to say of his prisoner, in whom he
had become interested; and Romano was not slow to encourage the favorable impressions
which the mind of the latter had received. But vainly did the enthusiast
strive to fill the more human understanding of the keeper with his own elevated fancies.
He could not be persuaded that Egiza had striven to slay the king as the special
agent of the Deity. He had seen enough in his interview with the prisoner, the particulars
of which we have briefly recorded, to know that passions and feelings of
earth prompted the blow of the avenger, even as they had prompted the criminal
excesses of the king which had provoked it. The efforts of Romano, therefore, to
inspire a reverential regard for the convict in the bosom of Guisenard, failed entirely;
and he smiled only at the bigotry of the monk, in which he could not participate, to
the great annoyance and the unsuppressed displeasure of the latter.

“Thou art blind, my son—be not wilful,” said he, in tones of mingled entreaty
and rebuke. “It is for the ignorant to be humble. They should hearken to the
words and obey the directions of those who are blessed with a better vision. Thou
seest nothing in this holy man, but a goodly youth who hath been wronged in his
earthly possessions, and has sought, with the base frenzy of a feeble spirit, to revenge
himself after the fashion of earth upon the wrong-doer. Alas! that the noble
self-sacrifice of the martyr should go unheeded thus among men! How many are
the holy spirits, suffering for God and for the truth, whom the blindness of men hath
thus deprived of the glory which is of right their due! But they can not do injustice
always; and eternity heals the wrong as it overturns the vain and capricious
powers of time. It is fortunate that tyrants can only kill: they can not hurt They

rend the body with their powers of torture, but the soul—the soul, my son—that
smiles at the sacrifice, and rejoices at the place of human punishment, as at a sure
token of eternal reward. Their revenge is the revenge of virtue; and that consists in
the great final triumph of the truth. If they rejoice to behold the tyrant writhing in
the unquenchable flame, which his own hellish heart hath kindled, it is not because
they would witness his suffering—except that in his suffering the truth proves itself
triumphant and makes itself secure. This holy man had no purpose in his effort to
destroy Roderick, except to rescue the church, and to vindicate the superiority of
God. He strove not, as thou idly thinkest, to revenge a personal wrong, and to appease
a merely human feeling. He hath been commissioned for higher objects, and
by a higher power; and the justification which thou wouldst make for him, in the
deed which he aimed at, is only truly human, as it derived its perfect sanction from
the countenance and direction of God. There is no justification for crime, unless
such justification come from the express will of Heaven; and man may shed no
blood, and take no life, unless it be for the salvation of Holy Church, and for the
protection of that sacred principle of truth, which is beyond all value, which the
recklessness of the tyrant who should be cut off, would otherwise endanger. Look,
then, upon this holy messenger in his proper light, Guisenard, ere thou suffer from
the anger of the Lord, with him against whom the decree hath gone forth. I see it
written in letters of fire upon the wall—`Roderick is devoted!' I hear it spoken in
tones of thunder! Now, even now, I hear it! Hark!” And he paused, with uplifted
finger, and looked up, as if listening to some passing sounds. “Dost thou not
hear?” he continued.

“No, my father, I hear nothing,” replied Guisenard.

“Alas, my son! thou art deaf as well as blind. I tremble for thee, Guisenard,
unless the Lord suddenly and of his free grace touch thy senses with a keen perception.
Thou seest not the writing which flames before me. Thou hearest not the
deep voice which rolls along these thick walls, and says, plainly to my ears—`The
wrath of the Lord is on its way, winged with red lightning and confounding thunder.
Roderick, thy kingdom is taken from thee! The Mede is at thy gate—the
Persian is on thy throne!' I hear these words, and I tremble. Thou hearest not,
Guisenard—and Roderick heareth not; but though ye hear not, ye shall both tremble.
I would not have you perish, Guisenard, with this evil-minded and devoted
king, for whom the two-edged sword of doom is even now whetted. Provoke not
the wrath of the Destroyer, but yield thyself to His will, and let His people go. Say
to the prisoner, whom thou hast in bonds—which God will burst in his own good
time to thy confusion, if thou heed not the words which I say to thee—say to him,
`Depart in peace, and the blessings of God go with thee.' Say to him thus, this
night, this hour, my son, if thou wouldst have the blessings of eternal favor upon
thy head.”

“If I would have Roderick take my head, thou surely meanest, holy father. I
were but a rash man to risk such danger for any person, however holy and praiseworthy
his life, who was not of kin or connexion with me; and still more to risk the
lives of my wife and little one: for, of a surety, the king would devote us all to
that fate from which thou wouldst have me release the prisoner.”

“He would not—he dare not!” exclaimed the monk, vehemently. “Terribly
would the wrath of God avenge thee, my son, upon the head of thy impious murderer!”

“Perhaps, father, perhaps; but I love not vengeance, and thy own teaching makes
it unholy. I would rather not provoke the wrath of Roderick, to my own undoing,
since the vengeance of the Lord upon him, for the murder of myself and mine,

would be of little account to me, after my own blood were shed,” replied the jailer,
with a more worldly, and perhaps more natural sort of calculation than comported
with the superhuman imagination of Romano.

The indignation of the fanatic seemed almost unbounded, as he exclaimed:

“Oh, thou of little faith!—thoub lind, yet unbelieving; who canst not see of thyself,
yet will not trust to the guidance of the Lord! Dost thou think that He would
suffer thee to perish, if thou servest Him? When hath He ever failed those who
put their trust in Him? Thou canst not show me! Yield to His desires and thou
art safe; but put thy trust in princes of the earth, and I tell thee, Guisenard, thou
shalt perish! Save this holy man, and, if thou heedst my words, the vengeance of
Roderick can not touch thee. Thou shalt fly with him thou savest!”

“What! to be hunted by the soldiers of the king through all places, wild and
strange, and among all sorts of men, more savage than the hills they live among!
No, no, my father!—such were a folly in any man; and a greater folly in him who
hath a young wife and an infant child to provide for. It behoveth such, as thou
hast often tutored me, to be contented in their places, to be patient of their trials, and
bear up meekly under the toils which are put upon them.”

“Alas! my son, that thou shouldst take the sacred councils of the church for
their perversion. True, I have taught thee these things; but I have nowhere taught
thee to minister to tyranny, to yield to the exactions of vice, to make thyself the
bondman of sin and injustice. If thou servest this tyrant in his tyranny, thou art
also the tyrant—for a tyrant is a thing made up of yielding instruments and directing
vices. If the tools were not there for the artisan, vainly would his hands strive in
the erection of the palace or the prison. If the slaves were not ductile to the desires of
the master, vainly would he strive to slaughter in his hate, and debase and dishonor
in his lust. If there were no ready men like thee to keep the keys of the dungeon,
the good man would not often be torn from the blessed sunshine of Heaven, and the
sweeter sunshine of life and freedom. Roderick has no strength save from thee and
such as thee. Thou makest his strength, my son, but thou canst not sustain it.
Thou tellest me that his soldiers will hunt thee, among the savage hills and in the
secret places; and I tell thee—for the spirit of prophecy is come upon me, even as
it came upon Saul, so that men wondered—I tell thee that the hour is at hand when
Roderick shall have no soldiers to pursue either thee, or thine, or others. But a
little while—but a few more hours of mortal time—a few more blessed and lifting
thoughts, and this worm, whose very power is come from corruption, and who rules
like death in the rottenness of humanity, shall perish, and be cast out from among
men, and they who bow down to him now, in fear if not in honor, shall turn away
from his loathsome carcase in a worse fear, and with a bitter sorrow for their past
servitude. It is against this shame that I would warn thee—it is from this doom
that I would save thee, Let the holy man go free; and do thou and thine fly with
him to the hills, in fear of the wrath which is to come. Fear not, I tell thee, the
wrath and the soldiers of Roderick. Ere long his wrath shall turn into trembling,
and his soldiers shall perish in battle or fly to the mountains, as I now counsel thee
to fly Let me not pray to thee or counsel thee in vain.”

“And even were I to escape his wrath, and the soldiers who would pursue us,”
replied Guisenard, who seemed to take no note of Romano's prophecy, “what then
should keep us from starvation? I know those hills and secret places, and if they
do yield a shelter, it is like that of the house of famine, which all men are glad to
shun. I should be forced to descend the hills to the cities for food, lest my wife and
young one famish; and that were delivering myself at once to the sword from which
I had fled so vainly.”

“Mark how the providence of God pursues thee, my son,” answered the zealot,
drawing from his cassock the full purse of gold which the archbishop Oppas had
given him; “Behold, this is the lucre which thou art loth to resign. It is in such
as this that Roderick rewards thee, as the minister of his tyranny and crime. The
Lord is heedful of thy safety; and that thou mayst lack no reason to follow the safe
course upon which I would set thee, that gold—the slave of God, not less than of
man—the gift of the church, I bring to thee, so that in flight thou mayst not suffer
from want, neither thou nor thy child. Take it; it is thine, my son. Go, set thy
prisoner free.”

The single-minded keeper paused for an instant, ere he replied; but not in doubt,
or deliberation. A feeling of surprise overcame him, and, though he had already
regarded Romano with the most respectful and reverential feeling, he now looked
upon him with a sentiment of distrust if not dislike. At length he replied:

“Take back thy gold, my father; if thy pleadings availed not to move me, if my
own sorrow for the poor youth availed not, I were base indeed to let thy gold do
more than these. Take it back, father Romano; I sorrow that it should be brought
to me in temptation, and I doubly sorrow that thou shouldst bring it. For thee, I
would do much; but that which I would not do for love of thee or pity for him, I
would not do for the criminal love of gold—nay, scarcely in the fear of immediate
death!”

“In the fear of death then be it, my son Guisenard; for, of a surety, God will
punish thee with death and with judgment, if thou wilt not let His servant go,” answered
Romano.

“Be it so, then, my father! I believe thou meanest me well; but I feel that I
am right now, and I fear that following thy counsels I might be wrong. In God is
my trust, and if I err, He, who sees my heart, knows that I err not through a love
of error, or a selfish love of life.”

“But, my son,”—

Romano would have spoken further, but the keeper interrupted him:

“Thou wouldst see the prisoner, my father. He desires—I had almost forgotten
it—he desires to have counsel with thee, and he prayed me that thou mightst seek
his cell soon after thy coming. The hour is late; if thou wouldst see him to-night,
thou must hasten, for we have but little time ere the outer porch of the prison must
be fastened.”

Without waiting for any reply, which the monk nevertheless made, the keeper
led the way to the cell of Egiza.

“Alas!” exclaimed Romano, “wherefore wouldst thou close the outer porch of
this dungeon, which can not long confine this holy man? If the outer porch of thy
heart were open, my son, thou wouldst be rescued, not less than he. But it availeth
not to speak, when the neck is stiffened, when the heart is hardened, when the victim
is chosen. Yet I would that it were not so. Guisenard! Guisenard! my son!
thou hast listened to me always, and heard my words with a becoming reverence.
Let them not fall upon thine ears unheeded now. Give ear in season, and take the
promise and the security of safety from my lips. I would save thee, my son, from
the bolt that is threatening. I warn thee; I pray thee! Wherefore wouldst thou
perish?”

The keeper was firm, though gentle, in his reply:

“Wherefore, my father, wouldst thou urge me further?”

“I would save thee! Deny me not! Say that thou wilt free the prisoner and
live!”

“Nay, father Romano, no more of this! I have already answered thee!”

“God have mercy upon thee, then, Guisenard; thou art in His hands only. Lead
on!”

These words were uttered by the fanatic in the solemn manner of a judge consigning
a prisoner to his final doom. They were not without their effect upon the
keeper, though not in the slightest degree to weaken his resolution. He felt a momentary
chill about his heart, but he replied, unshrinkingly:

“So be it, my father. I commend myself and mine, in hope and confidence, to
God. The cell is open, father.”

Romano entered, and the door was closed upon him instantly. He was alone with
the prisoner.

7. CHAPTER VII.

“Brother, dost thou sleep?” said Romano, advancing toward the unhappy captive.

“No, father; I longed for thy coming too anxiously to sleep. What tidings dost
thou bring me? May I hope? What says the keeper?”

“God has hardened his heart, my son, even as he hardened the heart of Pharaoh,
that he may the more certainly perish. He denies to let thee go.”

“He denies me! Didst thou offer him the gold, my father?”

“I did; but he refused it!”

“Then all is lost!—life, love, vengeance!—all! all! This, this is bitterness!
God be with me!—God strengthen me to the last, and save where I can not!”

With these words, he fell upon his face in all the self-abandonment of despair.
The monk knelt down by his side, and his hand rested upon the head of Egiza.

“No, my brother; all is not lost. Despair not; the dawn is a sister of the dark.
The day is breaking before my vision, and I bring succour to thee from God. What
though man denies thee, and in his fear or in his hate, his selfishness or his scorn,
he shrinks from thee in the hour of thy trial, and with a weakness like that of the
blessed Peter—which, at moments, is too strong for the purest faith—yet will He
who moves man at his pleasure, strengthen thee and save. He will save thee now,
according to the promise made to thee even in the presence of thy human judge; He
sends me to save thee, and I am ready for my commission. Rise, rise, my brother;
lift up thy head and hear the counsels with which Heaven hath inspired me.”

Much wondering at the manner of the monk, and anxiously curious to hear what
was to effect every thing, at a moment when he was the most hopeless of all things,
Egiza arose from the floor on which he had lain, and stood in silent attention. Romano
did not suffer any time to elapse before he proceeded thus:

“Thou hast the weapon of death, my brother, which I gave thee. Thou wilt not
fear to use it when thou hast a commission from Heaven for its use, and when it is
in the name and on the behoof of God that thou wilt strike.”

“What mean you, my father?” replied Egiza, in some surprise. “Upon whom
should I use it; whom should I strike? If it be the tyrant, believe me, thou canst
not put me upon a task which shall prove more grateful to a famished spirit.”

“Ay, and that task shalt thou have also; but it is not now the tyrant that thou
wilt have to strike. It is one of those who toil for him—one of his arms, his creatures.
It may be that thou wilt have to execute many such, ere thou executest at
full the vengeance of the Lord. Thine arm may grow weary of mowing where the
tares are thick, yet must thou not grow weary in spirit where the service is so sweet

to the soul. The servants of the tyrant are tyrants also, since in upholding his
wrong they are also wrong-doers. It is one of these that thou must gird up thy
loins to slay. The victim is chosen for the sacrifice, and the Lord will deliver him
into thy hands.”

“Of whom dost thou speak, my father?” demanded Egiza.

“Of whom but Guisenard, thy keeper? Hath not the Lord shown him to your
eyes, and taught thee in a vision what thou shalt do to him? I have been more favored,
my son; I have seen, and thy labors are clear before thee. Thou hast the
weapon of death, and the victim will soon be ready. When I summon him to let
me go forth from thy prison, then shalt thou rush out upon him. In the dim light
of the long passage, it will not be easy for him to mark the difference of thy form
and features from mine, since our habits are the same; and this will enable thee to
encounter with him before he can apprehend thy purpose. Thou wilt then smite
him down, in the name of the Lord; and Heaven give thee strength, my son, so that
thy hand shall fail not in the holy performance.”

The astonishment of Egiza may be more readily imagined than described. He
found it impossible to reconcile the continued and devout references of the monk to
the Deity, and the bloody suggestion, which he uttered as if under Heaven's own
promptings. There was no tremor in Romano's voice as he made a proposal so full
of horror, such as would most probably affect the voice of almost any criminal, however
hardened he may have been in the practice of crime. There was no husky hesitation
in his accents, nor were the tones more than advisedly suppressed in which
he spoke. On the contrary, if there was any thing to affect the calm evenness of
its utterance, it was something like exultation, as if assured that the approval of the
hearer would follow the counsel given, as certainly as that of God would follow the
execution of the deed. The wonder of the captive rendered him almost speechless.
He had no knowledge of the madness which preyed upon, and prompted the movements
of Romano's mind; and the steady composure of his voice and manner, drove
all idea of insanity from his thought. While, therefore, he paused in wonder, the
monk grew somewhat impatient.

“Thou hast heard me, brother?” said he.

“Ay; and thou wouldst have me strike the keeper. It is that.”

“Even so!” replied the monk; “there is no course else; it is the will of God.”

“Thou hast tried the gold, thou sayest?”

“I have, my brother.”

“And he refused it?”

“Ay, in the hardness of his heart he rejected the rich gold of the church's coffers,
and the richer gold of its counsels and its prayers. The church hath no further need
of the soul which hath heard its counsels and its prayers with scorn,” said the stern
fanatic.

The thoughts of Egiza were wild and various. He had no hope but from this
man, who had evidently been sent by his uncle; and all means had been tried (so he
said) but the one, the thought of which had filled his bosom with so much horror.
The hope of life, of freedom, and revenge, made him pause; and the strife within
his mind, as he endeavored to deliberate, was almost torture. However, his better
spirit prevailed.

“This man,” he said, as if musing, “this man hath come to me in my dungeon—
he hath sat with me, and sought to cheer me—he hath spared no kind offices which
would give relief—and shall I slay him now?”

“Ay, slay him even as the Lord hath appointed; for hath He not declared that
all the means shall fail thee but this. Hath He not hardened this man's heart, that

he might perish? There is but one way, and that is the appointed. Vainly, my
son, wouldst thou seek for another; and it were an arraigning of Heaven's justice
wert thou so to seek. It is decreed that this man is to die, and that through his death
shalt thou seek for thine own safety. Thou must do it.”

“He hath a wife, too, my father; perchance a young and lovely woman.”

“A most blessed woman is Amreeta. God will provide for her; He tempereth the
wind to the shorn lamb, and the birds shall bring tribute to the widow.”

“And the sweet child, my father! He brought the child to my cell, and dearly
did he seem to love it!”

“Of a truth, he does, my son; and the child is one most lovely and winning of
love. And it is wonderful to me that the unhappy father, having the double blessing
of a fond wife and a beloved child, should so run counter to the wishes of the
Lord, through whom alone come these blessings, and by whom they may be taken
away. Oh! that he were wise for life. Oh! that he were wise for his own happiness
and safety. But he is not. The Lord would have gathered him, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens; but he would not, and the doom is gone forth against him.
He must die.”

“No! my father,” exclaimed Egiza, firmly; “he must live! I can not strike that
man, though it be save my own life. He hath been kind to me, when kindness was
service; he hath spoken gentlest words to me, and I know he is pained in soul that
I am doomed to suffer. I can not hurt him; my heart refuses—my hand would fail
me at the stroke; I would perish rather.”

“Thou must not perish, my brother, for the Lord hath need of thee; nor do I censure
thee for a shrinking spirit, since I now see that God hath designed thee for another
work than this. It is enough service for thee to slay the greater tyrant. To
other hands may fitly be given the toil and the glory of the smaller sacrifice. Father!
be with me, and make me strong! I see the duty which is before me, and I
gird up my loins and nerve me to the task! Brother! this dagger is not for thee;
give it me!”

Egiza had not heeded the speech of the monk. The last words, however, met his
ears and he freely resigned the weapon which he had determined not to use. With
the handle of it Romano beat upon the door, and summoned the keeper with a loud
voice. When he heard the steps of Guisenard he became silent for a moment, but
his lips were moved in prayer.

“Pray for me, my brother; thou who art so near to God, will do well to pray for
me now. Pray that I be endowed with the needful strength to execute the purposes
of Heaven.”

While he spoke, the door was opened, and the monk immediately emerged from
the apartment; the door was shut instantly, and it was only as the retreating footsteps
ceased to be heard by the prisoner, that he began to meditate upon the conduct
of Romano, and to conjecture a sinister import in the language which he had employed.
His heart misgave him as he mused on his last words, and he reproached
himself for having yielded up the dagger; but such reflections came too late. The
keeper was beyond the reach of his voice, and he waited in painful anticipation of
events which his imagination but partially conceived. He did not wait long.

With all the solemn devotedness of spirit, such as might be supposed to have
filled and governed the patriarchs of old, when they imagined themselves to be called
by Heaven to the performance of new and trying labors, Romano prepared himself
for those tasks which he fancied were assigned to his hands by the direct mandate of
the Lord. He yielded but little, if any thing, to the seeming necessity for circumlocution
and subterfuge which one about to do that in which he looked to meet with

resistance wonld find it prudent to employ; and the very dagger which Egiza had
given him, was not placed within the concealing folds of his garment until he was
in the passage with Guisenard, nor was it then placed there with the view to its concealment.
He deemed no such precaution necessary, as he did not doubt, in his own
language, that “the Lord had delivered up the victim for the sacrifice,” and nothing
could avail for his safety, when He willed it otherwise. The passage was long and
dark, nor did the doubtful lantern which the keeper carried tend very much to enliven
its gloom. The light which it gave seemed only to guide their feet, step by step,
to the entrance of the prison; and the impatience of Romano to execute his commission
did not allow him to delay his performance until they had reached that point.
When about midway, he abruptly stopped, and placed himself directly in front of
Guisenard. The latter spoke in surprise:

“What mean you, father? Come, hasten, for Amreeta awaits us. She has prepared
some fruits”—

“Fruits!” exclaimed Romano, “fruits! It is thus that we dream of life in the
midst of death! It is thus that we talk of indulgence when the scourge hangs over
our heads! It is no time for us to think of fruits, my son; no time for me—still less
for thee. Hear me, Guisenard! I come to thee with a message from the Lord. He
hath seen thy blindness—He hath heard thy wilfulness. Once, twice, thrice, already,
hath He sent me to thee, praying thee—for thine own sake, and for His service—
to let His servant go. Once more He sends me to thee with this prayer; nor with
a prayer only, but with a warning also. Undo thy bolts, Guisenard, throw open thy
doors, and bid the holy man of God depart in peace, ere the wrath of Heaven fall
upon thee and blight thee into blisters. He who keepeth the apostle of the Lord in
bondage, keepeth a fire which shall consume, a storm which shall rend him—a pestilence
which shall make him a damned and loathsome thing for ever. God hath
blessed thee, Guisenard, and thou hast much to live for. He hath blessed thee, as
He now sends thee counsel whereby thou mayst disarm His anger and secure His
favor. But His further blessings shall depend on thee. Wilt thou let His servant
go?'

“Alas! my,father, why wilt thou press this matter upon me? Have I not said to
thee, I can not? Greatly should I grieve to bring upon me either the wrath of God
or thy reproof; but I can not think that because I keep the prisoner who was alloted
to my keeping by the espatorio, safely as I am bidden, that I should vex Heaven, as
I certainly would not displeasure thee. I am sorry for this unhappy youth, who
hath surely suffered wrong; but I dare not let him go.”

“Thou art not sorry!—thou dost not think that he hath suffered wrong!” cried
Romano, “else thy plainest sense of merely human justice would have thee set him
free! But I argue and plead with thee no more. It is in the name of the Righteous
Judge and the Relentless Executioner, that I now speak!”

“Nay, father, let us in; Amreeta waits for us.”

And the keeper would have led the way on, as he spoke, but Romano caught his
arm and detained him, while he replied.

“She must wait, and thou must wait, Guisenard, while the judgment of God is
spoken. Hear me, my son. The bolt of Heaven is uplifted—the doom is ready to
fall, and thou hast but one more moment left thee for grace! Once more, Guisenard,
I demand of thee, in the name of the Mighty One of Israel, wilt thou let His servant
go?”

“No, my father! I”—

The words were arrested. The blow was as sudden as light—or as the heavenly
vengeance which the fanatic Romano insisted that it was. The dagger was buried

deep, by a nervous hand, in the bosom of the keeper; and the words of the murderer
that followed it were as stern as if heavenly vengeance and heavenly power to execute
its vengeance were both equally in the possession of the speaker.

“I pleaded to thee, I prayed thee, I counselled thee, and gave thee warning; but
thou wast blind with a wilful blindness, and I now thrust thee out among the lost
ones!”

The blow was a fatal one. The words of the wounded man were few, and betrayed
the paralyzing effect of the stroke he had received.

“Ah! you, father! Ah! my Amreeta!—my boy—my boy!”

He grasped the arm of Romano a moment after, with both his hands, the lantern
yet swinging upon one of them; but his strength was not sufficient to restrain that
of the assassin. Romano drew forth the steel, and the whole frame of Guisenard
quivered like a fringe tree shaken in the sudden wind of September. He gasped the
prayer for mercy which he could not speak, and by the light of the lantern he saw
the gleaming rust of the steel, as it was driven a second time toward his heart. His
prayer was not heard—it did not stay the blow; again the steel was buried, and this
time broken in his bosom. He fell upon his face without a groan, crushing the lantern
and extinguishing the light beneath him as he fell.

In the deep silence which followed, the hands of the wild fanatic were uplifted in
prayerful acknowledgment to Heaven; and through the dense gloom that was around
and above him, he distinctly beheld an eye like an emerald, peering out in glory and
approbation through the pitchy darkness of the night and place. He stooped to the
body a moment after, and dispossessed it of the massive bunch of keys which hung
at the keeper's girdle. Then moving back firmly and without swerving, yet with no
other light than that of his zeal, and as if he were really governed and guided by the
divine instinct which he assumed to himself, he proceeded directly to the cell of the
prisoner, without faltering once in his attempt to find it. A moment sufficed to set
the captive free.

“What hast thou done, my father?” asked Egiza, as he came forth from his dungeon.

“As I was commanded. Praise be to the Father, and to the Son, for they have
broken thy bonds, my brother; they have freed thee, and sent thee forth upon thy
goodly work.”

“But the keeper?” exclaimed Egiza, in doubt and apprehension.

“Stay!—he lies before thee; step this way, or thou wilt tread upon him!” said
Romano.

“Thou hast not slain him!” cried the prisoner, as he started back in horror.

“Yea; I smote him, as I was commanded, so that he died. Follow me; the way
is dark, but the eyes of God are upon us, and all will be light ere long.”

They had now reached a spot where the passage opened into another, which led
to the apartments occupied by the keeper's family. When there, they heard a voice
gently calling:

“Guisenard! Guisenard!”

The tones were those of Amreeta—of the widow, fond and happy in her ignorance,
whom a few hours, perhaps moments, would awaken from her dream of joy
to the reality of her loneliness and the anguish of her despair. The heart of Egiza
felt chill within him as he heard these tones, and he reproached himself for all the
misery which he knew must follow the discovery of the truth.

“Let us hasten, father!” he said, hurrying forward as if to escape from the reproaches
which every sound of the widow's voice carried to his inmost soul.

“It is Amreeta, the wife of Guisenard,” said the priest, as he drew forth the key

which was to undo the gate before them. “Wilful man!” he continued, as if in
reflection to himself, “but for his devoted blindness—but that he was bowed down
to the footstool of this accursed Pharaoh—he had still been happy with his young
and gentle wife, and the sweet boy which she brought him.”

“No more, no more, father! I pray thee, no more!” cried Egiza, in tones of agonizing
reflection. “Let us speed—let us fly from this place; I would not hear her
voice again! Quick, my father; thrust back the bolt; let us feel the cool air, or I
faint.”

“The gate is wide, my brother. God hath delivered thee in safety; to Him be all
the glory and the praise. I have been but a humble instrument in His hands; even
as this iron instrument hath been in mine. Thou art free. The walls of the pagan
Scipio are before thee; the palace of the accursed Roderick on the left. A light thou
seest is burning in his chamber; but how soon, my brother, will all be dark in that
palace! It is with thee alone, my brother, thou knowest; and I crave not for thy
secret.”

“I am free!” exclaimed Egiza, not seeming to hear the monk, while the sweat
poured freely down his forehead and his neck. “I am free, father, and I thank
thee for thy service—though I would”—

He was about to say, “though I would not that thou shouldst have paid so dear
a ransom for me”—but he forbore, since it would have seemed ungracious for him
to have done so; and he now began to discover the madness under which his companion
labored.

“Thank me not, holy father,” replied the priest; “it is my joy to serve the Lord,
and to help him whom the Lord honoreth. Thou little knowest how my heart rejoices
that I have been permitted to do for thee so much. Tell me what more I may
do for thee, and increase the happiness which is now living in my soul.”

“Lead me to the lord Oppas!” was the reply, and they trod the streets in silence;
Egiza filled with thoughts and feelings that troubled and rebuked him; while Romano,
his hands reeking with blood, felt nothing but a holy fervor, which increased
with every moment of his internal self-contemplation.