"Yes, gracious Sovereign." And the flush faded into paleness, ashy as before; but the tone was calm and firm.
The Queen looked at her intently, but made no further observation; and speedily summoning her before trusted attendants, placed the widow of Morales once more in their charge; imparted to them as much of Marie's tale as she deemed requisite, and the consequent necessity for her return to the Queen's care; nay, her very existence was to be kept secret from all save those to whom she herself should choose to impart it. Gratified by her confidence, they were eager to obey; and so skilfully did they enter into her wishes, that their very companions suspected not the identity of the prisoner, in whom, they were told, their Sovereign was so much interested. Curiosity might have been busy with very many, but their vague conjectures fell far short of the truth; Catharine Pas was the only one of Isabella's younger maidens to whom the real fact was imparted.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
'Twas a dark tale of crime, and awed and chilled
E'en indignation seeming horror still'd,
Men stood beside a murd'rer's couch of death,
Watching-the glazing-eye and flickering-breath—
Speaking with look and hurried sign alone,
Their thoughts, too terror-fraught for word or tone.—MS.
The indignation excited in the Queen's mind against Don Louis was destined, very speedily, to be increased. Ferdinand had had time to become half angry, and quite impatient, ere his messengers dispatched to the village returned. Stanley had been released—was regarded by all as innocent; but this was literally only from a peasant's word and the half broken intelligence of an exhausted boy: he wanted proof, and a vague dread would take possession of him that his fate was but temporarily suspended. At an early hour the next day, however, Don Alonzo returned; and Ferdinand's impatient anger was averted, when he found the delay had been occasioned by their determination, to convey the dying man to Segovia, and the caution necessary for its accomplishment. The Hermanos had already noted down his confession; but it was so fraught with extended and dangerous consequences, that they felt, they dared not act on their responsibility: all suppressing measures must proceed from the sovereigns themselves. Perez was again summoned, and at once swore to the identity of the dying man as the individual he had rescued from a deep pit, in a lonely mountain-pass, about twenty miles from his village; and the man, whose eagerness to speak was evident, though his voice was so faint, as scarcely to be intelligible, commenced his dark and terrible tale.
The indignation of the Sovereign, and of those whom he had chosen to be present, was excited to the utmost, mingled with horror as the mysterious fates of many a loved companion were thus so fearfully solved; but none felt the recital with the same intensity of emotion as the Sub-Prior, who, with, head bowed down upon his breast, and hands tightly clenched, knelt beside the penitent. It was not indignation, it was not horror; but agony of spirit that a religion which he loved better than himself, whose purity and honor he would have so jealously guarded, that he would have sacrificed life itself for its service, should have been made the cover for such unutterable villany. Few imagined the deeds of painful mortification and bodily penance which, in his solitude, the Sub-Prior afterwards inflicted on himself; as if his individual sufferings should atone for the guilt of his brethren, and turn from them the wrath of an avenging God.
Horrible as were the details imparted, incomprehensible as it seemed that so extended and well-organized a power, should exist so secretly throughout Spain, as to hide itself even from the sovereigns and ministers of justice themselves, yet none doubted what they heard. Sovereigns and nobles well knew that the Inquisition had been established both in Castile and Arragon centuries before, and that the annals of those kingdoms, though mentioning the resistance of the people against this awful power, had been silent as to its entire extirpation.
In the first part of his narrative the man had spoken shrinkingly and fearfully, as if still in dread of vengeance on his betrayal; but his voice became bolder when he confessed his own share in the late atrocious crime. Accustomed by the strictest and most rigid training, to obey as familiars, the will of their superiors without question—to be mere mindless and feelingless tools, to whom death itself was awarded, if by word or hint, or even sign, they dared evince themselves to be as other men—he had, at the command of the Grand Inquisitor, deeply drugged Senor Stanley's evening draught, and, while under its potent influence, had purloined his sword; waylaid Don Ferdinand in the Calle Soledad, effectually done the deed, and—aware that it would be many hours ere the English Senor could arouse himself from the stupifying effects of the draught—had intended returning to his chamber still more effectually to throw on him the suspicion of the murder. It happened, however, that it was the first time he had ever been chosen by his superiors as their tool for actual murder, and the magnitude of the crime, from the greatness of, and universal love borne towards the victim, had so appalled him, that, combined with the raging storm and pitchy darkness, he had felt utterly bewildered. Not well acquainted with Segovia, he had found himself, after more than an hour's wandering—instead of, as he expected, again near the Senor's lodgings—in the self-same spot whence he had started, and close by the body of his victim. The sight horrified and bewildered him yet more, and he crept behind a low wall, resolved on remaining there till the tempest had at least partially subsided, and then fulfil the remainder of his instructions; knowing that to fail in any one point, would be the signal of his own destruction. Fortune, however, so far favored him, as to send the young English Senor to the very spot, and there was therefore no occasion for his further interference. He tarried till he had seen Stanley's arrest, and had heard the loud execrations of all proclaiming him the murderer—and then returned to his employers.
The education of the familiars had so far failed with him, that, though aware of its danger, thoughts would enter his mind, as to how Don Ferdinand Morales could have offended the dread power which he served, and why the foreign Senor should be thus implicated in the deed. He hoped to have concealed these doubts; but from the issue, he imagined that some unguarded word spoken to a companion, must have betrayed him. He was chosen by the Grand Inquisitor as his companion, on some secret expedition two days after the trial, unsuspicious of the danger awaiting him, till the desolate scene on which they unexpectedly entered flashed terror on his mind. His superior had there paused, told him that from the witness of Beta, the servant girl, it was quite evident he had disobeyed part of the instructions given, or his return to Arthur's lodgings would have been heard by her as well as his departure and thus at once have implicated the Englishman as the real murderer; that though chance had thrown equal suspicion upon him, it did net remove his disobedience, and so he was doomed to death; and the blow, instantaneously given, felled him insensible to the ground. When he recovered his senses, he found himself lying in a deep pit, where he had evidently been thrown as dead. The wounds and contusions received in the fall, as far as he could recollect, by producing a most excruciating sense of pain, roused him from temporary insensibility, and he was convinced he heard his murderer's voice—though he could not see him—exclaim distinctly, as if he were leaning over the mouth of the pit, "There goes my last doubt: other men might call it their last fear, but I know not the word! Three victims for the possession of one—and who will now dare to brand me? I had slain that faltering craven without his disobedience, he dared to think upon his deed."
Almost insensible from agony as he was, these words had impressed themselves indelibly; causing the burning desire to live and be revenged. And the opportune succors of the villager, Perez, with a party of woodmen; the completely hidden site of the village to which, he had been conveyed; and the, at first, favorable healing of his wounds, appeared to give him every hope of its accomplishment. He had resolved on communicating his tale to none save to Ferdinand himself, or to the Chief Hermano, under strict promise to reveal it to the Sovereign: but his intense anxiety had evidently prevented the attainment of his desire, by producing fever; and thence arose his wild and almost maniac cravings to make confession, and bind some holy monk, by a solemn vow, to convey it to the King.