Guadalquivir itself will rise from its bed and extinguish the flames on the mount; they have it in pay. Help me! the water takes my life. Lord God! I have sinned, I have denied Thy holy name. Once Thou showedst Thyself in wonders; send down Thy lightnings, that they may destroy me—me also, me first. I have sinned, destroy me!'
"He spoke quickly, and beat his breast with his bony fists till it resounded; I could not restrain him. He sank back almost breathless; I feared that he would die then, and would have rung the bell, but he rose again, and said, weeping,
"'Come, give me your hand; it is pure—pure from the blood of your brethren: it was at the suggestion of Satan that I, a worm, tried to gnaw through this giant tree. I do penance for my pride; I have denied my God. I die useless, as I have lived useless. Do you not see my father there? He comes to help us. Have you pitched rings enough. Father? Do you hear the prisoners beneath singing Hallelujah? Ah, it is a beautiful song: Hallelujah, Hallelu El! We free you; you dare die. Do not look so reproachful; I am not in fault!'
"He sank back again, and stared at me with unearthly glassy eyes. I prayed him, for God's sake and our own, to be quiet: I told him how I had come in obedience to his letter; he should be at peace, since he had saved many lives, and God would be merciful, and look only at the heart.
"Then, in perfect consciousness, he spoke to me of his approaching death, and how rejoiced he was at the thought thereof. A flood of tears relieved his mind of its heavy load: then suddenly all was fearful confusion again; he called for consecrated water to soften his pain on his heart, that burnt like hot iron. 'Drink also,' he said to me, 'the holy father has blessed it. Bless me! Father, it is the Sabbath. Where is Mother? Still below in the cellar of the synagogue. Mother, rise; it is I, thy Moses.'
"So he talked, and I was dizzy to think of the abyss before which I stood.
"Evening came, and Geronimo thought men came to put him in a dark prison, and stretch him on the rack; groaning painfully, and with an almost dying voice, he cried continually, 'I am no Jew, I do not know where there are hidden Jews. Daniel, do not forsake me; do not forsake me, Daniel!' At last he slept again. It was night; the full moon shone through the window and shed its silver light over the sick man. I prepared for death, since every word of our conversation, if overheard, would have brought me to a martyr's death; by good luck, however, almost the whole order was employed in a search for Lutherans in the town. I prayed to God to have pity on Geronimo, and send him death. Children, it is terrible to pray for the death of a man, and that man the friend of your youth. But why should this soul undergo a longer martyrdom? It was, however, otherwise ordained; I must experience yet more terrible moments.
"I sat there, sunk in troubled thought, when a familiar entered, and ordered me to come to the Inquisitor. My heart beat loudly as I entered his presence; I threw myself on my knees, and asked his blessing. He gave it me, and said: 'You are a friend of Geronimo. In that you are a good Christian'—and here he gave me a piercing look—'take care that Geronimo is obstinate no longer, but takes the Sacrament once more before he dies; endeavor to do this, and let me know immediately; he must not die thus.'
"I returned to the sick man's cell; he still slept; I bent softly over him; he awoke.
"'Come,' he said, rising hastily, 'now is the time. Look! Gideon with his three hundred men come also; they carry the fire-filled pitchers into the camp of the Midianites. Hush! be still! do not blow the trumpets yet. Let us celebrate High Mass.' He folded his hands, and crossed himself three times. I prayed, I implored him, I wept for fear, and conjured him to be quiet. I spoke to him of our childhood's days, and how he himself now would murder me, if he did not take the Sacrament.
"'Why do they not give it me?' he said quietly. 'I am a priest; come, wash my hands; I am unclean; then I will receive it.'
"I went to the Inquisitor and told him that Geronimo, though still confused, himself desired the Sacrament. The Inquisitor assembled the whole order, and as they carried the Elements along the long corridor, singing the Requiem in the echoing hall, Geronimo sang loudly with them, and even when it was ended he sang the de profundis clamavi in a piercing voice with folded hands; then he tore his hands asunder, covered his head with them, and sang the Hebrew words: 'Holy! Holy! Holy! Adonaj Zebaoth! (Jehovah, Lord of Hosts!) Ave Maria gratia plena, he said in the same mechanical tone. The Inquisitor used the moment to pass the Host to him; he devoured it, as if famishing.
"'The cup! the cup!' he cried, 'I am a priest.' The Inquisitor handed him the cup, he clasped, both hands round it, and began the Jewish Sabbath blessing over it; then raising himself in bed with all his strength, he stood in the full length of his trembling figure, and cried: "On, Gideon! shatter the pitchers! Fire! Fire!' he put the cup to his lips, threw it at the wall, so that it shivered to atoms, sank down, and was—dead."
The stranger covered his eyes with his hand, and stood up, when he had said these words. No one uttered a syllable, for who could enter into the unutterable emotions of this soul? Each one feared by a sound or a sigh to disturb the deep emotion of the other. It was the silence of death. Outside something tapped as with ghostly fingers on the panes; all started; the stranger opened the window; nothing was to be seen. He sat down again at the table, and continued:
"I had sunk down almost unconscious at the bedside of Geronimo; the cup with the spilt wine lay near me on the floor. I did not venture to rise, for fear my first glance should read my fate.
"'Rise,' said a harsh voice near me. I rose; the Inquisitor stood before me, not another monk was present.
"'What is your name ?' he asked me sternly. I was in painful uncertainty; should I give my real name, or not? but perhaps he had already seen it, and a lie would make my death doubly certain. I told the truth; he asked for a guarantee.
"'No one knows me here,' I answered, 'but my brother-in-law, Don Juan Malveda in Cordova; he can bear me witness that the Casseres, in whose house at Segovia the first sitting of the Inquisition was held, was my ancestor.' I yet wonder at the courage with which I spoke to the Inquisitor in this decisive moment. 'Swear to me,' he said after a long and painful pause. 'No, swear not, but if you let one syllable of what you have seen here pass your lips, you and your two children die the death by fire. You are in my power; I hold you in unseen bonds, from which you cannot run loose.'
"He then ordered a familiar to conduct me from the Castle.
"If we take the history of the prophet Jonah literally, his feelings must have been like mine when he was thrown out by the sea monster. I thought I continually heard the dreadful Requiem, though all around was as still as death. Everything looked so unearthly, so strange; every bush that trembled in the moonlight seemed to beckon to me to hasten on.
"I was hardly capable of thought, through weariness and fear; and nowhere in that wide country was there a soul in whom I could trust.
"I looked up at the myriad host of stars; their celestial light shone comfortingly on my heart. God, the God of Hosts, watched over me; my whole soul was a prayer; He answered it.
"I reached my inn, saddled my horse, and rode as on the wings of the wind.
"The moon disappeared behind clouds, and only the pale light of stars, shone on my lonely path. The horse seemed as if he too were driven by an unseen lash; he rushed irresistibly over hill and dale, and snorted with fear. Perhaps, thought I, the soul of some grim enemy of the Jews, perhaps that of a dead Grand Inquisitor, has entered this animal, and is now condemned to bear me through the night and save me from my enemies. Often, when he turned his head and looked at me with his fiery eyes, it seemed to say to me, 'Do I not suffer enough for my earlier life?'
"I feared even my own shadow that danced over rock and stone, and I drove the
