While Horace was reflecting on his strange companion, Raphael, laying aside his guitar, had entered the cave. He soon returned, bearing with him such liniment as he had used in the morning to relieve the pain caused to the captive by the chafing of his fetters. Raphael then knelt down upon the rock, and applied the simple remedy. Horace, unaccustomed to suffering or restraint, could scarcely endure the pressure of the iron upon his galled and swollen ankles. He implored Raphael, as he had urged Enrico, to release him from the torturing bonds. Sadly but firmly his suit was refused, and when pressed, it only wrung forth the unanswerable question:
"Would you have me sacrifice the life of my brother?"
When all that was possible had been done for the prisoner's relief, Horace asked Raphael, with some curiosity, what was the favor which he had his intention of one day asking.
"I ask it now," replied the Rossignol; and to the surprise, and almost disappointment of young Cleveland, he drew forth from his bosom a small English Testament, which bore marks of having been much used.
"I would have left this with you this morning," said Raphael, "but I feared lest my treasure should be discovered, and taken from you by force. See, it is in English," he continued, "and the little which I know of that tongue has been chiefly learnt from its pages; but my knowledge is very imperfect; oft in vain I struggle to make out the meaning of a passage, like one groping in the darkness of a cave. You, who can speak my language as well as your own, will make all clear and plain to my understanding."
"How did you get this?" asked Horace with interest, turning over to the title-page, on which the name of Pietro Marino was written.
"Let us leave the tale to another day," replied Raphael; "time is now precious. I expect that the band will this evening return more early than usual. Could you know how long and how anxiously I have waited for such an opportunity as this, you would not marvel at my reluctance to hazard its loss by delay."
So saying, Raphael threw himself on the rock beside Horace, and eagerly turning over the pages of the Testament, showed place after place where he had found difficulties from his imperfect knowledge of English. Horace had often read the Bible with his mother, often listened to chapters in church, and had with tolerable regularity, though with slight attention, perused the Scriptures by himself. But the cold, lifeless form which the performance of this duty had too often been to the youth, was something different indeed from the intense earnestness which he now saw in his strange companion.
It was evident that to Raphael, religion was a living reality, something that engaged all the powers of his mind as well as all the affections of his soul. The Bible was to him as the Father's letter, treasured in the bosom of the Son; as the charter by which he held all his dearest hopes; as the "pardon signed and sealed" granted to the prisoner by the grace of his King.
The Rossignol and Horace read together as long as the daylight lasted, and when that failed they returned to the cave, and pursued their occupation by the gleam of the tapers which were lighted in front of the Virgin's shrine.