He tried to think of his Saviour's death and passion; tried to pray for strength and patience to drink of his cup. Sometimes he prayed that prayer with strong crying and tears; sometimes with cold mute lips, too weary to cry any longer. If he was heard and answered, he knew it not then.
Days of suspense wore on. They were only less dreary than the nights, when sleep fled from his eyes, and horrible visions (which yet he knew were less horrible than the truth) rose in quick succession before his mind.
One evening, seated on his bench in the twilight, he fell into an uneasy slumber. The dark dread that never left him, mingling with the sunny gleam of old memories, wove a vivid dream of Nuera, and of that summer morning when the first great conflict of his life found an ending in the strong resolve, "Juan, brother! I will never wrong thee, so help me God!"
The grating of the key in the door and the sudden flash of the lamp aroused him. He started to his feet at the alcayde's entrance. This time no change of dress was prescribed him. He knew his doom. He cried, but to no human ear. From the very depths of his being the prayer arose, "Father, save--sustain me; I am thine!"
XXXIII.
On the Other Side.
"Happy are they who learn at last,--
Though silent suffering teach
The secret of enduring strength,
And praise too deep for speech,--
Peace that no pressure from without,
No storm within can reach.
"There is no death for me to fear,
For Christ my Lord hath died;
There is no curse in all my pain,
For he was crucified;
And it is fellowship with him
That keeps me near his side."--A. L. Waring
When the light of the next morning streamed in through the narrow grating of his cell, Carlos was there once more, lying on his bed of rushes. But was it indeed the next morning, or was it ten years, twenty years afterwards? Without a painful effort of thought and memory, he himself could scarcely have told. That last night was like a great gulf, fixed between his present and all his past. The moment when he entered that torch-lit subterranean room seemed a sharp, black dividing line, sundering his life into two halves. And the latter half seemed longer than that which had gone before.
Nor could years of suffering have left a sadder impress on the young face, out of which the look of youth had passed, apparently for ever. Brow and lips were pale; but two crimson spots, still telling of feverish pain, burned on the hollow cheeks, while the large lustrous eyes beamed with even unnatural brilliance.
The poor woman, who was doing the work of God's bright angels in that dismal prison, came softly in. How she obtained entrance there Carlos did not know, and was far too weak to ask, or even to wonder. But probably she was sent by Benevidio, who knew that, in his present condition, some human help was indispensable to the prisoner.