“‘Let us go. Let us go on, Señoritas! We have no time to lose!’
“Truly the time was limited,—that night only, for perchance by day the gentlemen commissioners would have had a distaste to penetrate the convents; or perhaps only by night can certain mischievous deeds be carried to the desired exit.
“It is said that some naughty novices upon hearing themselves called señoritas forgot for an instant their grief, and smiled. There did not lack also of those who had entered the category of grave mothers who did the same! And after all, was not this a venial and excusable fault? Should not a girl, beautiful and fragrant as a jasmine, become tired of hearing herself addressed every hour and every day in the year as ‘Little Mother,’ ‘My Reverend Mother,’ ‘How is your Reverence?’...
“This was an event which each one was obliged to accept as she would, but none the less surely. ‘Came it from God? Came it from Satan?’ By either it may have come; but is it not true that Satan is—ourselves?”
The party headed by Gonzales asked themselves no such questions as these, but cautiously, swiftly, and effectively did the work, which history might criticise. No time was allowed the nuns for preparation. Even from the richest convents few articles were carried away as the nuns dispersed. Perhaps more previous preparation than was suspected or afterward acknowledged had been made; certain it is that the most magnificent and valuable jewels had disappeared from the vestments of the virgins and saints upon the altars. But as quickly as might be the weeping and lamenting sisters were placed in carriages and conveyed to houses ready to receive them; though many in the confusion wandered out into the darkness and rain afoot, and gave a pathetic chapter to the tale of bloodless martyrdom. As one by one the convents were vacated, the party passed on; until the smallest and dreariest of those retreats, that which nestled beneath the shadow of the parish church, was reached.
Throughout the work Gonzales had spoken only to give the necessary orders. The measure that in itself had been so dear to his soul was now in its actual execution repugnant to him,—the tears, the sighs, the long processions of black-robed and wailing women distressed his heart, and filled him with shame and anger. As all this continued, his face darkened and a profound melancholy oppressed him. It was raining dismally. In other towns doubtless the same scenes were being enacted. He turned faint, his eyes filled as with blood. Even Ashley Ward, amid the intense interests of the scenes around him,—the views of those grand interiors lighted by the candles borne by the retiring nuns, and the red glare of the soldier’s torches,—felt the influence of the deep sadness of this solemn exodus. The clouds of incense sickened him, and through them the glorified Madonnas, the bleeding Christs upon the altars, the troops of black-robed nuns themselves, seemed alike beings of another world, into which he had stepped unbidden. The light shone upon rows and rows of white faces, which looked forth from their wrappings like faces of dead saints. He seemed to see each individual one. He was excited to the utmost; the blood pulsed hotly through every vein, yet a sense of keen disappointment chilled his heart, and unconsciously to himself something of what he read upon the faces of Gonzales and Pedro was reflected upon his own. A profound quiet and solemnity fell upon the party, as they passed the vestibule and penetrated the dim recesses of the Convent of the Martyrs.
There the nuns were all gathered in the chapel, praying and waiting, and the wail of the Miserere stole from the great organ through the dim arches and bare cells. In that place there was nothing of beauty, of grace, of sensuous luxury. The stern austerities of an asceticism scarce surpassed in mediæval days was found behind those massive and windowless walls, which shut out the light, material and moral, of the nineteenth century.
As the men entered the chapel, the nuns fell upon their knees and covered their faces,—all except the abbess, who remained standing to hear the mandate of expulsion.
“Blessed be God!” responded her deep, pathetic voice, “Blessed be God in all his works! Sisters, let us go hence;” and taking up the woful strains when the organ ceased, with each nun adding to them the weird beauty of her voice, the abbess led the way to the portal, and the sisterhood passed into the bleak darkness of the unfamiliar street.
By this time the wind was blowing,—a summer’s wind, yet it pierced the bodies upon which for years no air of heaven had blown,—and it was raining heavily. Fortunately many vehicles had gathered at the curb, and ere long the banished nuns were under shelter; and the work of the night was accomplished.