“My father was one of the Christian slaves chained 85 by him to the oars of Solyman the infidel Turk! Long days and horrible nights was he witness to the lives of Solyman the magnificent, and Don Teodore the fortunate. When the end came,––when the magnificent patron began to set spies on his favorite lady of the harem, the tricky Greek escaped one dark night, and brought up in Barcelona as an escaped slave of the Turk, pretending he had eluded the swords of the oppressor after dreadful days of bondage.”
“I remember that time,” said Don Diego. “He was entertained by the nobles, and plied with questions, and was offered a good office in the next crusade against the unsanctified infidels.”
“So it was told to me,” said Juan Gonzalvo––“told by a man whose every scar spoke of the Greek wolf! I was told of them as other children are told the stories of the blessed saints. My first toy sword was dedicated to the cutting down of that thrice accursed infidel and all his blood. God:––God:––how mad I was when I was told the savages of the new world had done me wrong by sending him to hell before I could even spell his name for curses!”
“My son! You are doing murder in your heart!” and Padre Vicente held up the crucifix with trembling hand.
“That I am!” agreed Gonzalvo and laughed, and laid himself down again to rest on his saddle.––“Does it call for penance to kill a venomous thing?”
“A human soul!” admonished the priest.
“Then he came by such soul later in life than his record shows trace of!” declared Juan Gonzalvo, and this time the priest was silent.
“In truth, report does stand by our friend in that,” agreed Don Diego. “He lived as a Turk among the Turkish pirates, and was never so much a Christian 86 as are those who serve as devils, in the flames of the pit. To slay the infidel is not to slay a soul, good father,––or––if you are of that mind,” he added with an attempt at lightness which sat ill on him––so stiff it was as he eyed the still priest warily,––“if you are of that mind, we can never grow dull for argument in the desert marches. In the Holy Office godly men of the Faith work daily and nightly on that question even now in Christian Spain.”
The priest shuddered, and fingered his beads. Well they knew in those days the “question” and “Holy office” in Christian Spain. The rack loomed large enough to cast its shadow even to the new found shores at the other side of the world!
And plainly he read also that two otherwise genial gentlemen of the cavalcade were equipped well for all fanatic labor where Holy Cross or personal hates were to be defended. It is well to know one’s comrades, and the subject of the Greek had opened doors of strange revelation to him.