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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Calderon The Courtier, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Calderon The Courtier
+       A Tale
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 17, 2009 [EBook #9762]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALDERON THE COURTIER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CALDERON, THE COURTIER
+
+BY
+
+EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+CHAPTER I. The Antechamber
+
+CHAPTER II. The Lover and the Confidant
+
+CHAPTER III. A Rival
+
+CHAPTER IV. Civil Ambition, and Ecclesiastical
+
+CHAPTER V. The true Fate of Morgana
+
+CHAPTER VI. Web upon Web
+
+CHAPTER VII. The open Countenance, the concealed Thoughts
+
+CHAPTER VIII. The Escape
+
+CHAPTER IX. The Counterplot
+
+CHAPTER X. We reap what we sow
+
+CHAPTER XI. Howsoever the Rivers wind, the Ocean receives them All
+
+
+
+
+CALDERON, THE COURTIER.
+
+A TALE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE ANTE-CHAMBER.
+
+The Tragi-Comedy of Court Intrigue, which had ever found its principal
+theatre in Spain since the accession of the House of Austria to the
+throne, was represented with singular complication of incident and
+brilliancy of performance during the reign of Philip the Third. That
+monarch, weak, indolent, and superstitious, left the reins of government
+in the hands of the Duke of Lerma. The Duke of Lerma, in his turn, mild,
+easy, ostentatious, and shamefully corrupt, resigned the authority he
+had thus received to Roderigo Calderon, an able and resolute upstart,
+whom nature and fortune seemed equally to favour and endow. But, not
+more to his talents, which were great, than to the policy of religious
+persecution which he had supported and enforced, Roderigo Calderon owed
+his promotion. The King and the Inquisition had, some years before our
+story opens, resolved upon the general expulsion of the Moriscos
+the wealthiest, the most active, the most industrious portion of the
+population.
+
+"I would sooner," said the bigoted king--and his words were hallowed by
+the enthusiasm of the Church--"depopulate my kingdom than suffer it to
+harbour a single infidel." The Duke de Lerma entered into the scheme
+that lost to Spain many of her most valuable subjects, with the zeal of
+a pious Catholic expectant of the Cardinal's hat, which he afterwards
+obtained. But to this scheme Calderon brought an energy, a decision,
+a vehemence, and sagacity of hatred, that savoured more of personal
+vengeance than religious persecution. His perseverance in this good
+work established him firmly in the king's favour; and in this he was
+supported by the friendship not only of Lerma, but of Fray Louis de
+Aliaga, a renowned Jesuit, and confessor to the king. The disasters
+and distresses occasioned by this barbarous crusade, which crippled
+the royal revenues, and seriously injured the estates of the principal
+barons, from whose lands the industrious and intelligent Moriscos were
+expelled, ultimately concentred a deep and general hatred upon Calderon.
+But his extraordinary address and vigorous energies, his perfect
+mastery of the science of intrigue, not only sustained, but continued to
+augment, his power. Though the king was yet in the prime of middle age,
+his health was infirm and his life precarious. Calderon had contrived,
+while preserving the favour of the reigning monarch, to establish
+himself as the friend and companion of the heir apparent. In this,
+indeed, he had affected to yield to the policy of the king himself; for
+Philip the Third had a wholesome terror of the possible ambition of his
+son, who early evinced talents which might have been formidable, but for
+passions which urged him into the most vicious pleasures and the most
+extravagant excesses. The craft of the king was satisfied by the device
+of placing about the person of the Infant one devoted to himself; nor
+did his conscience, pious as he was, revolt at the profligacy which his
+favourite was said to participate, and, perhaps, to encourage; since the
+less popular the prince, the more powerful the king.
+
+But all this while there was formed a powerful cabal against both the
+Duke of Lerma and Don Roderigo Calderon in a quarter where it might
+least have been anticipated. The cardinal-duke, naturally anxious
+to cement and perpetuate his authority, had placed his son, the Duke
+d'Uzeda, in a post that gave him constant access to the monarch.
+The prospect of power made Uzeda eager to seize at once upon all its
+advantages; and it became the object of his life to supplant his father.
+This would have been easy enough but for the genius and vigilance of
+Calderon, whom he hated as a rival, disdained as an upstart, and dreaded
+as a foe. Philip was soon aware of the contest between the two factions,
+but, in the true spirit of Spanish kingcraft he took care to play one
+against the other. Nor could Calderon, powerful as he was, dare openly
+to seek the ruin of Uzeda; while Uzeda, more rash, and, perhaps, more
+ingenuous, entered into a thousand plots for the downfall of the prime
+favourite.
+
+The frequent missions, principally into Portugal, in which of late
+Calderon had been employed, had allowed Uzeda to encroach more and more
+upon the royal confidence; while the very means which Don Roderigo had
+adopted to perpetuate his influence, by attaching himself to the prince,
+necessarily distracted his attention from the intrigues of his rival.
+Perhaps, indeed, the greatness of Calderon's abilities made him too
+arrogantly despise the machinations of the duke, who, though not without
+some capacities as a courtier, was wholly incompetent to those duties of
+a minister on which he had set his ambition and his grasp.
+
+Such was the state of parties in the Court of Philip the Third at the
+time in which we commence our narrative in the ante-chamber of Don
+Roderigo Calderon.
+
+"It is not to be endured," said Don Felix de Castro, an old noble, whose
+sharp features and diminutive stature proclaimed the purity of his blood
+and the antiquity of his descent.
+
+"Just three-quarters of an hour and five minutes have I waited for
+audience to a fellow who would once have thought himself honoured if I
+had ordered him to call my coach," said Don Diego Sarmiento de Mendo.
+
+"Then, if it chafe you so much, gentlemen, why come you here at all? I
+dare say Don Roderigo can dispense with your attendance."
+
+This was said bluntly by a young noble of good mien, whose impetuous and
+irritable temperament betrayed itself by an impatience of gesture and
+motion unusual amongst his countrymen. Sometimes he walked, with uneven
+strides, to and fro the apartments, unheeding the stately groups whom he
+jostled, or the reproving looks that he attracted; sometimes he paused
+abruptly, raised his eyes, muttered, twitched his cloak, or played with
+his sword-knot; or, turning abruptly round upon his solemn neighbours,
+as some remark on his strange bearing struck his ear, brought the blood
+to many a haughty cheek by his stern gaze of defiance and disdain. It
+was easy to perceive that this personage belonged to the tribe--rash,
+vain, and young--who are eager to take offence, and to provoke quarrel.
+Nevertheless, the cavalier had noble and great qualities. A stranger to
+courts, in the camp he was renowned for a chivalrous generosity and an
+extravagant valour, that emulated the ancient heroes of Spanish romaunt
+and song. His was a dawn that promised a hot noon and a glorious eve.
+The name of this brave soldier was Martin Fonseca. He was of an ancient
+but impoverished house, and related in a remote degree to the Duke de
+Lerma. In his earliest youth he had had cause to consider himself
+the heir to a wealthy uncle on his mother's side; and with those
+expectations, while still but a boy, he had been invited to court by
+the cardinal-duke. Here, however, the rude and blunt sincerity of his
+bearing had so greatly shocked the formal hypocrisies of the court, and
+had more than once so seriously offended the minister, that his powerful
+kinsman gave up all thought of pushing Fonseca's fortunes at Madrid, and
+meditated some plausible excuse for banishing him from court. At this
+time the rich uncle, hitherto childless, married a second time, and was
+blessed with an heir. It was no longer necessary to keep terms with
+Don Martin; and he suddenly received an order to join the army on the
+frontiers. Here his courage soon distinguished him; but his honest
+nature still stood in the way of his promotion. Several years elapsed,
+and his rise had been infinitely slower than that of men not less
+inferior to him in birth than merit. Some months since, he had repaired
+to Madrid to enforce his claims upon the government; but instead of
+advancing his suit, he had contrived to effect a serious breach with
+the cardinal, and been abruptly ordered back to the camp. Once more he
+appeared at Madrid; but this time it was not to plead desert and demand
+honours.
+
+In any country but Spain under the reign of Philip the Third, Martin
+Fonseca would have risen early to high fortunes. But, as we have said,
+his talents were not those of the flatterer or the hypocrite; and it was
+a matter of astonishment to the calculators round him to see Don Martin
+Fonseca in the ante-room of Roderigo Calderon, Count Oliva, Marquis de
+Siete Iglesias, secretary to the King, and parasite and favourite of the
+Infant of Spain.
+
+"Why come you here at all?" repeated the young soldier.
+
+"Senor," answered Don Felix de Castro, with great gravity, "we have
+business with Don Roderigo. Men of our station must attend to the
+affairs of the state, no matter by whom transacted."
+
+"That is, you must crawl on your knees to ask for pensions and
+governorships, and transact the affairs of the state by putting your
+hands into its coffers."
+
+"Senor!" growled Don Felix, angrily, as his hand played with his
+sword-belt.
+
+"Tush!" said the young man, scornfully turning on his heel.
+
+The folding-doors were thrown open, and all conversation ceased at the
+entrance of Don Roderigo Calderon.
+
+This remarkable personage had risen from the situation of a confidential
+scribe to the Duke of Lerma to the nominal rank of secretary to the
+King--to the real station of autocrat of Spain. The birth of the
+favourite of fortune was exceedingly obscure. He had long affected
+to conceal it; but when he found curiosity had proceeded into serious
+investigation of his origin, he had suddenly appeared to make a virtue
+of necessity; proclaimed of his own accord that his father was a common
+soldier of Valladolid, and even invited to Madrid, and lodged in his
+own palace, his low-born progenitor. This prudent frankness disarmed
+malevolence on the score of birth. But when the old soldier died,
+rumours went abroad that he had confessed on his death-bed that he
+was not in any way related to Calderon; that he had submitted to an
+imposture which secured to his old age so respectable and luxurious an
+asylum; and that he knew not for what end Calderon had forced upon him
+the honours of spurious parentship. This tale, which, ridiculed by most,
+was yet believed by some, gave rise to darker reports concerning one on
+whom the eyes of all Spain were fixed. It was supposed that he had
+some motive beyond that of shame at their meanness, to conceal his
+real origin and name. What could be that motive, if not the dread of
+discovery for some black and criminal offence connected with his earlier
+youth, and for which he feared the prosecution of the law? They who
+affected most to watch his exterior averred that often, in his gayest
+revels and proudest triumphs, his brow would lower--his countenance
+change--and it was only by a visible and painful effort that he could
+restore his mind to its self-possession. His career, which evinced
+an utter contempt for the ordinary rules and scruples that curb even
+adventurers into a seeming of honesty and virtue, appeared in some way
+to justify these reports. But, at times, flashes of sudden and brilliant
+magnanimity broke forth to bewilder the curious, to puzzle the examiners
+of human character, and to contrast the general tenor of his ambitions
+and remorseless ascent to power. His genius was confessed by all; but
+it was a genius that in no way promoted the interests of his country.
+It served only to prop, defend, and advance himself--to battle
+difficulties--to defeat foes--to convert every accident, every chance,
+into new stepping stones in his course. Whatever his birth, it was
+evident that he had received every advantage of education; and scholars
+extolled his learning and boasted of his patronage. While, more
+recently, if the daring and wild excesses of the profligate prince were,
+on the one hand, popularly imputed to the guidance of Calderon, and
+increased the hatred generally conceived against him, so, on the other
+hand, his influence over the future monarch seemed to promise a new
+lease to his authority, and struck fear into the councils of his foes.
+In fact, the power of the upstart marquis appeared so firmly rooted,
+the career before him so splendid, that there were not wanted whisperers
+who, in addition to his other crimes, ascribed to Roderigo Calderon
+the assistance of the black art. But the black art in which that subtle
+courtier was a proficient is one that dispenses with necromancy. It
+was the art of devoting the highest intellect to the most selfish
+purposes--an art that thrives tolerably well for a time in the great
+world!
+
+He had been for several weeks absent from Madrid on a secret mission;
+and to this, his first public levee, on his return, thronged all the
+rank and chivalry of Spain.
+
+The crowd gave way, as, with haughty air, in the maturity of manhood,
+the Marquis de Siete Iglesias moved along. He disdained all accessories
+of dress to enhance the effect of his singularly striking exterior.
+His mantle and vest of black cloth, made in the simplest fashion, were
+unadorned with the jewels that then constituted the ordinary insignia of
+rank. His hair, bright and glossy as the raven's plume, curled back from
+the lofty and commanding brow, which, save by one deep wrinkle between
+the eyes, was not only as white but as smooth as marble. His features
+were aquiline and regular; and the deep olive of his complexion seemed
+pale and clear when contrasted by the rich jet of the moustache and
+pointed beard. The lightness of his tall and slender but muscular
+form made him appear younger than he was; and had it not been for the
+supercilious and scornful arrogance of air which so seldom characterises
+gentle birth, Calderon might have mingled with the loftiest magnates of
+Europe and seemed to the observer the stateliest of the group. It
+was one of those rare forms that are made to command the one sex and
+fascinate the other. But, on a deeper scrutiny, the restlessness of
+the brilliant eye--the quiver of the upper lip--a certain abruptness of
+manner and speech, might have shown that greatness had brought suspicion
+as well as pride. The spectators beheld the huntsman on the height;--the
+huntsman saw the abyss below, and respired with difficulty the air
+above.
+
+The courtiers one by one approached the marquis, who received them with
+very unequal courtesy. To the common herd he was sharp, dry, and bitter;
+to the great he was obsequious, yet with a certain grace and manliness
+of bearing that elevated even the character of servility; and all
+the while, as he bowed low to a Medina or a Guzman, there was a half
+imperceptible mockery lurking in the corners of his mouth, which seemed
+to imply that while his policy cringed his heart despised. To two or
+three, whom he either personally liked or honestly esteemed, he was
+familiar, but brief, in his address; to those whom he had cause to
+detest or to dread--his foes, his underminers--he assumed a yet greater
+frankness, mingled with the most caressing insinuation of voice and
+manner.
+
+Apart from the herd, with folded arms, and an expression of countenance
+in which much admiration was blent with some curiosity and a little
+contempt, Don Martin Fonseca gazed upon the favourite.
+
+"I have done this man a favour," thought he; "I have contributed towards
+his first rise--I am now his suppliant. Faith! I, who have never found
+sincerity or gratitude in the camp, come to seek those hidden treasures
+at a court! Well, we are strange puppets, we mortals!"
+
+Don Diego Sarmiento de Mendoza had just received the smiling salutation
+of Calderon, when the eye of the latter fell upon the handsome features
+of Fonseca. The blood mounted to his brow; he hastily promised Don Diego
+all that he desired, and hurrying back through the crowd, retired to his
+private cabinet. The levee was broken up.
+
+As Fonseca, who had caught the glance of the secretary, and who drew
+no favourable omen from his sudden evanishment, slowly turned to
+depart with the rest, a young man, plainly dressed, touched him on the
+shoulder.
+
+"You are Senior Don Martin Fonseca?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Follow me, if it please you, senor, to my master, Lou Roderigo
+Calderon."
+
+Fonseca's face brightened; he obeyed the summons; and in another moment
+he was in the cabinet of the Sejanus of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE LOVER AND THE CONFIDANT.
+
+Calderon received the young soldier at the door of his chamber with
+marked and almost affectionate respect. "Don Martin," said he, and there
+seemed a touch of true feeling in the tremor of his rich sweet voice, "I
+owe you the greatest debt one man can incur to another--it was your hand
+that set before my feet their first stepping-stone to power. I date my
+fortunes from the hour in which I was placed in your father's house as
+your preceptor. When the cardinal-duke invited you to Madrid, I was your
+companion; and when, afterwards, you joined the army, and required
+no longer the services of the peaceful scholar, you demanded of your
+illustrious kinsman the single favour--to provide for Calderon. I had
+already been fortunate enough to win the countenance of the duke, and
+from that day my rise was rapid. Since then we have never met. Dare
+I hope that it is now in the power of Calderon to prove himself not
+ungrateful?"
+
+"Yes," said Fonseca, eagerly; "it is in your power to save me from the
+most absolute wretchedness that can befall me. It is in your power, at
+least I think so, to render me the happiest of men!"
+
+"Be seated, I pray you, senor. And how? I am your servant."
+
+"Thou knowest," said Fonseca, "that, though the kinsman, I am not the
+favourite, of the Duke of Lerma?"
+
+"Nay, nay," interrupted Calderon, softly, and with a bland smile;
+"you misunderstand my illustrious patron: he loves you, but not your
+indiscretions."
+
+"Yes, honesty is very indiscreet! I cannot stoop to the life of the
+ante-chamber. I cannot, like the Duke of Lerma, detest my nearest
+relative if his shadow cross the line of my interests. I am of the
+race of Pelayo, not Oppas; and my profession, rather that of an ancient
+Persian than a modern Spaniard, is to manage the steed, to wield the
+sword, and to speak the truth."
+
+There was an earnestness and gallantry in the young man's aspect,
+manner, and voice, as he thus spoke, which afforded the strongest
+contrast to the inscrutable brow and artificial softness of Calderon;
+and which, indeed, for the moment, occasioned that crafty and profound
+adventurer an involuntary feeling of self-humiliation.
+
+"But," continued Fonseca, "let this pass: I come to my story and my
+request. Do you, or do you not know, that I have been for some time
+attached to Beatriz Coello!"
+
+"Beatriz," replied Calderon, abstractedly, with an altered countenance,
+"it is a sweet name--it was my mother's!"
+
+"Your mother's! I thought to have heard her name was Mary Sandalen?"
+
+"True--Mary Beatriz Sandalen," replied Calderon, indifferently. "But
+proceed. I heard, after your last visit to Madrid, when, owing to my own
+absence in Portugal, I was not fortunate enough to see you, that you had
+offended the duke by desiring an alliance unsuitable to your birth. Who,
+then, is this Beatriz Coello?"
+
+"An orphan of humble origin and calling. In infancy she was left to the
+care of a woman who, I believe, had been her nurse; they were settled in
+Seville, and the old gouvernante's labours in embroidery maintained them
+both till Beatriz was fourteen. At that time the poor woman was disabled
+by a stroke of palsy from continuing her labours, and Beatriz, good
+child, yearning to repay the obligation she had received, in her turn
+sought to maintain her protectress. She possessed the gift of a voice
+wonderful for its sweetness. This gift came to the knowledge of
+the superintendent of the theatre at Seville: he made her the most
+advantageous proposals to enter upon the stage. Beatriz; innocent child,
+was unaware of the perils of that profession: she accepted eagerly
+the means that would give comfort to the declining life of her only
+friend--she became an actress. At that time we were quartered in
+Seville, to keep guard on the suspected Moriscos."
+
+"Ah, the hated infidels!" muttered Calderon, fiercely, through his
+teeth.
+
+"I saw Beatriz, and loved her at first sight. I do not say," added
+Fonseca, with a blush, "that my suit, at the outset, was that which
+alone was worthy of her; but her virtue soon won my esteem as well
+as love. I left Seville to seek my father and obtain his consent to
+a marriage with Beatriz. You know a hidalgo's prejudices--they are
+insuperable. Meanwhile, the fame of the beauty and voice of the young
+actress reached Madrid, and hither she was removed from Seville by
+royal command. To Madrid, then, I hastened, on the pretence of demanding
+promotion. You, as you have stated, were absent in Portugal on some
+state mission. I sought the Duke de Lerma. I implored him to give me
+some post, anywhere--I recked not beneath what sky, in the vast empire
+of Spain--in which, removed from the prejudices of birth and of class,
+and provided with other means, less precarious than those that depend
+on the sword, I might make Beatriz my wife. The polished duke was more
+inexorable than the stern hidalgo. I flew to Beatriz; I told her I had
+nothing but my heart and right hand to offer. She wept, and she refused
+me."
+
+"Because you were not rich?"
+
+"Shame on you, no! but because she would not consent to mar my fortunes,
+and banish me from my native land. The next day I received a peremptory
+order to rejoin the army, and with that order came a brevet of
+promotion. Lover though I be, I am a Spaniard: to have disobeyed the
+order would have been dishonour. Hope dawned upon me--I might rise, I
+might become rich. We exchanged our vows of fidelity. I returned to the
+camp. We corresponded. At last her letters alarmed me. Through all her
+reserve, I saw that she was revolted by her profession, and terrified at
+the persecutions to which it exposed her: the old woman, her sole guide
+and companion, was dying: she was dejected and unhappy: she despaired
+of our union: she expressed a desire for the refuge of the cloister. At
+last came this letter, bidding me farewell for ever. Her relation was
+dead; and, with the little money she had amassed, she had bought her
+entrance into the convent of St. Mary of the White Sword. Imagine my
+despair! I obtained leave of absence--I flew to Madrid. Beatriz
+is already immured in that dreary asylum; she has entered on her
+novitiate."
+
+"Is that the letter you refer to?" said Calderon, extending his hand.
+
+Fonseca gave him the letter.
+
+Hard and cold as Calderon's character had grown, there was something in
+the tone of this letter--its pure and noble sentiments, its innocence,
+its affection--that touched some mystic chord in his heart. He sighed as
+he laid it down.
+
+"You are, like all of us, Don Martin," said he, with a bitter smile,
+"the dupe of a woman's faith. But you must purchase experience for
+yourself, and if, indeed, you ask my services to procure you present
+bliss and future disappointment, those services are yours. It will not,
+I think, be difficult to interest the queen in your favour: leave me
+this letter, it is one to touch the heart of a woman. If we succeed with
+the queen, who is the patroness of the convent, we may be sure to obtain
+an order from court for the liberation of the novice: the next step is
+one more arduous. It is not enough to restore Beatriz to freedom--we
+must reconcile your family to the marriage. This cannot be done while
+she is not noble; but letters patent (here Calderon smiled) could
+ennoble a mushroom itself--your humble servant is an example. Such
+letters may be bought or begged; I will undertake to procure them. Your
+father, too, may find a dowry accompanying the title, in the shape of a
+high and honourable post for yourself. You deserve much; you are beloved
+in the army; you have won a high name in the world. I take shame on
+myself that your fortunes have been overlooked. 'Out of sight out of
+mind;' alas! it is a true proverb. I confess that, when I beheld you in
+the ante room, I blushed for my past forgetfulness. No matter--I will
+repair my fault. Men say that my patronage is misapplied--I will prove
+the contrary by your promotion."
+
+"Generous Calderon!" said Fonseca, falteringly; "I ever hated the
+judgments of the vulgar. They calumniate you; it is from envy."
+
+"No," said Calderon, coldly; "I am bad enough, but I am still human.
+Besides, gratitude is my policy. I have always found that it is a good
+way to get on in the world to serve those who serve us."
+
+"But the duke?"
+
+"Fear not; I have an oil that will smooth all the billows on that
+surface. As for the letter, I say, leave it with me; I will show it to
+the queen. Let me see you again tomorrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. A RIVAL.
+
+Calderon's eyes were fixed musingly on the door which closed on
+Fonseca's martial and noble form.
+
+"Great contrasts among men!" said he, half aloud. "All the classes
+into which naturalists ever divided the animal world contained not the
+variety that exists between man and man. And yet, we all agree in one
+object of our being--all prey on each other! Glory, which is but the
+thirst of blood, makes yon soldier the tiger of his kind; other passions
+have made me the serpent: both fierce, relentless, unscrupulous--both!
+hero and courtier, valour and craft! Hein! I will serve this young
+man--he has served me. When all other affection was torn from me, he,
+then a boy, smiled on me and bade me love him. Why has he been so long
+forgotten? He is not of the race that I abhor; no Moorish blood flows in
+his veins; neither is he of the great and powerful, whom I dread; nor of
+the crouching and the servile, whom I despise: he is one whom I can aid
+without a blush."
+
+While Calderon thus soliloquised, the arras was lifted aside, and a
+cavalier, on whose cheek was the first down of manhood, entered the
+apartment.
+
+"So, Roderigo, alone! welcome back to Madrid. Nay, seat thyself,
+man--seat thyself."
+
+Calderon bowed with the deepest reverence; and, placing a large fauteuil
+before the stranger, seated himself on stool, at a little distance.
+
+The new comer was of sallow complexion; his gorgeous dress sparkled with
+prodigal jewels. Boy as he was, there was a yet a careless loftiness,
+a haughty ease, in the gesture--the bend of the neck, the wave of the
+hand, which, coupled with the almost servile homage of the arrogant
+favourite, would have convinced the most superficial observer that he
+was born of the highest rank. A second glance would have betrayed,
+in the full Austrian lip--the high, but narrow forehead--the dark,
+voluptuous, but crafty and sinister eye, the features of the descendant
+of Charles V. It was the Infant of Spain that stood in the chamber of
+his ambitious minion.
+
+"This is convenient, this private entrance into thy penetralia,
+Roderigo. It shelters me from the prying eyes of Uzeda, who ever seeks
+to cozen the sire by spying on the Son. We will pay him off one of these
+days. He loves you no less than he does his prince."
+
+"I bear no malice to him for that, your highness. He covets the smiles
+of the rising sun and rails at the humble object which, he thinks,
+obstructs the beam."
+
+"He might be easy on that score: I hate the man, and his cold
+formalities. He is ever fancying that we princes are intent on the
+affairs of state, and forgets that we are mortal and that youth is the
+age for the bower, not the council. My precious Calderon, life would be
+dull without thee: how I rejoice at thy return, thou best inventor of
+pleasure that satiety ever prayed for! Nay, blush not: some men despise
+thee for thy talents: I do thee homage. By my great grandsire's beard,
+it will be a merry time at court when I am monarch, and thou minister!"
+
+Calderon looked earnestly at the prince, but his scrutiny did not serve
+to dispel a certain suspicion of the royal sincerity that ever and anon
+came across the favourite's most sanguine dreams. With all Philip's
+gaiety, there was something restrained and latent in his ambiguous
+smile, and his calm, deep, brilliant eye. Calderon, immeasurably above
+his lord in genius, was scarcely, perhaps, the equal of that beardless
+boy in hypocrisy and craft, in selfish coldness, in matured depravity.
+
+"Well," resumed the prince, "I pay you not these compliments without
+an object. I have need of you--great need; never did I so require your
+services as at this moment; never was there so great demand on your
+invention, your courage, your skill. Know, Calderon, I love!"
+
+"My prince," said the marquis, smiling, "it is certainly not first love.
+How often has your highness--"
+
+"No," interrupted the prince, hastily,--"no, I never loved till now. We
+never can love what we can easily win; but this, Calderon, this heart
+would be a conquest. Listen. I was at the convent chapel of St. Mary of
+the White Sword yesterday with the queen. Thou knowest that the abbess
+once was a lady of the chamber, and the queen loves her."
+
+"Both of us were moved and astonished by the voice of one of the
+choir--it was that of a novice. After the ceremony the queen made
+inquiries touching this new Santa Cecilia; and who dost thou think
+she is? No; thou wilt never guess!--the once celebrated singer--the
+beautiful, the inimitable Beatriz Coello! Ah! you may well look
+surprised; when actresses turn nuns, it is well-nigh time for Calderon
+and Philip to turn monks. Now, you must know, Roderigo, that I, unworthy
+though I be, am the cause of this conversion. There is a certain Martin
+Fonseca, a kinsman of Lerma's--thou knowest him well. I learned, some
+time since, from the duke, that this young Orlando was most madly
+enamoured of a low-born girl--nay, desired to wed her. The duke's story
+moved my curiosity. I found that it was the young Beatriz Coello, whom
+I had already admired on the stage. Ah, Calderon, she blazed and set
+during thy dull mission to Lisbon! I sought an opportunity to visit her.
+I was astonished at her beauty, that seemed more dazzling in the
+chamber than on the stage. I pressed my suit-in vain. Calderon, hear you
+that?--in vain! Why wert thou not by? Thy arts never fail, my friend!
+She was living with an old relation, or governante. The old relation
+died suddenly--I took advantage of her loneliness--I entered her house
+at night. By St. Jago, her virtue baffled and defeated me. The next
+morning she was gone; nor could my researches discover her, until, at
+the convent of St. Mary, I recognised the lost actress in the young
+novice. She has fled to the convent to be true to Fonseca; she must fly
+from the convent to bless the prince. This is my tale: I want thy aid."
+
+"Prince," said Calderon, gravely, "thou knowest the laws of Spain; the
+rigour of the Church. I dare not--"
+
+"Pshaw. No scruples--my rank will bear thee harmless. Nay, look not so
+demure; why, even thou, see, hast thy Armida. This billet in a female
+hand--Heaven and earth Calderon! What name is this? Beatriz Coello!
+Darest thou have crossed my path? Speak, sir!--speak!"
+
+"Your highness," said Calderon, with a mixture of respect and dignity
+in his manner--"your highness, hear me. My first benefactor, my beloved
+pupil, my earliest patron, was the same Don Martin Fonseca who seeks
+this girl with an honest love. This morning he has visited me, to
+implore my intercession on his behalf. Oh, prince! turn not away:
+thou knowest not half his merit. Thou knowest not the value of such
+subjects--men of the old iron race of Spain. Thou hast a noble and royal
+heart: be not the rival to the defender of thy crown. Bless this brave
+soldier--spare this poor orphan--and one generous act of self-denial
+shall give thee absolution for a thousand pleasures."
+
+"This from Roderigo Calderon!" said the prince, with bitter sneer. "Man,
+know thy station and thy profession. When I want homilies, I seek my
+confessor; when I have resolved on a vice, I come to thee. A truce with
+this bombast. For Fonseca, he shall be consoled; and when he shall learn
+who is his rival, he is a traitor if he remain discontented with his
+lot. Thou shalt aid me, Calderon!"
+
+"Your highness will pardon me--no!"
+
+"Do I hear right? No! Art thou not my minion--my instrument? Can I not
+destroy as I have helped to raise thee? Thy fortunes have turned thy
+brain. The king already suspects and dislikes thee; thy foe, Uzeda, has
+his ear. The people execrate thee. If I abandon thee, thou art lost.
+Look to it!"
+
+Calderon remained mute and erect, with his arms folded on his breast,
+and his cheek flushed with suppressed passions. Philip gazed at him
+earnestly, and then, muttering to himself, approached the favourite with
+an altered air.
+
+"Come, Calderon--I have been hasty-you maddened me; I meant not to wound
+you. Thou art honest, I think thou lovest me; and I will own, that
+in ordinary circumstances thy advice would be good, and thy scruples
+laudable. But I tell thee that I adore this girl; that I have set all
+my hopes upon her; that, at whatever cost, whatever risks, she must be
+mine. Wilt thou desert me? Wilt thou on whose faith I have ever leaned
+so trustingly, forsake thy friend and thy prince for this brawling
+soldier? No; I wrong thee."
+
+"Oh!" said Calderon, with much semblance of emotion, "I would lay down
+my life in your service, and I have often surrendered my conscience to
+your lightest will. But this would be so base a perfidy in me! He has
+confided his life of life to my hands. How canst even thou count on my
+faith if thou knowest me false to another?"
+
+"False! art thou not false to me? Have I not confided to thee, and dost
+thou not desert me--nay, perhaps, betray? How wouldst thou serve this
+Fonseca? How liberate the novice?"
+
+"By an order of the court. Your royal mother--"
+
+"Enough!" said the prince, fiercely; "do so. Thou shalt have leisure for
+repentance."
+
+As he spoke, Philip strode to the door. Calderon, alarmed and anxious,
+sought to detain him; but the prince broke disdainfully away, and
+Calderon was again alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. CIVIL AMBITION, AND ECCLESIASTICAL.
+
+Scarcely had the prince vanished, before the door that led from the
+anteroom was opened, and an old man, in the ecclesiastical garb, entered
+the secretary's cabinet.
+
+"Do I intrude, my son?" said the churchman.
+
+"No, father, no; I never more desired your presence--your counsel. It is
+not often that I stand halting and irresolute between the two magnets of
+interest and conscience: this is one of those rare dilemmas."
+
+Here Calderon rapidly narrated the substance of his conversation with
+Fonseca, and of the subsequent communication with the prince.
+
+"You see," he said, in conclusion, "how critical is my position. On one
+side, my obligations to Fonseca, my promise to a benefactor, a friend
+to the boy I assisted to rear. Nor is that all: the prince asks me to
+connive at the abstraction of a novice from a consecrated house. What
+peril--what hazard! On the other side, if I refuse, the displeasure, the
+vengeance of the prince, for whose favour I have already half forfeited
+that of the king; and who, were he once to frown upon me, would
+encourage all my enemies--in other phrase, the whole court--in one
+united attempt at my ruin."
+
+"It is a stern trial," said the monk, gravely; "and one that may well
+excite your fear."
+
+"Fear, Aliaga!--ha! ha!--fear!" said Calderon, laughing scornfully. "Did
+true ambition ever know fear? Have we not the old Castilian proverb,
+that tells us 'He who has climbed the first step to power has left
+terror a thousand leagues behind'? No, it is not fear that renders
+me irresolute; it is wisdom, and some touch, some remnant of human
+nature--philosophers would call it virtue; you priests, religion."
+
+"Son," said the priest, "when, as one of that sublime calling, which
+enables us to place our unshodden feet upon the necks of kings, I felt
+that I had the power to serve and to exalt you; when as confessor to
+Philip, I backed the patronage of Lerma, recommended you to the royal
+notice, and brought you into the sunshine of the royal favour--it was
+because I had read in your heart and brain those qualities of which the
+spiritual masters of the world ever seek to avail their cause. I knew
+thee brave, crafty, aspiring, unscrupulous. I knew that thou wouldest
+not shrink at the means that could secure to thee a noble end. Yea,
+when, years ago, in the valley of the Xenil, I saw thee bathe thy hands
+in the blood of thy foe, and heard thy laugh of exulting scorn;--when I,
+alone master of thy secret, beheld thee afterwards flying from thy home
+stained with a second murder, but still calm, stern, and lord of thine
+own reason, my knowledge of mankind told me, 'Of such men are high
+converts and mighty instruments made!'"
+
+The priest paused; for Calderon heard him not. His cheek was livid,
+his eyes closed, his chest heaved wildly. "Horrible remembrance!" he
+muttered; "fatal love--dread revenge! Inez--Inez, what hast thou to
+answer for!"
+
+"Be soothed, my son; I meant not to tear the bandage from thy wounds."
+
+"Who speaks?" cried Calderon, starting. "Ha, priest! priest! I thought
+I heard the Dead. Talk on, talk on: talk of the world--the
+Inquisition--thy plots--the torture--the rack! Talk of aught that will
+lead me back from the past."
+
+"No; let me for a moment lead thee thither, in order to portray the
+future that awaits thee. When, at night, I found thee--the blood-stained
+fugitive--cowering beneath the shadow of the forest, dost thou remember
+that I laid my hand upon thine arm, and said to thee, 'Thy life is in my
+power'? From that hour, thy disdain of my threats, of myself, of thine
+own life--all made me view thee as one born to advance our immortal
+cause. I led thee to safety far away; I won thy friendship and thy
+confidence. Thou becamest one of us--one of the great Order of Jesus.
+Subsequently, I placed thee as the tutor to young Fonseca, then heir to
+great fortunes. The second marriage of his uncle, and the heir that
+by that marriage interposed between him and the honour of his house,
+rendered the probable alliance of the youth profitless to us. But thou
+hadst procured his friendship. He presented thee to the Duke of Lerma.
+I was just then appointed confessor to the king; I found that years had
+ripened thy genius, and memory had blunted in thee all the affections of
+the flesh. Above all, hating, as thou didst, the very name of the Moor,
+thou wert the man of men to aid in our great design of expelling the
+accursed race from the land of Spain. Enough--I served thee, and thou
+didst repay us. Thou hast washed out thy crime in the blood of the
+infidel--thou art safe from detection. In Roderigo Calderon, Marquis
+de Siete Iglesias, who will suspect the Roderigo Nunez--the murderous
+student of Salamanca? Our device of the false father stifled even
+curiosity. Thou mayest wake to the future, nor tremble at one shadow in
+the past. The brightest hopes are before us both; but to realise them,
+we must continue the same path. We must never halt at an obstacle in our
+way. We must hold that to be no crime which advances our common objects.
+Mesh upon mesh we must entangle the future monarch in our web: thou,
+by the nets of pleasure; I, by those of superstition. The day that sees
+Philip the Fourth upon the throne, must be a day of jubilee for the
+Brotherhood and the Inquisition. When thou art prime minister, and I
+grand inquisitor--that time must come--we shall have the power to extend
+the sway of the sect of Loyola to the ends of the Christian world. The
+Inquisition itself our tool, posterity shall regard us as the apostles
+of intellectual faith. And thinkest thou, that, for the attainment of
+these great ends, we can have the tender scruples of common men?
+Perish a thousand Fonsecas--ten thousand novices, ere thou lose, by the
+strength of a hair, thy hold over the senses and soul of the licentious
+Philip! At whatever hazard, save thy power; for with it are bound, as
+mariners to a plank, the hopes of those who make the mind a sceptre."
+
+"Thy enthusiasm blinds and misleads thee, Aliaga," said Calderon,
+coldly. "For me, I tell thee now, as I have told thee before, that I
+care not a rush for thy grand objects. Let mankind serve itself--I look
+to myself alone. But fear not my faith; my interests and my very life
+are identified with thee and thy fellow-fanatics. If I desert thee, thou
+art too deep in my secrets not to undo me; and were I to slay thee, in
+order to silence thy testimony, I know enough of thy fraternity to know
+that I should but raise up a multitude of avengers. As for this matter,
+you give me wise, if not pious counsel. I will consider well of it.
+Adieu! The hour summons me to attend the king."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE TRUE FATA MORGANA.
+
+In the royal chamber, before a table covered with papers, sat the King
+and his secretary. Grave, sullen, and taciturn, there was little in
+the habitual manner of Philip the Third that could betray to the
+most experienced courtier the outward symptoms of favour or caprice.
+Education had fitted him for the cloister, but the necessities of
+despotism had added acute cunning to slavish superstition. The business
+for which Calderon had been summoned was despatched, with a silence
+broken but by monosyllables from the king, and brief explanations from
+the secretary; and Philip, rising, gave the signal for Calderon to
+retire. It was then that the king, turning a dull but steadfast eye upon
+the marquis, said, with a kind of effort, as if speech were painful to
+him,
+
+"The prince left me but a minute before your entrance--have you seen him
+since your return?"
+
+"Your majesty, yes. He honoured me this morning with his presence."
+
+"On state affairs?"
+
+"Your majesty knows, I trust, that your servant treats of state affairs
+only with your August self, or your appointed ministers."
+
+"The prince has favoured you, Don Roderigo."
+
+"Your majesty commanded me to seek that favour."
+
+"It is true. Happy the monarch whose faithful servant is the confidant
+of the heir to his crown!"
+
+"Could the prince harbour one thought displeasing to your majesty, I
+think I could detect and quell it at its birth. But your majesty is
+blessed in a grateful son."
+
+"I believe it. His love of pleasure decoys him from ambition--so it
+should be. I am not an austere parent. Keep his favour, Don Roderigo; it
+pleases me. Hast thou offended him in aught?"
+
+"I trust I have not incurred so great a misfortune."
+
+"He spoke not of thee with his usual praises--I noticed it. I tell thee
+this that thou mayest rectify what is wrong. Thou canst not serve me
+more than by guarding him from all friendships save with those whose
+affection to myself I can trust. I have said enough."
+
+"Such has ever been my object. Bat I have not the youth of the prince,
+and men speak ill of me, that, in order to gain his confidence, I share
+in his pursuits."
+
+"It matters not what they say of thee. Faithful ministers are rarely
+eulogised by the populace or the court. Thou knowest my mind: I repeat,
+lose not the prince's favour." Calderon bowed low, and withdrew. As he
+passed through the apartments of the palace, he crossed a gallery, in
+which he perceived, stationed by a window, the young prince and his own
+arch-foe, the Duke d'Uzeda. At the same instant, from an opposite door,
+entered the Cardinal-Duke de Lerma; and the same unwelcome conjunction
+of hostile planets smote the eyes of that intriguing minister. Precisely
+because Uzeda was the duke's son was he the man in the world whom the
+duke most dreaded and suspected.
+
+Whoever is acquainted with the Spanish comedy will not fail to have
+remarked the prodigality of intrigue and counter-intrigue upon which its
+interest is made to depend. In this, the Spanish comedy was the faithful
+mirror of the Spanish life, especially in the circles of a court. Men
+lived in a perfect labyrinth of plot and counter-plot. The spirit of
+finesse, manoeuvre, subtlety, and double-dealing pervaded every family.
+Not a house that was not divided against itself.
+
+As Lerma turned his eyes from the unwelcome spectacle of such sudden
+familiarity between Uzeda and the heir-apparent--a familiarity which it
+had been his chief care to guard against--his glance fell on Calderon.
+He beckoned to him in silence, and retired, unobserved by the two
+confabulators, through the same door by which he had entered. Calderon
+took the hint, and followed him. The duke entered a small room, and
+carefully closed the door.
+
+"How is this, Calderon?" he asked, but in a timid tone, for the weak old
+man stood in awe of his favourite. "Whence this new and most ill-boding
+league?"
+
+"I know not, your eminence; remember that I am but just returned to
+Madrid: it amazes me no less than it does your eminence."
+
+"Learn the cause of it, my good Calderon: the prince ever professed to
+hate Uzeda. Restore him to those feelings thou art all in all with his
+highness! If Uzeda once gain his ear, thou art lost."
+
+"Not so," cried Calderon, proudly. "My service is to the king; I have
+a right to his royal protection, for I have a claim on his royal
+gratitude."
+
+"Do not deceive thyself," said the duke, in a whisper. "The king cannot
+live long: I have it from the best authority, his physician; nor is
+this all--a formidable conspiracy against thee exists at court. But for
+myself and the king's confessor, Philip would consent to thy ruin.
+The strong hold thou hast over him is in thy influence with the
+Infanta--influence which he knows to be exerted on behalf of his own
+fearful and jealous policy; that influence gone, neither I nor Aliaga
+could suffice to protect thee. Enough! Shut every access to Philip's
+heart against Uzeda." Calderon bowed in silence, and the duke hastened
+to the royal cabinet.
+
+"What a fool was I to think that I could still wear a conscience!"
+muttered Calderon, with a sneering lip; "but, Uzeda, I will baffle thee
+yet."
+
+The next morning, the Marquis de Siete Iglesias presented himself at the
+levee of the prince of Spain.
+
+Around the favourite, as his proud stature towered above the rest,
+flocked the obsequious grandees. The haughty smile was yet on his lip
+when the door opened and the prince entered. The crowd, in parting
+suddenly, left Calderon immediately in front of Philip; who,
+after gazing on him sternly for a moment, turned away, with marked
+discourtesy, from the favourite's profound reverence, and began a low
+and smiling conversation with Gonsalez de Leon, one of Calderon's open
+foes.
+
+The crowd exchanged looks of delight and surprise; and each or the
+nobles, before so wooing in their civilities to the minister, edged
+cautiously away.
+
+His mortification had but begun. Presently Uzeda, hitherto almost a
+stranger to those apartments, appeared; the prince hastened to him, and
+in a few minutes the duke was seen following the prince into his
+private chamber. The sun of Calderon's favour seemed set. So thought
+the courtiers: not so the haughty favourite. There was even a smile of
+triumph on his lip--a sanguine flush upon his pale cheek, as he turned
+unheeding from the throng, and then entering his carriage, regained his
+home.
+
+He had scarcely re-entered his cabinet, ere, faithful to his
+appointment, Fonseca was announced.
+
+"What tidings, my best of friends?" exclaimed the soldier.
+
+Calderon shook his head mournfully.
+
+"My dear pupil," said he, in accents of well-affected sympathy, "there
+is no hope for thee. Forget this vain dream--return to the army. I can
+promise thee promotion, rank, honours; but the hand of Beatriz is beyond
+my power."
+
+"How?" said Fonseca, turning pale and sinking into a seat. "How is this?
+Why so sudden a change? Has the queen--"
+
+"I have not seen her majesty; but the king is resolved upon this matter:
+so are the Inquisition. The Church complains of recent and numerous
+examples of unholy and im politic relaxation of her dread power. The
+court dare not interfere. The novice must be left to her own choice."
+
+"And there is no hope?"
+
+"None! Return to the excitement of thy brave career."
+
+"Never!" cried Fonseca, with great vehemence. "If, in requital of all my
+services--of life risked, blood spilt, I cannot obtain a boon so easy to
+accord me, I renounce a service in which even fame has lost its charm.
+And hark you, Calderon, I tell you that I will not forego this pursuit.
+So fair, so innocent a victim shall not be condemned to that living
+tomb. Through the walls of the nunnery, through the spies of the
+Inquisition, love will find out its way; and in some distant land I will
+yet unite happiness and honour. I fear not exile; I fear not reverse; I
+no longer fear poverty itself. All lands, where the sound of the trumpet
+is not unknown, can afford career to the soldier, who asks from Heaven
+no other boon but his mistress and his sword."
+
+"You will seek to abstract Beatriz, then?" said Calderon, calmly and
+musingly. "Yes--it may be your best course, if you take the requisite
+precautions. But can you see her? can you concert with her?"
+
+"I think so. I trust I have already paved the way to an interview.
+Yesterday, after I quitted thee, I sought the convent; and, as the
+chapel is one of the public sights of the city, I made my curiosity
+my excuse. Happily, I recognised in the porter of the convent an old
+servitor of my father's; he had known me from a child--he dislikes his
+calling--he will consent to accompany our flight, to share our fortunes:
+he has promised to convey a letter from me to Beatriz, and to transmit
+to me her answer."
+
+"The stars smile on thee, Don Martin. When thou hast learned more,
+consult with me again. Now, I see a way to assist thee."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. WEB UPON WEB.
+
+The next day, to the discomfiture of the courtiers, Calderon and the
+Infant of Spain were seen together, publicly, on the parade; and the
+secretary made one of the favoured few who attended the prince at the
+theatre. His favour was greater, his power more dazzling than ever it
+had been known before. No cause for the breach and reconciliation being
+known, some attributed it to caprice, others to the wily design of the
+astute Calderon for the humiliation of Uzeda, who seemed only to have
+been admitted to one smile from the rising sun in order more signally to
+be reconsigned to the shade.
+
+Meanwhile, Fonseca prospered almost beyond his hopes. Young, ardent,
+sanguine, the poor novice had fled from her quiet home and the
+indulgence of her free thoughts, to the chill solitude of the cloister,
+little dreaming of the extent of the change. With a heart that
+overflowed with the warm thoughts of love and youth, the ghostlike
+shapes that flitted round her, the icy forms, the rigid ceremonials of
+that life, which is but the mimicry of death, appalled and shocked
+her. That she had preserved against a royal and most perilous, because
+unscrupulous suitor, her fidelity to the absent Fonseca, was her sole
+consolation.
+
+Another circumstance had combined with the loss of her protectress and
+the absence of Don Martin to sadden her heart and dispose her to the
+cloister. On the deathbed of the old woman, who had been to her as a
+mother, she had learned a secret hitherto concealed from her tender
+youth. Dark and tragic were the influences of the star which had shone
+upon her birth, gloomy the heritage of memories associated with
+her parentage. A letter, of which she now became the guardian and
+treasurer--a letter, in her mother's hand-woke tears more deep and
+bitter than she had ever shed for herself. In that letter she read the
+strength and the fidelity, the sorrow and the gloom, of woman's love;
+and a dreary foreboding told her that the shadow of the mother's fate
+was cast over the child's. Such were the thoughts that made the cloister
+welcome, till the desolation of the shelter was tried and known. But
+when, through the agency of the porter, Fonseca's letter reached her,
+all other feelings gave way to the burst of natural and passionate
+emotion. The absent had returned, again wooed, was still faithful.
+The awful vow was not spoken--she might yet be his. She answered; she
+chided; she spoke of doubt, of peril, of fear for him, of maiden shame;
+but her affection coloured every word, and the letter was full of hope.
+The correspondence continued; the energetic remonstrances of Fonseca,
+the pure and fervent attachment of the novice, led more and more rapidly
+and surely to the inevitable result. Beatriz yielded to the prayer of
+her lover; she consented to the scheme of escape and flight that he
+proposed.
+
+Late at evening Fonseca sought Calderon. The marquis was in the gardens
+of his splendid mansion.
+
+The moonlight streamed over many a row of orange-trees and
+pomegranates--many a white and richly sculptured vase, on its marble
+pedestal--many a fountain, that scattered its low music round the
+breathless air. Upon a terrace that commanded a stately view of the
+spires and palaces of Madrid stood Calderon, alone; beside him,
+one solitary and gigantic aloe cast its deep gloom of shade and his
+motionless attitude, his folded arms, his face partially lifted to
+the starlit heavens, bespoke the earnestness and concentration of his
+thoughts.
+
+"Why does this shudder come over me?" said, he, half aloud. "It was thus
+in that dismal hour which preceded the knowledge of my shame--the deed
+of a dark revenge--the revolution of my eventful and wondrous life! Ah!
+how happy was I once! a contented and tranquil student; a believer
+in those eyes that were to me as the stars to the astrologer. But the
+golden age passed into that of iron. And now," added Calderon, with a
+self-mocking sneer, "comes the era which the poets have not chronicled;
+for fraud, and hypocrisy, and vice, know no poets!"
+
+The quick step of Fonseca interrupted the courtier's reverie. He turned,
+knit his brow, and sighed heavily, as if nerving himself to some effort;
+but his brow was smooth, and his aspect cheerful, ere Fonseca reached
+his side.
+
+"Give me joy--give me joy, dear Calderon! she has consented. Now, then,
+your promised aid."
+
+"You can depend upon the fidelity of your friendly porter?
+
+"With my life."
+
+"A master key to the back-door of the chapel has been made?"
+
+"See, I have it."
+
+"And Beatriz can contrive to secrete herself in the confessional at the
+hour of the night prayers?"
+
+"There is no doubt of her doing so with safety. The number of the
+novices is so great, that one of them cannot well be missed."
+
+"So much, then, for your part of the enterprise. Now for mine. You know
+that solitary house in the suburbs, on the high road to Fuencarral,
+which I pointed out to you yesterday? Well, the owner is a creature
+of mine. There, horses shall be in waiting; there, disguises shall be
+prepared. Beatriz must necessarily divest herself of the professional
+dress; you had better choose meaner garments for yourself. Drop those
+hidalgo titles of which your father is so proud, and pass off yourself
+and the novice as a notary and his wife, about to visit France on a
+lawsuit of inheritance. One of my secretaries shall provide you with a
+pass. Meanwhile, to-morrow, I shall be the first officially to hear of
+the flight of the novice, and I will set the pursuers on a wrong scent.
+Have I not arranged all things properly, my Fonseca?"
+
+"You are our guardian angel!" cried Don Martin, fervently. "The prayers
+of Beatriz will be registered in your behalf above--prayers that will
+reach the Great Throne as easily from the open valleys of France as in
+the gloomy cloisters of Madrid. At midnight, to-morrow, then, we seek
+the house you have described to us."
+
+"Ay, at midnight, all shall be prepared."
+
+With a light step and exulting heart, Fonseca turned from the palace of
+Calderon. Naturally sanguine and high-spirited, visions of hope and joy
+floated before his eyes, and the future seemed to him a land owning but
+the twin deities of Glory and Love.
+
+He had reached about the centre of the streets in which Calderon's abode
+was placed, when six men, who for some moments had been watching him
+from a little distance, approached.
+
+"I believe," said the one who appeared the chief of the band, "that I
+have the honor to address Senior Don Martin Fonseca?"
+
+"Such is my name."
+
+"In the name of the king we arrest you. Follow us."
+
+"Arrest! on what plea? What is my offence?"
+
+"It is stated on this writ, signed by his Eminence the Cardinal-Duke de
+Lerma. You are charged with the crime of desertion."
+
+"Thou liest, knave! I had the general's free permission to quit the
+camp."
+
+"We have said all--follow!"
+
+Fonseca, naturally of the most impetuous and passionate character, was
+not, in that moment, in a mood to calculate coldly all the consequences
+of resistance. Arrest--imprisonment--on the eve before that which was
+to see him the deliverer of Beatriz, constituted a sentence of such
+despair, that all other considerations vanished before it. He set his
+teeth firmly, drew his sword, dashed aside the alguazil who attempted
+to obstruct his path, and strode grimly on, shaking one clenched hand in
+defiance, while, with the other, he waved the good Toledo that had often
+blazed in the van of battle, at the war-cry of "St. Iago and Spain!"
+
+The alguazils closed round the soldier, and the clash of swords was
+already heard; when suddenly torches borne on high threw their glare
+across the moonlit street, and two running footmen called out, "Make way
+for the most noble the Marquis de Siete Iglesias!" At that name, Fonseca
+dropped the point of his weapon; the alguazils themselves drew aside;
+and the tall figure and pale countenance of Calderon were visible
+amongst the group.
+
+"What means this brawl in the open streets at this late hour?" said the
+minister, sternly.
+
+"Calderon!" exclaimed Fonseca; "this is indeed fortunate. These caitiffs
+have dared to lay hands on a soldier of Spain, and to forge for their
+villany the name of his own kinsman, the Duke de Lerma."
+
+"Your charge against this gentleman?" asked Calderon, calmly, turning to
+the principal alguazil, who placed the writ of arrest in the secretary's
+hand. Calderon read it leisurely, and raised his hat as he returned it
+to the alguazil: he then drew aside Fonseca.
+
+"Are you mad?" said he, in a whisper. "Do you think you can resist the
+law? Had I not arrived so opportunely you would have converted a slight
+accusation into a capital offence. Go with these men: do not fear; I
+will see the duke, and obtain your immediate release. To-morrow I will
+visit and accompany you home."
+
+Fonseca, still half beside himself with rage, would have replied, but
+Calderon significantly placed his finger on his lip and turned to the
+alguazils.
+
+"There is a mistake here: it will be rectified to-morrow. Treat this
+cavalier with all the respect and worship due to his birth and merits.
+Go, Don Martin, go," he added, in a lower voice; "go, unless you desire
+to lose Beatriz for ever. Nothing but obedience can save you from the
+imprisonment of half a life!"
+
+Awed and subdued by this threat, Fonseca, in gloomy silence, placed
+his sword in its sheath, and sullenly followed the alguazils. Calderon
+watched them depart with a thoughtful and absent look; then, starting
+from his reverie, he bade his torchbearers proceed, and resumed his way
+to the Prince of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE OPEN COUNTENANCE, THE CONCEALED THOUGHTS
+
+The next day, at noon, Calderon visited Fonseca in his place of
+confinement. The young man was seated by a window that overlooked a
+large dull court-yard, with a neglected and broken fountain in the
+centre, leaning his cheek upon his hand. His long hair was dishevelled,
+his dress disordered, and a gloomy frown darkened features naturally
+open and ingenuous. He started to his feet as Calderon approached. "My
+release--you have brought my release--let us forth!"
+
+"My dear pupil, be ruled, be calm. I have seen the duke: the cause of
+your imprisonment is as I suspected. Some imprudent words, overheard,
+perhaps, but by your valet, have escaped you; words intimating your
+resolution not to abandon Beatriz. You know your kinsman, a mail
+of doubts and fears,--of forms, ceremonies, and scruples. From very
+affection for his kindred and yourself he has contrived your arrest;
+all my expostulations have been in vain. I fear your imprisonment
+may continue, either until you give a solemn promise to renounce all
+endeavor to dissuade Beatriz from the final vows, or until she herself
+has pronounced them."
+
+Fonseca, as if stupefied, stared a moment at Calderon, and then burst
+into a wild laugh. Calderon continued:
+
+"Nevertheless, do not despair. Be patient; I am ever about the duke;
+nay, I have the courage, in your cause, to appeal even to the king
+himself."
+
+"And to-night she expects me--to-night she was to be free!"
+
+"We can convey the intelligence of your mischance to her: the porter
+will befriend you."
+
+"Away, false friend, or powerless protector, that you are! Are your
+promises of aid come to this? But I care not; my case, my wrongs, shall
+be laid before the king; I will inquire if it be thus that Philip the
+Third treats the defenders of his crown. Don Roderigo Calderon, will you
+place my memorial in the hands of your royal master? Do this, and I will
+thank you."
+
+"No, Fonseca, I will not ruin you; the king would pass your memorial to
+the Duke de Lerma. Tush! this is not the way that men of sense deal with
+misfortune. Think you I should be what I now am, if, in every reverse, I
+had raved, and not reflected? Sit down, and let us think of what can now
+be done."
+
+"Nothing, unless the prison door open by sunset!"
+
+"Stay, a thought strikes me. The term of your imprisonment ceases when
+you relinquish the hope of Beatriz. But what if the duke could believe
+that Beatriz relinquished you? What, for instance, if she fled from the
+convent, as you proposed, and we could persuade the duke that it was
+with another?"
+
+"Ah! be silent!"
+
+"Nay, what advantages in this scheme--what safety! If she fly alone,
+or, as supposed, with another lover, the duke will have no interest in
+pursuit, in punishment. She is not of that birth that the state will
+take the trouble, very actively, to interfere: she may reach France in
+safety; ay, a thousand times more safely than if she fled with you,
+a hidalgo and a man of rank, whom the state would have an interest to
+reclaim, and to whom the Inquisition, hating the nobles, would impute
+the crime of sacrilege. It is an excellent thought! Your imprisonment
+may be the salvation of you both: your plan may succeed still better
+without your intervention; and, after a few days, the duke, believing
+that your resentment must necessarily replace your love, will order your
+release; you can join Beatriz on the frontier, and escape with her to
+France."
+
+"But," said Fonseca, struck, but not convinced, by the suggestion of
+Calderon, "who will take my place with Beatriz? who penetrate into the
+gardens? who bear her from the convent?"
+
+"That, for your sake, will I do. Perhaps," added Calderon, smiling, "a
+courtier may manage such an intrigue with even more dexterity than a
+soldier. I will bear her to the house we spoke of; there I know she can
+lie hid in safety, till the languid pursuit of uninterested officials
+shall cease, and thence I can easily find means to transport her, under
+safe and honourable escort, to any place it may please you to appoint."
+
+"And think you Beatriz will fly with you, a stranger? Impossible! Your
+plan pleases me not."
+
+"Nor does it please me," said Calderon, coldly; "the risks I proposed
+to run are too imminent to be contemplated complacently: I thank you for
+releasing me from my offer; nor should I have made it, Fonseca, but
+from this fear, what if to-morrow the duke himself (he is a churchman,
+remember) see the novice? what if he terrify her with threats against
+yourself? what if he induce the abbess and the Church to abridge the
+novitiate? what if Beatriz be compelled or awed into taking the veil?
+what if you be released even next week and find her lost to you for
+ever?"
+
+"They cannot--they dare not!"
+
+"The duke dares all things for ambition; your alliance with Beatriz he
+would hold a disgrace to his house. Think not my warnings are without
+foundation--I speak from authority; such is the course the Duke de Lerma
+has resolved upon. Nothing else could have induced me to offer to
+brave for your sake all the hazard of outraging the law and braving the
+terrors of the Inquisition. But let us think of some other plan. Is
+your escape possible? I fear not. No; you must trust to my chance of
+persuading the duke into prosecuting the matter no further; trust
+to some mightier scheme engrossing all his thoughts; to a fit of
+good-humour after his siesta; or, perhaps, an attack of the gout, or a
+stroke of apoplexy. Such, after all, are the chances of human felicity,
+the pivots on which turns the solemn wheel of human life."
+
+Fonseca made no reply for some moments; he traversed the room with hasty
+and disordered strides, and at last stopped abruptly.
+
+"Calderon, there is no option; I must throw myself on your generosity,
+your faith, your friendship. I will write to Beatriz; I will tell her,
+for my sake, to confide in you."
+
+As he spoke, Don Martin turned to the table, and wrote a hasty and
+impassioned note, in which he implored the novice to trust herself to
+the directions of Don Roderigo Calderon, his best, his only friend; and,
+as he placed this letter in the hands of the courtier he turned aside to
+conceal his emotions. Calderon himself was deeply moved: his cheek was
+flushed, and his hand seemed tremulous as it took the letter.
+
+"Remember," said Fonseca, "that I trust to you my life of life. As you
+are true to me, may Heaven be merciful to you!"
+
+Calderon made no answer, but turned to the door. "Stay," said Fonseca;
+"I had forgot this--here is the master key."
+
+"True; how dull I was! And the porter--will he attend to thy proxy?"
+
+"Doubt it not. Accost him with the word, 'Grenada.' But he expects to
+share the flight."
+
+"That can be arranged. To-morrow you will hear of my success. Farewell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE ESCAPE
+
+It was midnight in the chapel of the convent.
+
+The moonlight shone with exceeding lustre through the tall casements,
+and lit into a ghastly semblance of life the marble images of saint
+and martyr, that threw their long shadows over the consecrated floor.
+Nothing could well be conceived more dreary, solemn, and sepulchral than
+that holy place: its distained and time-hallowed walls; the impenetrable
+mass of darkness that gathered into those recesses which the moonlight
+failed to reach; its antique and massive tombs, above which reclined
+the sculptured effigies of some departed patroness or abbess, who had
+exchanged a living grave for the Mansions of the Blest. But there--oh,
+wonderful human heart!--even there, in that spot, the very homily and
+warning against earthly affections and mortal hopes--even there, couldst
+thou beat with as wild, as bright, and as pure a passion as ever heaved
+the breast and shone in the eyes of Beauty, in the free air that ripples
+the Guadiana, or amidst the twilight dance of Castilian maids.
+
+A tall figure, wrapped from head to foot in a cloak, passed slowly up
+the aisle. But light and cautious though the footstep, it woke a low,
+hollow, ominous echo, that seemed more than the step itself to disturb
+the sanctity of the place. It paused opposite to a confessional, which
+was but dimly visible through the shadows around it. And then there
+emerged timidly a female form; and a soft voice whispered "It is thou,
+Fonseca!"
+
+"Hist!" was the answer; "he waits without. Be quick; speak not--come."
+
+Beatriz recoiled in surprise and alarm at the voice of a stranger; but
+the man, seizing her by the hand, drew her hastily from the chapel, and
+hurried her across the garden, through a small postern door, which stood
+ajar, into an obscure street bordering the convent wall. Here stood the
+expectant porter, with a bundle in his hand, which he opened, and took
+thence a long cloak, such as the women of middling rank in Madrid wore
+in the winter season, with the customary mantilla or veil. With these,
+still without speaking, the stranger hastily shrouded the form of the
+novice, and once more hurried her on till about a hundred yards from
+the garden gate he came to a carriage, into which he lifted Beatriz,
+whispered a few words to the porter, seated himself by the side of the
+novice, and the vehicle drove rapidly away.
+
+It was some moments before Beatriz could sufficiently recover from her
+first agitation and terror, to feel alive to all the strangeness of her
+situation. She was alone with a stranger; where was Fonseca? She turned
+towards her companion.
+
+"Who art thou?" she said, "whither art thou leading me-and why--"
+
+"Why is not Don Martin by thy side? Pardon me, senora: I have a billet
+for thee from Fonseca; in a few minutes thou wilt know all."
+
+At this time the vehicle came suddenly in the midst of a train of
+footmen and equipages that choked up the way. There was a brilliant
+entertainment at the French embassy; and thither flocked, all the
+rank and chivalry of Madrid. Calderon drew down the blind and hastily
+enjoined silence on Beatriz. It was some minutes before the driver
+extricated himself from the throng; and then, as if to make amends for
+the delay, he put his horses to their full speed, and carefully selected
+the most obscure and solitary thoroughfares. At length, the carriage
+entered the range of suburbs which still at this day the traveller
+passes on his road from Madrid to France. The horses stopped before a
+lonely house that stood a little apart from the road, and which from
+the fashion of its architecture appeared of considerable antiquity. The
+stranger descended and knocked twice at the door: it was opened by
+an old man, whose exaggerated features, bended frame, and long beard,
+proclaimed him of the race of Israel. After a short and whispered
+parley, the stranger returned to Beatriz, gravely assisted her from the
+carriage, and, leading her across the threshold, and up a flight of rude
+stairs, dimly lighted, entered a chamber richly furnished. The walls
+were hung with stuffs of gorgeous colouring and elaborate design.
+Pedestals of the whitest marble placed at each corner of the room
+supported candelabra of silver. The sofas and couches were of the heavy
+but sumptuous fashion which then prevailed in the palaces of France and
+Spain; and of which Venice (the true model of the barbaric decorations
+with which Louis the Fourteenth corrupted the taste of Paris) was
+probably the original inventor. In an alcove, beneath a silken canopy,
+was prepared a table, laden with wines, fruits, and viands; and
+altogether the elegance and luxury that characterised the apartment
+were in strong and strange contrast with the half-ruined exterior of
+the abode, the gloomy and rude approach to the chamber, and the mean and
+servile aspect of the Jew, who stood, or rather cowered by the door,
+as if waiting for further orders. With a wave of the hand the stranger
+dismissed the Israelite; and then, approaching Beatriz, presented to her
+Fonseca's letter.
+
+As with an enchanting mixture of modesty and eagerness Beatriz, half
+averting her face, bent over the well-known characters, Calderon gazed
+upon her with a scrutinising and curious eye.
+
+The courtier was not, in this instance, altogether the villain that from
+outward appearances the reader may have deemed him. His plan was this:
+he had resolved on compliance with the wishes of the prince--his safety
+rested on that compliance. But Fonseca was not to be sacrificed without
+reserve. Profoundly despising womankind, and firmly persuaded of their
+constitutional treachery and deceit, Calderon could not believe the
+actress that angel of light and purity which she seemed to the enamoured
+Fonseca. He had resolved to subject her to the ordeal of the prince's
+addresses. If she fell, should he not save his friend from being the
+dupe of an artful _intriguante_?--should he not deserve the thanks
+of Don Martin for the very temptation to which Beatriz was now to be
+submitted? If he could convince Fonseca of her falsehood, he should
+stand acquitted to his friend, while he should have secured his interest
+with the prince. But if, on the other hand, Beatriz came spotless
+through the trial; if the prince, stung by her obstinate virtue, should
+menace to sink courtship into violence, Calderon knew that it would not
+be in the first or second interview that the novice would have any real
+danger to apprehend; and he should have leisure to concert her escape
+by such means as would completely conceal from the prince his own
+connivance at her flight. Such was the compromise that Calderon had
+effected between his conscience and his ambition. But while he gazed
+upon the novice, though her features were turned from him, and half
+veiled by the headdress she had assumed, strange feelings, ominous and
+startling, like those remembrances of the Past which sometimes come in
+the guise of prophecies of the Future, thronged, indistinct and dim,
+upon his breast. The unconscious and exquisite grace of her form, its
+touching youth, an air of innocence diffused around it, a something
+helpless, and pleading to man's protection, in the very slightness
+of her beautiful but fairy-like proportions, seemed to reproach his
+treachery, and to awaken whatever of pity or human softness remained in
+his heart.
+
+The novice had read the letter; and turning, in the impulse of surprise
+and alarm, to Calderon for explanation, for the first time she remarked
+his features and his aspect; for he had then laid aside his cloak, and
+the broad Spanish hat with its heavy plume. It was thus that their eyes
+met, and, as they did so, Beatriz, starting from her seat, uttered a
+wild cry--
+
+"And thy name is Calderon--Don Roderigo Calderon?--is it possible?
+Hadst thou never another name?" she exclaimed; and, as she spoke, she
+approached him slowly and fearfully.
+
+"Lady, Calderon is my name," replied the marquis: but his voice
+faltered. "But thine--thine--is it, in truth, Beatriz Coello?"
+
+Beatriz made no reply, but continued to advance, till her very breath
+came upon his cheek; she then laid her hand upon his arm, and looked
+up into his face with a gaze so earnest, so intent, so prolonged, that
+Calderon, but for a strange and terrible thought--half of wonder, half
+of suspicion, which had gradually crept into his soul, and now usurped
+it--might have doubted whether the reason of the poor novice was not
+unsettled.
+
+Slowly Beatriz withdrew her eyes, and they fell upon a large mirror
+opposite, which reflected in full light the features of Calderon and
+herself. It was then--her natural bloom having faded into a paleness
+scarcely less statue-like than that which characterised the cheek of
+Calderon himself, and all the sweet play and mobility of feature that
+belong to first youth being replaced by a rigid and marble stillness of
+expression--it was then that a remarkable resemblance between these two
+persons became visible and startling. That resemblance struck alike, and
+in the same instant, both Beatriz and Calderon; and both, gazing on the
+mirror, uttered an involuntary and simultaneous exclamation.
+
+With a trembling and hasty hand the novice searched amidst the folds of
+her robe, and drew forth a small leathern case, closed with clasps of
+silver. She touched the spring, and took out a miniature, upon which she
+cast a rapid and wild glance; then, lifting her eyes to Calderon, she
+cried, "It must be so--it is, it is my father!" and fell motionless at
+his feet.
+
+Calderon did not for some moments heed the condition of the novice: that
+chamber, the meditated victim, the present time, the coming evil--all
+were swept away from his soul; he was transported back into the past,
+with the two dread Spirits, Memory and Conscience! His knees knocked
+together, his aspect was livid, the cold drops stood upon his brow; he
+muttered incoherently and then bent down, and took up the picture. It
+was the face of a man in the plain garb of a Salamanca student, and in
+the first flush of youth; the noble brow, serene and calm, and stamped
+alike with candour and courage; the smooth cheek, rich with the hues
+of health; the lips, parting in a happy smile, and eloquent of joy and
+hope; it was the face of that wily, grasping, ambitious, unscrupulous
+man, when life had yet brought no sin; it was, as if the ghost of youth
+were come back to accuse the crimes of manhood! The miniature fell from
+his hand--he groaned aloud. Then gazing on the prostrate form of the
+novice, he said--"Poor wretch! can I believe that thou art indeed of
+mine own race and blood; or rather, does not nature, that stamped these
+lineaments on thy countenance, deceive and mock me? If she, thy mother,
+lied, why not nature herself?"
+
+He raised the novice in his arms, and gazed long and wistfully upon her
+lifeless, but almost lovely features. She moved not--she scarcely seemed
+to breathe; yet he fancied he felt her embrace tightening round him--he
+fancied he heard again the voice that had hailed him "FATHER!" His heart
+beat aloud, the divine instinct overpowered all things, he pressed a
+passionate kiss upon her forehead, and his tears fell fast and warm upon
+her cheek. But again the dark remembrance crossed him, and he shuddered,
+placed the novice hastily on one of the couches, and shouted aloud.
+
+The Jew appeared and was ordered to summon Jacinta. A young woman of the
+same persuasion, and of harsh and forbidding exterior, entered, and to
+her care Calderon briefly consigned the yet insensible Beatriz.
+
+While Jacinta unlaced the dress, and chafed the temples, of the novice,
+Calderon seemed buried in gloomy thought. At last he strode slowly away,
+as if to quit the chamber, when his foot struck against the case of the
+picture, and his eye rested upon a paper which lay therein, folded and
+embedded. He took it up, and, lifting aside the hangings, hurried into a
+small cabinet lighted by a single lamp. Here, alone and unseen, Calderon
+read the following letter:
+
+
+"TO RODERIGO NUNEZ.
+
+"Will this letter ever meet thine eyes? I know not; but it is comfort to
+write to thee on the bed of death; and were it not for that horrible and
+haunting thought that thou believest me--me whose very life was in thy
+love--faithless and dishonoured, even death itself would be the sweeter
+because it comes from the loss of thee. Yes, something tells me that
+these lines will not be written in vain; that thou wilt read them yet,
+when this hand is still and this brain at rest, and that then thou
+wilt feel that I could not have dared to write to thee if I were not
+innocent; that in every word thou wilt recognise the evidence that is
+strong as the voice of thousands,--the simple but solemn evidence
+of faith and truth. What! when for thee I deserted all--home, and a
+father's love, wealth, and the name I had inherited from Moors who had
+been monarchs in their day--couldst thou think that I had not made the
+love of thee the core, and life, and principle of my very being! And one
+short year, could that suffice to shake my faith?--one year of marriage,
+but two months of absence? You left me, left that dear home, by the
+silver Xenil. For love did not suffice to you; ambition began to stir
+within you, and you called it 'love.' You said, 'It grieved you that I
+was poor; that you could not restore to me the luxury and wealth I had
+lost.' (Alas! why did you turn so incredulously from my assurance, that
+in you, and you alone, were centred my ambition and pride?) You declared
+that the vain readers of the stars had foretold at your cradle that
+you were predestined to lofty honours and dazzling power, and that
+the prophecy would work out its own fulfilment. You left me to seek in
+Madrid your relation who had risen into the favour of a minister, and
+from whose love you expected to gain an opening to your career. Do
+you remember how we parted? how you kissed away my tears, and how they
+gushed forth again? how again and again you said, 'Farewell!' and again
+and again returned as if we could never part? And I took my babe, but
+a few weeks born, from her cradle, and placed her in thy arms, and bade
+thee see that she had already learned thy smile; and were these the
+signs of falsehood? Oh, how I pined for the sound of thy footstep when
+thou wert gone! how all the summer had vanished from the landscape; and
+how, turning to thy child, I fancied I again beheld thee! The day after
+thou hadst left me there was a knock at the cottage; the nurse opened
+it, and there entered your former rival, whom my father had sought
+to force upon me, the richest of the descendants of the Moor, Arraez
+Ferrares. Why linger on this hateful subject? He had tracked us to our
+home, he had learned thy absence, he came to insult me with his vows. By
+the Blessed Mother, whom thou hast taught me to adore, by the terror
+and pang of death, by my hopes of Heaven, I am innocent, Roderigo, I am
+innocent! Oh, how couldst thou be so deceived? He quitted the cottage,
+discomfited and enraged; again he sought me, and again and again;
+and when the door was closed upon him, he waylaid my steps. Lone and
+defenceless as we were, thy wife and child, with but one attendant I
+feared him not; but I trembled at thy return, for I knew that thou went
+a Spaniard, a Castilian, and that beneath thy calm and gentle seeming
+lurked pride, and jealousy, and revenge. Thy letter came, the only
+letter since thy absence, the last letter from thee I may ever weep
+over, and lay upon my heart. Thy relation was dead, and his wealth
+enriched a nearer heir. Thou wert to return. The day in which I might
+expect thee approached--it arrived. During the last week I had seen and
+heard no more of Ferrares. I trusted that he had at length discovered
+the vanity of his pursuit. I walked into the valley, thy child in my
+arms, to meet thee; but thou didst not come. The sun set, and the light
+of thine eyes replaced not the declining day. I returned home, and
+watched for thee all night, but in vain. The next morning again I went
+forth into the valley, and again, with a sick heart, returned to my
+desolate home. It was then noon. As I approached the door I perceived
+Ferrares. He forced his entrance. I told him of thy expected return, and
+threatened him with thy resentment. He left me; and, terrified with a
+thousand vague forebodings, I sat down to weep. The nurse, Leonarda, was
+watching by the cradle of our child in the inner room.
+
+"I was alone. Suddenly the door opened. I heard thy step; I knew it; I
+knew its music. I started up. Saints of Heaven! what a meeting--what a
+return! Pale, haggard, thine hands and garments dripping blood, thine
+eyes blazing with insane fire, a terrible smile of mockery on thy lip,
+thou stoodst before me. I would have thrown myself on thy breast; thou
+didst cast me from thee; I fell on my knees, and thy blade was pointed
+at my heart--the heart so full of thee! 'He is dead,' didst thou say, in
+a hollow voice; 'he is dead--thy paramour--take thy bed beside him!' I
+know not what I said, but it seemed to move thee; thy hand trembled, and
+the point of thy weapon dropped. It was then that, hearing thy voice,
+Leonarda hastened into the room, and bore in her arms thy child.
+'See,' I exclaimed, 'see thy daughter; see, she stretches her hands to
+thee--she pleads for her mother!' At that sight thy brow became dark,
+the demon seized upon thee again. 'Mine!' were thy cruel words--they
+ring in my ear still--'no! she was born before the time--ha! ha!--thou
+didst betray me from the first!' With that thou didst raise thy sword;
+but, even then (ah, blessed thought! even then) remorse and love palsied
+thy hand, and averted thy gaze: the blow was not that of death. I fell
+senseless to the ground, and when I recovered thou wert gone. Delirium
+succeeded; and when once more my senses and reason returned to me, I
+found by my side a holy priest, and from him, gradually, I learned
+all that till then was dare. Ferrares had been found in the valley,
+weltering in his blood. Borne to a neighbouring monastery, he lingered
+a few days, to confess the treachery he had practised on thee; to adopt,
+in his last hours, the Christian faith; and to attest his crime with
+his own signature. He enjoined the monk, who had converted and confessed
+him, to place this proof of my innocence in my hands. Behold it enclosed
+within. If this letter ever reach thee, thou wilt learn how thy wife
+was true to thee in life, and has therefore the right to bless thee in
+death."
+
+
+At this passage, Calderon dropped the letter, and was seized with a
+kind of paralysis, which for some moments seemed to deprive him of life
+itself. When he recovered he eagerly grasped a scroll that was enclosed
+in the letter, but which, hitherto, he had disregarded. Even then, so
+strong were his emotions, that sight itself was obscured and dimmed,
+and it was long before he could read the characters, which were already
+discoloured by time.
+
+
+
+"TO INEZ.
+
+"I have but a few hours to live,--let me spend them in atonement and in
+prayer, less for myself than thee. Thou knowest not how madly I adored
+thee; and how thy hatred or indifference stung every passion into
+torture. Let this pass. When I saw thee again--the forsaker of thy
+faith--poor, obscure, and doomed to a peasant's lot--daring hopes shaped
+themselves into fierce resolves. Finding that thou wert inexorable, I
+turned my arts upon thy husband. I knew his poverty and his ambition: we
+Moors have had ample knowledge of the avarice of the Christians'. I
+bade one whom I could trust to seek him out at Madrid. Wealth--lavish
+wealth--wealth that could open to a Spaniard all the gates of power was
+offered to him if he would renounce thee forever. Nay, in order to crush
+out all love from his breast, it was told him that mine was the prior
+right--that thou hadst yielded to my suit ere thou didst fly with
+him--that thou didst use his love as an escape from thine own
+dishonour--that thy very child owned another father. I had learned, and
+I availed myself of the knowledge, that it was born before its time.
+We had miscalculated the effect of this representation, backed and
+supported by forged letters: instead of abandoning thee, he thought only
+of revenge for his shame. As I left thy house, the last time I gazed
+upon thine indignant eyes, I found the avenger, on my path! He had seen
+me quit thy roof--he needed no other confirmation of the tale. I fell
+into the pit which I had digged for thee. Conscience unnerved my hand
+and blunted my sword: our blades scarcely crossed before his weapon
+stretched me on the ground. They tell me he has fled from the anger of
+the law; let him return without a fear Solemnly, and from the bed of
+death, and in the sight of the last tribunal, I proclaim to justice and
+the world that we fought fairly, and I perish justly. I have adopted thy
+faith, though I cannot comprehend its mysteries. It is enough that it
+holds out to me the only hope that we shall meet again. I direct these
+lines to be transmitted to thee--an eternal proof of thy innocence and
+my guilt. Ah, canst thou forgive me? I knew no sin till I knew thee.
+
+                     "ARRAEZ FERRARES."
+
+
+Calderon paused ere he turned to the concluding lines of his wife's
+letter; and, though he remained motionless and speechless, never were
+agony and despair stamped more terribly on the face of man.
+
+
+                CONCLUSION OF THE LETTER OF INEZ.
+
+"And what avails to me this testimony of my faith? thou art fled; they
+cannot track thy footsteps; I shall see thee no more on earth. I am
+dying fast, but not of the wound I took from thee; let not that thought
+darken thy soul, my husband! No, that wound is healed. Thought is
+sharper than the sword. I have pilled away for the loss of thee and thy
+love! Can the shadow live without the sun? And wilt thou never place thy
+hands on my daughter's head, and bless her for her mother's sake? Ah,
+yes--yes! The saints that watch over our human destinies will one day
+cast her in thy way: and the same hour that gives thee a daughter shall
+redeem and hallow the memory of a wife.... Leonarda has vowed to be
+a mother to our child; to tend her, work for her, rear her, though in
+poverty, to virtue. I consign these letters to Leonarda's charge, with
+thy picture--never to be removed from my breast till the heart within
+has ceased to beat. Not till Beatriz (I have so baptised her--it was thy
+mother's name!) has attained to the age when reason can wrestle with the
+knowledge of sorrow, shall her years be shadowed with the knowledge of
+our fate. Leonarda has persuaded me that Beatriz shall not take thy name
+of Nunez. Our tale has excited horror--for it is not understood--and
+thou art called the murderer of thy wife; and the story of our
+misfortunes would cling to our daughter's life, and reach her ears, and
+perhaps mar her fate. But I know that thou wilt discover her not the
+less, for Nature has a Providence of its own. When at last you meet her,
+protect, guard, love her--sacred to you as she is, and shall be--the
+pure but mournful legacy of love and death. I have done: I die blessing
+thee!"                 "INEZ."
+
+Scarce had he finished those last words, ere the clock struck: it
+was the hour in which the prince was to arrive. The thought restored
+Calderon to the sense of the present time--the approaching peril. All
+the cold calculations he had formed for the stranger-novice vanished
+now. He kissed the letter passionately, placed it in his breast, and
+hurried into the chamber where he had left his child. Our tale returns
+to Fonseca.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE COUNTERPLOT.
+
+Calderon had not long left the young soldier before the governor of the
+prison entered to pay his respects to a captive of such high birth and
+military reputation.
+
+Fonseca, always blunt and impatient of mood, was not in a humour to
+receive and return compliments; but the governor had scarcely seated
+himself ere he struck a chord in the conversation which immediately
+arrested the attention and engaged the interest of the prisoner.
+
+"Do not fear, sir," said he, "that you will be long detained; the power
+of your enemy is great, but it will not be of duration. The storm is
+already gathering round him; he must be more than man if he escapes the
+thunderbolt."
+
+"Do you speak to me thus of my kinsman, the Cardinal-Duke de Lerma?"
+
+"No, Don Martin, pardon me. I spoke of the Marquis de Siete Iglesias.
+Are you so great a stranger to Madrid and to the court as to suppose
+that the Cardinal de Lerma ever signs a paper but at the instance of Don
+Roderigo? Nay, that he ever looks over the paper to which he sets his
+hand? Depend upon it, you are here to gratify the avarice or revenge of
+the Scourge of Spain."
+
+"Impossible!" cried Fonseca. "Don Roderigo is my friend--my intercessor.
+He overwhelms me with his kindness."
+
+"Then you are indeed lost," said the governor, in accents of compassion;
+"the tiger always caresses his prey before he devours it. What have you
+done to provoke his kindness?"
+
+"Senor," said Fonseca, suspiciously, "you speak with a strange want of
+caution to a stranger, and against a man whose power you confess."
+
+"Because I am safe from his revenge; because the Inquisition have
+already fixed their fatal eyes upon him; because by that Inquisition I
+am not unknown nor unprotected; because I see with joy and triumph
+the hour approaching that must render up to justice the pander of the
+prince, the betrayer of the king, the robber of the people; because I
+have an interest in thee, Don Martin, of which thou wilt be aware when
+thou hast learned my name. I am Juan de la Nuza, the father of the
+young officer whose life you saved in the assault of the Moriscos, in
+Valentia, and I owe you an everlasting gratitude."
+
+There was something in the frank and hearty tone of the governor which
+at once won Fonseca's confidence. He became agitated and distracted with
+suspicions of his former tutor and present patron.
+
+"What, I ask, hast thou done to attract his notice? Calderon is not
+capricious in cruelty. Art thou rich, and does he hope that thou wilt
+purchase freedom with five thousand pistoles? No! Hast thou crossed the
+path of his ambition? Hast thou been seen with Uzeda? or art thou
+in favour with the prince? No, again! Then hast thou some wife, some
+sister, some mistress, of rare accomplishments and beauty, with whom
+Calderon would gorge the fancy and retain the esteem of the profligate
+Infant? Ah, thou changest colour."
+
+"By Heaven! you madden me with these devilish surmises. Speak plainly."
+
+"I see thou knowest not Calderon," said the governor, with a bitter
+smile. "I do--for my niece was beautiful, and the prince wooed her--.
+But enough of that: at his scaffold, or at the rack, I shall be avenged
+on Roderigo Calderon. You said the Cardinal was your kinsman; you are,
+then, equally related to his son, the Duke d'Uzeda. Apply not to Lerma;
+he is the tool of Calderon. Apply yourself to Uzeda; he is Calderon's
+mortal foe. While Calderon gains ground with the prince, Uzeda advances
+with the king. Uzeda by a word can procure thy release. The duke knows
+and trusts me. Shall I be commissioned to acquaint him with thy arrest,
+and entreat his intercession with Philip?"
+
+"You give me new life! But not an hour is to be lost; this night--this
+day-oh, Mother of Mercy! what image have you conjured up! fly to Uzeda,
+if you would save my very reason. I myself have scarcely seen him
+since my boyhood--Lerma forbade me seek his friendship. But I am of his
+race--his blood."
+
+"Be cheered, I shall see the duke to-day. I have business with him where
+you wot not. We are bringing strange events to a crisis. Hope the best."
+With this the governor took his leave.
+
+At the dusk of the evening, Don Juan de la Nuza, wrapped in a dark
+mantle, stood before a small door deep-set in a massive and gloomy wall,
+that stretched along one side of a shunned and deserted street. Without
+sign of living hand, the door opened at his knock, and the governor
+entered a long and narrow passage that conducted to chambers more
+associated with images of awe than any in his own prison. Here he
+suddenly encountered the Jesuit, Fray Louis de Aliaga, confessor to the
+king.
+
+"How fares the Grand Inquisitor?" asked De la Nuza. "He has just
+breathed his last," answered the Jesuit. "His illness--so sudden--defied
+all aid. Sandoval y Roxas is with the saints."
+
+The governor, who was, as the reader may suppose, one of the sacred
+body, crossed himself, and answered.--"With whom will rest the
+appointment of the successor? Who will be first to gain the ear of the
+king?"
+
+"I know not," replied the Jesuit; "but I am at this instant summoned to
+Uzeda. Pardon my haste."
+
+So saying, Aliaga glided away.
+
+"With Sandoval y Roxas," muttered Don Juan, "dies the last protector of
+Calderon and Lerma: unless, indeed, the wily marquis can persuade the
+king to make Aliaga, his friend, the late cardinal's successor. But
+Aliaga seeks Uzeda--Uzeda his foe and rival. What can this portend?"
+
+Thus soliloquising, the governor silently continued his way till he came
+to a door by which stood two men, masked, who saluted him with a mute
+inclination of the head. The door opened and again closed, as the
+governor entered. Meanwhile, the confessor had gained the palace of
+the Duke d' Uzeda. Uzeda was not alone: with him was a man whose sallow
+complexion, ill-favoured features, and simple dress strangely contrasted
+the showy person and sumptuous habiliments of the duke. But the instant
+this personage opened his lips, the comparison was no longer to his
+prejudice. Something in the sparkle of his deep-set eye-in the singular
+enchantment of his smile--and above all, in the tone of a very musical
+and earnest voice, chained attention at once to his words. And, whatever
+those words, there was about the man, and his mode of thought and
+expression, the stamp of a mind at once crafty and commanding. This
+personage was Gaspar de Guzman, then but a gentleman of the Prince's
+chamber (which post he owed to Calderon, whose creature he was supposed
+to be), afterwards so celebrated in the history of Philip IV., as Count
+of Olivares and prime minister of Spain.
+
+The conversation between Guzman and Uzeda, just before the Jesuit
+entered, was drawing to a close.
+
+"You see," said Uzeda, "that if we desire to crush Calderon, it is on
+the Inquisition that we must depend. Now is the time to elect, in the
+successor of Sandoval y Roxas, one pledged to the favourite's ruin.
+The reason I choose Aliaga is this,--Calderon will never suspect his
+friendship, and will not, therefore, thwart us with the king. The
+Jesuit, who would sell all Christendom for the sake of advancement to
+his order or himself will gladly sell Calderon to obtain the chair of
+the Inquisition."
+
+"I believe it," replied Guzman. "I approve your choice; and you may rely
+on me to destroy Calderon with the prince. I have found out the way
+to rule Philip; it is by never giving him a right to despise his
+favourites--it is to flatter his vanity, but not to share his vices.
+Trust me, you alone--if you follow my suggestions--can be minister to
+the Fourth Philip."
+
+Here a page entered to announce Don Fray Louis de Aliaga. Uzeda advanced
+to the door, and received the holy man with profound respect.
+
+"Be seated, father, and let me at once to business; for time presses,
+and all must be despatched to-night. Before interest is made by
+others with the king, we must be prompt in gaining the appointment of
+Sandoval's successor."
+
+"Report says that the cardinal-duke, your father, himself desires the
+vacant chair of the Inquisition."
+
+"My poor father, he is old--his sun has set. No, Aliaga; I have thought
+of one fitter for that high and stern office in a word, that appointment
+rests with yourself. I can make you Grand Inquisitor of Spain--!"
+
+"Me!" said the Jesuit, and he turned aside his face. "You jest with me,
+noble son."
+
+"I am serious--hear me. We have been foes and rivals; why should not
+our path be the same? Calderon has deprived you of friends more powerful
+than himself. His hour is come. The Duke de Lerma's downfall cannot
+be avoided; if it could, I, his son, would not as, you may suppose,
+withhold my hand. But business fatigues him--he is old--the affairs of
+Spain are in a deplorable condition--they need younger and abler hands.
+My father will not repine at a retirement suited to his years, and which
+shall be made honourable to his gray hairs. But some victim must glut
+the rage of the people; that victim must be the upstart Calderon; the
+means of his punishment, the Inquisition. Now, you understand me. On one
+condition, you shall be the successor to Sandoval. Know that I do not
+promise without the power to fulfill. The instant I learned that the
+late cardinal's death was certain, I repaired to the king. I have the
+promise of the appointment; and this night your name shall, if you
+accept the condition, and Calderon does not, in the interim, see the
+king and prevent the nomination, receive the royal sanction."
+
+"Our excellent Aliaga cannot hesitate," said Don Gaspar de Guzman. "The
+order of Loyola rests upon shoulders that can well support the load."
+
+Before that trio separated, the compact was completed. Aliaga practised
+against his friend the lesson he had preached to him--that the end
+sanctifies all means. Scarce had Aliaga departed ere Juan de la Nuza
+entered; for Uzeda, who sought to make the Inquisition his chief
+instrument of power, courted the friendship of all its officers. He
+readily promised to obtain the release of Fonseca; and, in effect, it
+was but little after midnight when an order arrived at the prison for
+the release of Don Martin de Fonseca, accompanied by a note from the
+duke to the prisoner, full of affectionate professions, and requesting
+to see him the next morning.
+
+Late as the hour was, and in spite of the expostulations of the
+governor, who wished him to remain the night within the prison, in the
+hope to extract from him his secret, Fonseca no sooner received the
+order than he claimed and obtained his liberation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.
+
+With emotions of joy and triumph, such as had never yet agitated his
+reckless and abandoned youth, the Infant of Spain bent his way towards
+the lonely house on the road to Fuencarral. He descended from his
+carriage when about a hundred yards from the abode, and proceeded on
+foot to the appointed place.
+
+The Jew opened the door to the prince with a hideous grin on his hollow
+cheek; and Philip hastened up the stairs, and entering the chamber we
+have before described, beheld, to his inconceivable consternation and
+dismay, the form of Beatriz clasped in the arms of Calderon, her head
+leaning on his bosom; while his voice half choked with passionate sobs
+called upon her in the most endearing terms.
+
+For a moment the prince stood, spell-bound and speechless, at the
+threshold; then, striking the hilt of his sword fiercely, he exclaimed,
+"Traitor! is it thus that thou hast kept thy promise? Dost thou not
+tremble at my vengeance?"
+
+"Peace! peace!" said Calderon, in an imperious, but sepulchral tone, and
+waving one hand with a gesture of impatience and rebuke, while with the
+other he removed the long clustering hair that fell over the pale face
+of the still insensible novice. "Peace, prince of Spain; thy voice
+scares back the struggling life--peace! Look up, image and relic of the
+lost--the murdered--the martyr! Hush! do you hear her breathe, or is
+she with her mother in that heaven which is closed on me? Live! live! my
+daughter--my child--live! For thy life in the World Hereafter will _not_
+be mine!"
+
+"What means this?" said the prince, falteringly. "What delusion do thy
+wiles practise upon me?"
+
+Calderon made no answer; and at that instant Beatriz sighed heavily, and
+her eyes opened.
+
+"My child! my child!--thou art my child! Speak--let me hear thy
+voice--again let it call me 'father!'"
+
+And Calderon dropped on his knees, and, clasping his hands fervently,
+looked up imploringly in her face. The novice, now slowly returning to
+life and consciousness, strove to speak: her voice failed her, but her
+lips smiled arms fell feebly but endearingly upon Calderon, and her
+round his neck.
+
+"Bless thee! bless thee!" exclaimed Calderon. "Bless thee in thy sweet
+mother's name!"
+
+While he spoke, the eyes of Beatriz caught the form of Philip, who stood
+by, leaning on his sword; his face working with various passions, and
+his lip curling with stern and intense disdain. Accustomed to know human
+life but in its worst shapes, and Calderon only by his vices and his
+arts, the voice of nature uttered no language intelligible to the
+prince. He regarded the whole as some well got-up device--some trick of
+the stage; and waited, with impatience and scorn, the denouement of the
+imposture.
+
+At the sight of that mocking face, Beatriz shuddered, and fell back; but
+her very alarm revived her, and, starting to her feet, she exclaimed,
+"Save me from that bad man--save me! My father, I am safe with thee!"
+
+"Safe!" echoed Calderon;--"ay, safe against the world. But not," he
+added, looking round, and in a low and muttered tone, "not in this
+foul abode; its very air pollutes thee. Let us hence: come--come--my
+daughter!" and winding his arm round her waist, he hurried her towards
+the door.
+
+"Back, traitor!" cried Philip, placing himself full in the path of the
+distracted and half delirious father, "Back! thinkest thou that I, thy
+master and thy prince, am to be thus duped and thus insulted? Not for
+thine own pleasures hast thou snatched her whom I have honoured with
+my love from the sanctuary of the Church. Go, if thou wilt; but Beatriz
+remains. This roof is sacred to my will. Back! or thy next step is on
+the point of my sword."
+
+"Menace not, speak not, Philip--I am desperate. I am beside myself--I
+cannot parley with thee. Away! by thy hopes of Heaven away! I am no
+longer thy minion--thy tool. I am a father, and the protector of my
+child."
+
+"Brave device--notable tale!" cried Philip, scornfully, and placing his
+back against the door. "The little actress plays her part well, it must
+be owned,--it is her trade; but thou art a bungler, my gentle Calderon."
+
+For a moment the courtier stood, not irresolute, but overcome with
+the passions that shook to their centre a nature, the stormy and stern
+elements of which the habit of years had rather mastered than quelled.
+At last, with a fierce cry, he suddenly grasped the prince by the collar
+of his vest; and, ere Philip could avail himself of his weapon, swung
+him aside with such violence that he lost his balance and (his foot
+slipping on the polished floor) fell to the ground. Calderon then opened
+the door, lifted Beatriz in both his arms, and fled precipitately down
+the stairs. He could no longer trust to chance and delay against the
+dangers of that abode.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. HOWSOEVER THE RIVERS WIND, THE OCEAN RECEIVES THEM ALL.
+
+Meanwhile Fonseca had reached the convent; had found the porter gone;
+and, with a mind convulsed with apprehension and doubt, had flown on the
+wings of love and fear to the house indicated by Calderon. The grim and
+solitary mansion came just in sight--the moon streaming sadly over
+its gray and antique walls--when he heard his name pronounced; and the
+convent porter emerged from the shadow of a wall beside which he had
+ensconced himself.
+
+"Don Martin! it is thou indeed; blessed be the saints! I began to
+fear--nay, I fear now, that we were deceived."
+
+"Speak, man, but stop me not! Speak! what horrors hast thou to utter?"
+
+"I knew the cavalier whom thou didst send in thy place! Who knows not
+Roderigo Calderon? I trembled when I saw him lift the novice into the
+carriage; but I thought I should, as agreed, be companion in the flight.
+Not so. Don Roderigo briefly told me to hide where I could this night;
+and that to-morrow he would arrange preparations for my flight from
+Madrid. My mind misgave me, for Calderon's name is blackened by many
+curses. I resolved to follow the carriage. I did so; but my breath and
+speed nearly failed, when, fortunately, the carriage was stopped and
+entangled by a crowd in the street. No lackeys were behind; I mounted
+the footboard unobserved, and descended and hid myself when the carriage
+stopped. I knew not the house, but I knew the neighbourhood, a brother
+of mine lives at hand. I sought my relative for a night's shelter. I
+learned that dark stories had given to that house an evil name. It was
+one of those which the Prince of Spain had consecrated to the pursuits
+that had dishonoured so many families in Madrid. I resolved again to
+go forth and watch. Scarce had I reached this very spot when I saw a
+carriage approach rapidly. I secreted myself behind a buttress, and saw
+the carriage halt; and a man descended, and walked to the house. See
+there--there, by yon crossing, the carriage still waits. The man was
+wrapped in a mantle. I know not whom he may be; but--"
+
+"Heavens!" cried Fonseca, as they were now close before the door of
+the house at which Calderon's carriage still stood; "I hear a noise, a
+shriek, within."
+
+Scarce had he spoken when the door opened. Voices were heard in loud
+altercation; presently the form of the Jew was thrown on the pavement,
+and dashing aside another man, who seemed striving to detain him,
+Calderon appeared,--his drawn sword in his right hand, his left arm
+clasped round Beatriz.
+
+Fonseca darted forward.
+
+"My lover! my betrothed!" exclaimed the voice of the novice: "thou are
+come to save us--to save thy Beatriz!"
+
+"Yes; and to chastise the betrayer!" exclaimed Fonseca, in a voice of
+thunder. "Leave thy victim, villain! Defend thyself!"
+
+He made a desperate lunge at Calderon while he spoke. The marquis feebly
+parried the stroke.
+
+"Hold!" he cried. "Not on me!"
+
+"No--no!" exclaimed Beatriz, throwing herself on her father's breast.
+The words came too late. Blinded and deafened with rage, Fonseca had
+again, with more sure and deadly aim, directed his weapon against his
+supposed foe. The blade struck home, but not to the heart of Calderon.
+It was Beatriz, bathed in her blood, who fell at the feet of her
+frenzied lover.
+
+"Daughter and mother both!" muttered Calderon; and he fell as if the
+steel had pierced his own heart, beside his child. "Wretch! what hast
+thou done?" muttered a voice strange to the ear of Fonseca; a voice half
+stifled with Horror and, perhaps, remorse. The Prince of Spain stood on
+the spot, and his feet were dabbled in the blood of the virgin martyr.
+The moonlight alone lighted that spectacle of crime and death; and the
+faces of all seemed ghastly beneath its beams. Beatriz turned her eyes
+upon her lover, with an expression of celestial compassion and divine
+forgiveness; then sinking upon Calderon's breast, she muttered, "Pardon
+him! pardon him, father! I shall tell my mother that thou hast blessed
+me!"
+
+It was not for several days after that night of terror that Calderon was
+heard of at the court. His absence was unaccountable; for, though the
+flight of the novice was of course known, her fate was not suspected;
+and her rank had been too insignificant to create much interest in her
+escape or much vigilance in pursuit. But of that absence the courtier's
+enemies well availed themselves. The plans of the cabal were ripe; and
+the aid of the Inquisition by the appointment of Aliaga was added to the
+machinations of Uzeda's partisans. The king was deeply incensed at
+the mysterious absence of Calderon, for which a thousand ingenious
+conjectures were invented. The Duke of Lerma, infirm and enfeebled by
+years, was unable to confront his foes. With imbecile despair he called
+on the name of Calderon; and, when no trace of that powerful ally could
+be discovered, he forbore even to seek an interview with the king.
+Suddenly the storm broke. One evening Lerma received the royal order to
+surrender his posts, and to quit the court by daybreak. It was in this
+very hour that the door of Lerma's chamber opened, and Roderigo Calderon
+stood before him. But how changed--how blasted from his former self! His
+eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, and their fire was quenched; his
+cheeks were hollow, his frame bent, and when he spoke his voice was as
+that of one calling from the tomb.
+
+"Behold me, Duke de Lerma, I am returned at last!"
+
+"Returned--blessings on thee! Where hast thou been? Why didst thou
+desert me?--no matter, thou art returned! Fly to the king--tell him I am
+not old! I do not want repose. Defeat the villany of my unnatural son!
+They would banish me, Calderon; banish me in the very prime of my years!
+My son says I am old--old! ha! ha! Fly to the prince; he too has immured
+himself in his apartment. He would not see me; he will see thee!"
+
+"Ay--the prince! we have cause to love each other!"
+
+"Ye have indeed! Hasten, Calderon; not a moment is to be lost! Banished!
+Calderon, shall I be banished?" And the old man, bursting into tears,
+fell at the feet of Calderon, and clasped his knees.
+
+"Go, go, I implore thee! Save me; I loved thee, Calderon, I always loved
+thee. Shall our foes triumph? Shall the horn of the wicked be exalted?"
+
+For a moment (so great is the mechanical power of habit) there returned
+to Calderon something of his wonted energy and spirit; a light broke
+from his sunken eyes; he drew himself up to the full of his stately
+height: "I thought I had done with courts and with life," said he; "but
+I will make one more effort; I will not forsake you in your hour of
+need. Yes, Uzeda shall be baffled; I will seek the king. Fear not, my
+lord, fear not; the charm of my power is not yet broken."
+
+So saying, Calderon raised the cardinal from the ground, and extricating
+himself from the old man's grasp strode, with his customary air of
+majestic self-reliance, to the door. Just ere he reached it, three low,
+but regular knocks sounded on the panel: the door opened, and the
+space without was filled with the dark forms of the officers of the
+Inquisition.
+
+"Stand!" said a deep voice; "stand, Roderigo Calderon, Marquis de Siete
+Iglesias; in the name of the most Holy Inquisition, we arrest thee!"
+
+"Aliaga!" muttered Calderon, falling back.
+
+"Peace!" interrupted the Jesuit. "Officers, remove your prisoner."
+
+"Poor old man," said Calderon, turning towards the cardinal, who stood
+spell-bound and speechless, "thy life at least is safe. For me, I defy
+fate! Lead on!"
+
+The Prince of Spain soon recovered from the shock which the death of
+Beatriz at first occasioned him. New pleasures chased away even remorse.
+He appeared again in public a few days after the arrest of Calderon; and
+he made strong intercession on behalf of his former favourite. But even
+had the Inquisition desired to relax its grasp, or Uzeda to forego his
+vengeance, so great was the exultation of the people at the fall of the
+dreaded and obnoxious secretary, and so numerous the charges which party
+malignity added to those which truth could lay at his door, that it
+would have required a far bolder monarch than Philip the Third to have
+braved the voice of a whole nation for the sake of a disgraced minister.
+The prince himself was soon induced, by new favourites, to consider any
+further interference on his part equally impolitic and vain; and the
+Duke d'Uzeda and Don Gaspar de Guzman were minions quite as supple,
+while they were companions infinitely more respectable.
+
+One day, an officer, attending the levee of the prince, with whom he was
+a special favourite, presented a memorial requesting the interest of
+his highness for an appointment in the royal armies, that, he had just
+learned by an express was vacant.
+
+"And whose death comes so opportunely for thy rise, Don Alvar?" asked
+the Infant.
+
+"Don Martin Fonseca. He fell in the late skirmish, pierced by a hundred
+wounds."
+
+The prince started and turned hastily away. The officer lost all favour
+from that hour, and never learned his offence.
+
+Meanwhile months passed, and Calderon still languished in his dungeon.
+At last the Inquisition opened against him its dark register of
+accusations. First of these charges was that of sorcery, practised
+on the king; the rest were for the most part equally grotesque and
+extravagant. These accusations Calderon met with a dignity which
+confounded his foes, and belied the popular belief in the elements of
+his character. Submitted to the rack, he bore its tortures without a
+groan; and all historians have accorded concurrent testimony to the
+patience and heroism which characterised the close of his wild and
+meteoric career. At length Philip the Third died: the Infant ascended
+the throne; that prince, for whom the ambitious courtier had perilled
+alike life and soul! The people now believed that they should be
+defrauded of their victim. They were mistaken. The new king, by this
+time, had forgotten even the existence of the favourite of the prince.
+But Guzman, who, while affecting to minister to the interests of Uzeda,
+was secretly aiming at the monopoly of the royal favour, felt himself
+insecure while Calderon yet lived. The operations of the Inquisition
+were too slow for the impatience of his fears; and as that dread
+tribunal affected never to inflict death until the accused had confessed
+his guilt, the firmness of Calderon baffled the vengeance of the
+ecclesiastical law. New inquiries were set on foot: a corpse was
+discovered, buried in Calderon's garden--the corpse of a female. He
+was accused of the murder. Upon that charge he was transferred from
+the Inquisition to the regular courts of justice. No evidence could
+be produced against him; but, to the astonishment of all, he made no
+defence, and his silence was held the witness of his crime. He was
+adjudged to the scaffold--he smiled when he heard the sentence.
+
+An immense crowd, one bright day in summer, were assembled in the place
+of execution. A shout of savage exultation rent the air as Roderigo
+Calderon, Marquis de Siete Iglesias, appeared upon the scaffold But,
+when the eyes of the multitude rested--not upon that lofty and stately
+form, in all the pride of manhood, which they had been accustomed to
+associate with their fears of the stern genius and iron power of the
+favourite--but upon a bent and spectral figure, that seemed already on
+the verge of a natural grave, with a face ploughed deep with traces
+of unutterable woe, and hollow eyes that looked with dim and scarce
+conscious light over the human sea that murmured and swayed below, the
+tide of the popular emotion changed; to rage and triumph succeeded shame
+and pity. Not a hand was lifted up in accusation--not a voice was raised
+in rebuke or joy. Beside Calderon stood the appointed priest, whispering
+cheer and consolation.
+
+"Fear not, my son," said the holy man. "The pang of the body strikes
+years of purgatory from thy doom. Think of this, and bless even the
+agony of this hour."
+
+"Yes," muttered Calderon; "I do bless this hour. Inez, thy daughter has
+avenged thy murder! May Heaven accept the sacrifice! and may my eyes,
+even athwart the fiery gulf, awaken upon thee!"
+
+With that a serene and contented smile passed over the face on which
+the crowd gazed with breathless awe. A minute more, and a groan, a
+cry, broke from that countless multitude; and a gory and ghastly head,
+severed from its trunk, was raised on high.
+
+Two spectators of that execution were in one of the balconies that
+commanded a full view of its terrors.
+
+"So perishes my worst foe!" said Uzeda.
+
+"We must sacrifice all things, friends as foes, in the ruthless march
+of the Great Cause," rejoined the Grand Inquisitor; but he sighed as he
+spoke.
+
+"Guzman is now with the king," said Uzeda, turning into the chamber. "I
+expect every instant a summons into the royal presence."
+
+"I cannot share thy sanguine hopes, my son," said Aliaga, shaking his
+head. "My profession has made me a deep reader of human character.
+Gaspar de Guzman will remove every rival from his path."
+
+While he spoke, there entered a gentleman of the royal chamber. He
+presented to the Grand Inquisitor and the expectant duke two letters
+signed by the royal hand. They were the mandates of banishment and
+disgrace. Not even the ghostly rank of the Grand Inquisitor, not even
+the profound manoeuvres of the son of Lerma, availed them against the
+vigilance and vigour of the new favourite. Simultaneously, a shout from
+the changeable crowd below proclaimed that the king's choice of his new
+minister was published and approved.
+
+And Aliaga and Uzeda exchanged glances that bespoke all the passions
+that make defeated ambition the worst fiend, as they heard the mighty
+cry, "LONG LIVE OLIVAREZ THE REFORMER!"
+
+That cry came, faint and muffled, to the ears of Philip the Fourth, as
+he sate in his palace with his new minister. "Whence that shout?" said
+the king, hastily.
+
+"It rises, doubtless, from the honest hearts of your loyal people at the
+execution of Calderon."
+
+Philip shaded his face with his hand, and mused a moment: then, turning
+to Olivarez with a sarcastic smile, he said: "Behold the moral of the
+life of a courtier, count! What do they say of the new opera?"
+
+At the close of his life, in disgrace and banishment, the count-duke,
+for the first time since they had been uttered, called to his
+recollection those words of his royal master.
+
+'The fate of Calderon has given rise to many tales and legends. Amongst
+those who have best availed themselves of so fruitful a subject may be
+ranked the late versatile and ingenious Telesforo de Trueba, in his work
+on "The Romances of Spain." In a few of the incidents, and in some
+of the names, his sketch, called "The Fortunes of Calderon," has a
+resemblance to the story just concluded. The plot, characters,
+and principal events, are, however, widely distinct in our several
+adaptations of an ambiguous and unsatisfactory portion of Spanish
+history.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Calderon The Courtier, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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