Maria Gonsalez was too well accustomed to scenes of horror to be over-much surprised or shocked by what she saw. Silently, though with a heart full of compassion, she rendered the few little services in her power. She placed the broken frame in as easy a position as she could, and once and again she raised to the parched lips the "cup of cold water" so eagerly desired.
He roused himself to murmur a word of thanks; then, as she prepared to leave him, his eyes followed her wistfully.
"Can I do anything more for you, señor?" she asked.
"Yes, mother. Tell me--have you spoken to my brother?"
"Ay de mi! no, señor," said the poor woman, whose ability was not equal to her good-will. "I have tried, God wot; but I could not get from my master the name of the place where he lives without making him suspect something, and never since have I had the good fortune to see his face."
"I know you have done--what you could. My message does not matter now. Not so much. Still, best he should go. Tell him so, when you find him. But, remember, tell him nought of this. You promise, mother! He must never know it--never!"
She spoke a few words of pity and condolence.
"It was horrible!" he faltered, in faint, broken tones. "Worst of all--the return to life. For I thought all was over, and that I should awake face to face with Christ. But--I cannot speak of it."
There was a long silence; then his eye kindled, and a look of joy--ay, even of triumph--flashed across the wasted, suffering face. "But I have overcome! No; not I. Christ has overcome in me, the weakest of his members. Now I am beyond it--on the other side."
To the poor tortured captive there had been given a foretaste, strange and sweet, of what they feel who stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God in their hands. Men had done their worst--their very worst. He knew now all "the dread mystery of pain;" all that flesh could accomplish in its fiercest conflict with spirit. Yet not one word that could injure any one he loved had been wrung from his lips.