The general was, therefore, placed in capilla, and two monks belonging to the order of St. Francis, the most respected, and, in fact, respectable in Mexico, entered it with him.
The first hours he passed there were terrible; this proud mind, this powerful organization, revolted against adversity, and would not accept defeat. Gloomy and silent, with frowning brows, and fists clenched on his bosom, the general sought shelter like a wild beast in a corner of the room, recalling his whole life, and seeing with starts of terror the bloody victims scattered along his path, and sacrificed in turn to his devouring ambition, sadly defile before him.
Then he reverted to his early years. When residing at the Palmar, his magnificent family hacienda, his life passed away calm, pure, gentle, and tranquil, without regrets, and without desires, among his faithful servants. Then, he was so glad to be nothing, and to wish to be nothing.
By degrees his thoughts followed the bias of his recollections: the present was effaced; his contracted features grew softer, and two burning tears, the first, perhaps, this man of iron had ever shed, slowly coursed down his cheeks, which grief had hollowed.
The monks, calm and contemplative, had eagerly followed the successive changes on this eminently expressive face. They comprehended that their mission of consolation was beginning, and approached the general softly, and wept with him; then this man, whom nothing had been able to subdue, felt his soul torn asunder; the cloud that covered his eyes melted away like the winter snow before the first sunbeam, and he fell into the arms open to receive him, exclaiming, with an expression of desperate grief impossible to render—
"Have mercy, heaven! have mercy!"
The struggle had been short but terrible; faith had conquered doubt, and humanity had regained its rights.
The general then had with the monks a conversation, protracted far into the night, in which he confessed all his crimes and sins, and humbly asked pardon of God whom he had outraged, and before whom he was about to appear.
The next day, a little after, sunrise, one of the monks, who had been absent about an hour, returned, bringing with him the general's capataz. It had only been with extreme reluctance that Carnero had consented to come, for he justly dreaded his old master's reproaches.
Hence his surprise was extreme at being received with a smile, and kindly, and on finding that the general did not make the slightest allusion to his treachery, which the evidence before the court-martial had fully revealed.