“Dark lowers our fate,
And terrible the storm that gathers o'er us;
But nothing, till that latest agony
Which severs thee from Nature, shall unloose
This fixed and sacred hold. In thy dark prison-house,
In the terrific face of armed law,
Yea, on the scaffold, if it needs must be,
I never will forsake thee."
JOANNA BAILLIE.
ABOUT sunset one evening, a little more than a fortnight afterward, Fray Fernando and Jose were seated at their frugal meal of maize-flour bread and fruit. "O Jose!" the monk exclaimed suddenly, laying down his knife and looking at his companion with an air of distress, "I have quite forgotten that starving family at Chorillos. I promised to bring them food today. Vae meâ culpa! God grant some of them are not dead by this time. I must go to them immediately." He rose, and began hastily to empty their little store of maize into a cotton cloth.
Jose rose also, and quietly put on his cap and mantle. "I think I had better take a little flask of sora; someone may be ill," he said.
"You!" exclaimed the monk, looking up from his task of tying the corners of the cloth together. "I am going myself.”
“Excuse me, patre; you know of old I run like the huanucu.”
Under the circumstances, this was an unanswerable argument. Jose was permitted to depart, well-pleased to save the patre, who had had a hard day's work already.
Very quickly did his fleet footsteps traverse the rank grass and reeds of the green fields, overhung with drooping willows, that separate Callao from Chorillos, a little hamlet nestling beneath the bold cliff of Marro Solar. He easily found the poor family of Mestizos, for whom the food was intended, performed his errand of mercy, and set out on his homeward way.
But although he made good speed, the hour was late when he returned. Still, he was rather surprised to see no light in the little latticed window of Fray Fernando's room. "The patre must have been tired," he thought, "or he would not have gone to rest ere my return. I am glad I saved him the walk, which, for him, would have been a very long one.”
He knocked gently, and presently heard the approaching footsteps of the old mulatto woman with whom they lodged. Instead of opening the door at once, she stood and asked, with unusual caution, "Quién va?”
“I—Don Jose." The door opened. Jose entered, and passing at once into their little sitting-room, requested a light.
When it was brought, he looked around him in surprise and dismay. Where was the patre's cloak? Where was the Bible —the "Sum of Christian Doctrine"—the little box of sandalwood, the gift of a grateful mariner, in which the patre used to keep the few papers he had I "What has happened?" he asked.
“About half an hour ago, two hidalgos came here and took the padre away with them," said his sable hostess.
“Hidalgos!" Jose repeated in amazement. "Friars perhaps you mean?”
“Friars, indeed! I hope I know a holy friar when I see him. I was a Catholic Christian before you were born, young sir; and I have Catholic blood in my veins, which is more than some can say who put 'Don ' before their names. I tell your Excellency they were Spanish gentlemen, with swords and cloaks.”
“Someone ill, doubtless, on board one of the vessels," thought Jose, as he sat down to await the patre's return. "I wish, however, they could have waited till the morning.—Did he give you any message for me?" asked Jose as the woman was leaving the room.
“Yes; I was forgetting. It was not much, at all events. He just bade me say to you, ‘Every way He makes for us leads safely to the Golden City.'”
A pang of vague uneasiness shot through the heart of Jose. He feared—he knew not what. He watched anxiously for the patre's return. But hour after hour passed away, and he came not. At last it was morning. Jose threw on his yacollo, and went down to the beach. Few were stirring at that early hour; and none could give him any tidings of Fray Fernando.
“He must have gone to the City," he said to himself. "At the Franciscan monastery they will surely be able to tell me what has become of him. Perhaps he has suddenly received orders to go to some distant place." But his alarm was increasing every moment.
Jose had frequently visited the Franciscan monastery, both with Fray Fernando and by himself; and he was very favorably regarded by its inmates, as an interesting specimen of the educated and Christianized Indian. Two of the brethren readily came to speak with him.
In his usual calm, unimpassioned manner, he told his story; but his hearers gazed at him and at each other in evident blank dismay. Then a rapid Latin colloquy passed between them: they were not aware that Jose understood the language.
“I have feared this for some time," the elder whispered. "Too clever—too mystical! Ah! the spite of those Dominicans!”
“Had he worn the black cowl, instead of the gray, he might have preached with impunity all the heresies of Luther," returned the other. "Well, the Holy Office never had a better man or a truer Catholic in its dungeons.”
“Still, you cannot deny that he was very imprudent. Miserere me! We are helpless as sheep against these sons of St. Dominic. If good Fray Tomas de San Martin were but here!”
“He could do nothing in a case of this kind. But—tace! we are forgetting our dark-faced friend.”
“Better he should not suspect the truth. Let us tell him quietly to go his way.—My son," he said, addressing Jose in Spanish, " we are led to believe, by what you have told us, that the holy father has been sent, by his spiritual superiors, on some mission of importance requiring haste and secrecy.
Where do your kindred reside? Be advised by us, and rejoin them for the present. The Fray's absence may be lengthened, for anything we know to the contrary.”
Jose bowed. His lips were silent; nor did his impassive Indian countenance express either the anguish or the resolution that filled his heart. But he said within himself, "God do so to me, and more also, if I go to my people and leave my father alone amongst his enemies.”
From the gate of the Franciscan monastery he went direct to that of the grim dark pile of building called the Santa Casa. Here he rang the bell, and requested an interview with one of their reverences the Lords Inquisitors.
A request heard with surprise, yet granted promptly enough. The Indian might have evidence to give, perhaps important revelations to make.
Jose glanced coolly around the room to which he was conducted, with its somber furniture and black tapestry. When the inquisitor, a Dominican monk, made his appearance, he bowed like a Spanish hidalgo, and then with the utmost self-possession preferred his petition. He was Fray Fernando's servant, he said. The holy father was used to his ministrations, and could not well do without them, more especially as his health was feeble. Might he entreat, therefore, to be per mitted to share his imprisonment and to wait on him?
Jose would gladly have stooped far lower to aid or comfort his adopted father; for love casts out not only fear, but pride.
Whatever astonishment the inquisitor might have felt at his request, he expressed none. He answered courteously that the petition should receive the earliest attention of their reverences, and that he would himself use his best interest to further it. He then asked several questions, which Jose answered truly, but cautiously, for he was fully alive to the danger of compromising the patre by his admissions.
“The honorable Table of the Holy Office sits today," said this urbane specimen of an inquisitor. "We will try what can be done for you. We hold the character of Fray Fernando in much esteem, and are desirous of showing him all the kindness and consideration in our power.”
“I have been, perhaps, needlessly afraid of these inquisitors," thought Jose, who had never heard of "the iron hand within the velvet glove." He said aloud, "When may I have the honor of waiting on your reverence, in order to be informed of the decision of the holy fathers?”
“You may call tomorrow morning, an hour after matins. Good-day, Señor Jose." The last words were spoken with a slight but observable hesitation. The holy father intended to be courteous, but he was really at a loss in what manner to designate a person who adopted the style and title of an Inca, yet described himself as the servant of a Franciscan monk "Señor Jose" was a harmless compromise between the much coveted and high-sounding "Don Jose" and plain un-prefaced "Jose.”
Next morning, Jose presented himself at the Santa Casa precisely at the appointed hour. Few ever entered its gloomy gates before or since so willingly. He did not even shudder as he heard them close behind him, he thought only how soon he might be permitted to see the patre.
Unaccountable folly!—are we ready to exclaim, with our ideas of the Holy Inquisition. But from Jose's point of view it was nothing of the kind. He knew very well that the Holy Office could pretend to no authority over Indians; the Bull to which it owed its existence in the New World having expressly exempted them from its jurisdiction. Had he chosen to profess a hundred heresies, the dread tribunal could not legally have called him in question for one of them. He had, therefore, on his own account no apprehensions whatever, whilst for Fray Fernando his apprehensions amounted to an agony of fear. He was fully aware that his patron was really guilty of what the inquisitors called heresy, and therefore in deadly peril. Being, moreover, profoundly ignorant of the modes of proceeding adopted by the Holy Office, he could only transfer to it his own ideas of courts of justice and of criminal trials. He supposed that judgment would be given and punishment inflicted speedily and sternly, though possibly in secret. What then remained for love to do save to gain access to the captive, to console, to strengthen, to minister to him—perhaps even (who could tell?) to suggest and carry out some plan of escape? This was the one faint hope he still dared to cherish.
The warders and turnkeys of the Santa Casa would surely be of Spanish blood? And might not they be bribed It never occurred to him that their reverences the Lords Inquisitors, being of Spanish blood, might be bribed also. So mean a thought of the mysterious dread tribunal he would not have dared to entertain, This was his fatal mistake. When he relinquished his liberty, he relinquished, by the same act, his one real chance of rendering effectual help to Fray Fernando.
He did not enjoy the privilege of a second interview with the suave and courteous inquisitor who conversed with him the evening before. A familiar, in a kind of semi-clerical dress, waited upon him in his stead. This official informed him that his petition had been heard favorably, and then conducted him into a little chamber resembling a monk's cell. Here he was locked in, and left alone hour after hour, to his great perplexity and annoyance. Evening brought another familiar, who supplied him with food; and of him he inquired the reason of this strange treatment, but was told in answer that the servants of the Holy Office were not permitted to converse with the prisoners.
"Prisoners!" Jose repeated in amazement. "I am no prisoner. I have come here of my own free will.”
But the familiar was not to be entrapped into the violation of a prison rule. He shook his head and left the cell, muttering, as he did so, "Then go away of your own free will.”
As Jose had come to the Santa Casa with the intention of remaining there (though certainly not as a prisoner), he had brought with him a few necessaries for himself, and some comforts for Fray Fernando. He brought writing materials also; nor did he omit to conceal about his person a sufficient store of the gold he esteemed so necessary to his plans.
Accordingly, the next morning he gave the attendant a little note, praying him to have it transmitted to any one of their reverences the Lords Inquisitors. As the request was not unlawful in itself, and was accompanied by a present, it was not refused; but no answer came, either to that or to the numerous other notes that Jose sent in the same way, first supplicating, then demanding, explanation and redress.
In this manner weary days passed away, growing at length to long, slow weeks of misery. And Jose began to give way to despair. He made frequent inquiries about Fray Fernando; and by dint of bribing the familiar who attended him, succeeded in extracting a little information—just enough to increase his uneasiness. The padre had been ill, but was better now. He had undergone two examinations, both of them since Jose's incarceration. No one had the least idea what his fate might be. Jose might be allowed to send him a few trifling presents; but to see him was impossible. It would be as much as the attendant's life, not to say his place, was worth.
Jose writhed and struggled like a wild creature caught in a net. It only mocked his misery that he was well fed and carefully attended, and that the few personal requests he thought it worthwhile to make (as for fresh water and clean garments) were promptly granted. The silence which reigned around him grew insupportable. Often did he compare himself to a traveler in the desert suddenly enwrapped in the folds of a thick mist,—hemming him in like a wall, clinging round him like a garment; while in his wild alarm he calls, and calls again—but in vain—no voice replies, for no human ear is reached by his despairing cry.
Did the last words that had come to him,—that perhaps would ever come to him,—from the loved lips of his father and teacher, return upon his bewildered mind in those dreary hours of pain and perplexity—"Every way He makes for us leads safely to the Golden City”?