Alcala was thankful that he had been strengthened to take the first decided step in the course of service which he hoped through life to pursue. He closed his Bible reading with a brief extempore prayer, of which the fervour touched the spirit of Inez, and the humility astonished that of Teresa. What cavalier had ever before prayed so earnestly to be delivered from the power of pride!
With gloomy forebodings the duenna retired from Alcala's apartment after family worship was ended. Often during the following night, as she uneasily turned on her pallet-bed, Teresa moaned her complaint that times were evil indeed, when noble pride could be deemed a sin in the heir of the honours of the Aguileras!
Happy were the slumbers of Alcala. He dreamed that night that he was again mounted on his steed in the Plaza de Toros, in the centre of the circus, and surrounded by gazing thousands. But when the door of the circus was flung open by the black-robed alguazil to whom that service belongs, it was no fierce animal that rushed forth to encounter the point of Alcala's lance. There came into the arena a procession of priests, monks, and devotees, bearing aloft graven images of saints, and swinging censers of incense, as they slowly approached him. Then, in his dream, Alcala glanced around, and, lo! instead of the usual spectators who were wont to throng the seats in the Coliseo of Seville, the places were filled by thousands of martyrs who, in that city, had passed through the ordeal of fire. They wore no longer the yellow san-benito, the garb of shame, but robes compared to whose whiteness dim were the diamond and dark the new-fallen snow. The martyrs were "a cloud of witnesses," a cloud sparkling in the light of the countenance of Him for whom they had suffered,—a cloud reflecting His ineffable glory.
When the hour of persecution and trial arrived, Alcala drew courage and hope from the recollection of that glorious dream.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] F. Tucker.
[17] Isabella's confessor, and a nun who had great influence with the queen.