Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth, - [e books for reading .TXT] 📗

But the bishop shrieked on.

“Oh! not yet. An hour, only an hour! I am not fit to die.”

“That is no concern of mine,” said Amyas. “I only know that you are not fit to live.”

“Let us at least make our peace with God,” said the dark monk.

“Hound! if your saints can really smuggle you up the back-stairs to heaven, they will do it without five minutes' more coaxing and flattering.”

Fray Gerundio and the condemned man alike stopped their ears at the blasphemy.

“Oh, Fray Gerundio!” screamed the bishop, “pray for me. I have treated you like a beast. Oh, Fray, Fray!”

“Oh, my lord! my lord!” said the good man, as with tears streaming down his face he followed his shrieking and struggling diocesan up the stairs, “who am I? Ask no pardon of me. Ask pardon of God for all your sins against the poor innocent savages, when you saw your harmless sheep butchered year after year, and yet never lifted up your voice to save the flock which God had committed to you. Oh, confess that, my lord! confess it ere it be too late!”

“I will confess all about the Indians, and the gold, and Tita too, Fray; peccavi, peccavi—only five minutes, senors, five little minutes' grace, while I confess to the good Fray!”—and he grovelled on the deck.

“I will have no such mummery where I command,” said Amyas, sternly. “I will be no accomplice in cheating Satan of his due.”

“If you will confess,” said Brimblecombe, whose heart was melting fast, “confess to the Lord, and He will forgive you. Even at the last moment mercy is open. Is it not, Fray Gerundio?”

“It is, senor; it is, my lord,” said Gerundio; but the bishop only clasped his hands over his head.

“Then I am undone! All my money is stolen! Not a farthing left to buy masses for my poor soul! And no absolution, no viaticum, nor anything! I die like a dog and am damned!”

“Clear away that running rigging!” said Amyas, while the dark Dominican stood perfectly collected, with something of a smile of pity at the miserable bishop. A man accustomed to cruelty, and firm in his fanaticism, he was as ready to endure suffering as to inflict it; repeating to himself the necessary prayers, he called Fray Gerundio to witness that he died, however unworthy, a martyr, in charity with all men, and in the communion of the Holy Catholic Church; and then, as he fitted the cord to his own neck, gave Fray Gerundio various petty commissions about his sister and her children, and a little vineyard far away upon the sunny slopes of Castile; and so died, with a “Domine, in manus tuas,” like a valiant man of Spain.

Amyas stood long in solemn silence, watching the two corpses dangling above his head. At last he drew a long breath, as if a load was taken off his heart.

Suddenly he looked round to his men, who were watching eagerly to know what he would have done next.

“Hearken to me, my masters all, and may God hearken too, and do so to me, and more also, if, as long as I have eyes to see a Spaniard, and hands to hew him down, I do any other thing than hunt down that accursed nation day and night, and avenge all the innocent blood which has been shed by them since the day in which King Ferdinand drove out the Moors!”

“Amen!” said Salvation Yeo. “I need not to swear that oath, for I have sworn it long ago, and kept it. Will your honor have us kill the rest of the idolaters?”

“God forbid!” said Cary. “You would not do that, Amyas?”

“No; we will spare them. God has shown us a great mercy this day, and we must be merciful in it. We will land them at Cabo Velo. But henceforth till I die no quarter to a Spaniard.”

“Amen!” said Yeo.

Amyas's whole countenance had changed in the last half-hour. He seemed to have grown years older. His brow was wrinkled, his lip compressed, his eyes full of a terrible stony calm, as of one who had formed a great and dreadful purpose, and yet for that very reason could afford to be quiet under the burden of it, even cheerful; and when he returned to the cabin he bowed courteously to the commandant, begged pardon of him for having played the host so ill, and entreated him to finish his breakfast.

“But, senor—is it possible? Is his holiness dead?”

“He is hanged and dead, senor. I would have hanged, could I have caught them, every living thing which was present at my brother's death, even to the very flies upon the wall. No more words, senor; your conscience tells you that I am just.”

“Senor,” said the commandant—“one word—I trust there are no listeners—none of my crew, I mean; but I must exculpate myself in your eyes.”

“Walk out, then, into the gallery with me.”

“To tell you the truth, senor—I trust in Heaven no one overhears.—You are just. This Inquisition is the curse of us, the weight which is crushing out the very life of Spain. No man dares speak. No man dares trust his neighbor, no, not his child, or the wife of his bosom. It avails nothing to be a good Catholic, as I trust I am,” and he crossed himself, “when any villain whom you may offend, any unnatural son or wife who wishes to be rid of you, has but to hint heresy against you, and you vanish into the Holy Office—and then God have mercy on you, for man has none. Noble ladies of my family, sir, have vanished thither, carried off by night, we know not why; we dare not ask why. To expostulate, even to inquire, would have been to share their fate. There is one now, senor—Heaven alone knows whether she is alive or dead!—It was nine years since, and we have never heard; and we shall never hear.”

And the commandant's face worked frightfully.

“She was my sister, senor!”

“Heavens! sir, and have you not avenged her?”

“On churchmen, senor, and I a Catholic? To be burned at the stake in this life, and after that to all eternity beside? Even a Spaniard dare not face that. Beside, sir, the mob like this Inquisition, and an Auto-da-fe is even better sport to them than a bull-fight. They would be the first to tear a man in pieces who dare touch an Inquisitor. Sir, may all the saints in heaven obtain me forgiveness for my blasphemy, but when I saw you just now fearing those churchmen no more than you feared me, I longed, sinner that I am, to be a heretic like you.”

“It will not take long to make a brave and wise gentleman who has suffered such things as you have, a heretic, as you call it—a free Christian man, as we call it.”

“Tempt me not, sir!” said the poor man, crossing himself fervently. “Let