Chapter V (4)

One evening, Aréli lay calmly on the soft bed of moss and heath his sister’s love had framed; his hand clasped hers; his eyes seemed to speak the unutterable love and gratitude he felt. They were in the wildest part of a thick forest in the Sierra Nevada; and Imri, unable to look on the sufferings of his beloved ones, had wandered forth alone. Distant sounds of the chase fell at intervals on the ears of Josephine; but they were far away, and her soul was too enwrapt to heed them. Suddenly, however, her attention was effectually roused by the large crashing of the bushes near them, accompanied by low yet angry growls. Aréli marked the sudden change in her features, his eye too had caught an object by her still unseen. He sprang up with that strength which energy of feeling so often gives when bodily force has gone, and grasped tightly the hunting spear he held; scarcely had he done so, when a huge boar sprung through the thicket, his flanks streaming with blood, his tusks upraised, his mouth gaping, covered with foam, and uttering growls, denoting pain and fury yet more clearly than his appearance. He stood for a second motionless, then, as if startled by the agonized scream of terror bursting from Josephine, he sprung upon the daring boy. Undauntedly Aréli met his approach. His spear, aimed by an eye that never failed, pierced him for a second to the earth, but, alas! the strength of the boy was not equal to his skill. The boar, yet more enraged, tore the weapon from the ground, which it had not pierced above an inch. Once more he fell, struck down by a huge stick, which Aréli, with the speed of lightning, had snatched up. Again he rose, and fastened on the child. A blow from behind forced him to relax his stifling hold; furious, he turned on the slight girl who had dared attack him, and Josephine herself would have shared her brothers fate, when the spear of Imri whizzed through the air, true to its mark, and the huge animal, with a cry of pain and fury, rolled lifeless on the ground.

The voice of his beloved had startled Imri from his mournful trance; the roar which followed explained its source, and winged by terror, he arrived in time. Josephine was saved indeed, but no word of thankfulness broke from that heart, which, in grateful devotion, had never been dumb before. She knelt beside the seemingly lifeless body of her Aréli, scarcely conscious of the presence of her husband; his hands, his neck, his brow, were deluged in blood; she bathed him plentifully with cold water. Could she remember at such a moment that no springs were near, and that, if overwhelmed with thirst, the pure element would be denied them? Oh, no, no; she saw only the helpless sufferer, to whom her spirit clung with a love that, in their affliction, had with each hour grown stronger.

But death was still a brief while deferred, though so fearfully had Aréli been injured, they could not move him thence. His wounds were numerous and painful, and strength to support himself, even in a sitting position, never again returned. Yet never was that sweet face sad; his smiles, his signs were ever to implore his sister not to weep for him—to take comfort and be happy in another land; that the blissfulness of heaven was already on his soul—that if it might be, he would pray for her before his God, and hover like a guardian spirit over her weary wanderings, till he led her to a joyous home. For him, indeed, Josephine might not grieve, but for Imri she felt the deepest anxiety. The horrors to which this unlooked-for delay exposed him had startled her into consciousness, and on her knees she besought him to seek his own safety; she would not weakly shrink, but when all was over she would follow him, and, in all probability, they would meet again in another land; not to risk his precious life and strength by lingering with her beside the dying boy. She pleaded with all a woman’s unselfish love, but, need we say, in vain?—that Imri’s sole answer was to lift his right hand to heaven and swear, by all they both held most sacred, NEVER to leave her—they would meet their fate together? Days passed; their small portion of food and water, economised as it was, dwindled more and more away, and so did the strength of Aréli. It was a night of unclouded beauty; millions and millions of stars spangled the deep blue heavens; the moon in her full glory walked forth to silver many a dark tree, and dart her most refulgent rays on that little group of human suffering. Yet all was not suffering; the purest happiness beamed on the features of the dying, and an unconscious calm pervaded the weary spirit of these lonely watchers. Nature was so still, they spoke almost in whispers, as fearing to disturb her.

A sudden change spread on the features of the dying boy. Imri started: “Josephine, the chains are rent—he HEARS us!” he cried; and Josephine, raising him in her arms, almost involuntarily spoke in uttered words, “Aréli, my own, my beautiful!”

He HEARD; the film was removed one brief moment from his ear; her voice, sweet as thrilling music, fell upon his soul: his lips moved, and one articulate word then came, unearthly in its sweetness, “JOSEPHINE!” He raised his clasped hands to heaven, and sunk back upon her bosom: his soul had hovered on the earth one moment FREE, then fled for ever.

Imri and Josephine joined in prayer beside the loved. They neither mourned nor wept, and calmly Josephine wrapped the fadeless flower in the last garment of mortality, while Imri formed his resting-place. They laid him in that humble grave, strewed flowers and moss upon it, prayed that their God would in mercy guard his body from the ravening beasts, then turned from that hallowed spot, and silently pursued their journey.

It wanted but two days to the completion of the allotted period, when, faint, weak, and well-nigh exhausted, Imri and his Josephine stood on the sea-shore, and there horrible indeed was the sight that presented itself. Hundreds of the wretched fugitives lay famishing on the scorching sands. Many who had dragged on their failing limbs through all the horrors of famine, of thirst, of miseries in a thousand shapes, which the very pen shrinks from delineating, arrived there but to die; for there were but few vessels to bear them to other lands, and these often sailed with half their number, either because the bribes they demanded were refused (for the wretched victims had nought to give), or that their captains swore so many heretics would sink their ships, and they would take no more. Then it was that, with a crucifix in one hand, and bread and wine in the other, the Catholic priests advanced to the half senseless sufferers, and offered the one, if they acknowledged the other. Was it marvel that at such a moment there were some who yielded? Oh, there is a glory and a triumph in the martyr’s death! Men look with admiring awe on those who smile when at the stake; but the faith that inspired courage and firmness and constancy ’mid suffering which we have but faintly outlined—’mid lingering torments ’neath which the _heart_, yet more than the frame, was crushed—that FAITH is regarded with scorn as a blinded, wilful misbelief. Could man endow his own spirit with this devotedness? Pride might lead him to the stake, but not to bear what Israel had borne, aye, and will bear till the wrath of his God is turned aside. No; the same God who strengthened Abraham to offer up his son, enables His wretched people to give up all for Him. Would He do this, had they denied and mocked Him?

Imri saw the cold shuddering creeping over the blighted form of his beloved, and he led her to a sheltering rock, whose projecting cliffs partly concealed the wretched objects on the beach. There was one vessel on the broad ocean, and in her he determined at once to secure a passage, if to do so cost the forfeit of the few valuables he had been enabled to secrete. He lingered awhile by the side of his Josephine, for he saw, with anguish, the noble spirit, which had so long sustained and consoled her, now for the first time appear to droop. The sudden appearance of a Spanish officer, and his apparent advance towards them, arrested him as he was about to depart. He was attired richly, his whole bearing seeming to denote a person of some rank and consequence. Josephine’s gaze became almost unconsciously riveted upon him. He came nearer, nearer still; they could trace his features, on which sorrow or care had fixed its stamp. A moment he removed the plumed cap from his head, and passed his hand across his brow. An exclamation of recognition escaped the lips of Imri, and in another moment Josephine had bounded forward and was kneeling at his feet. “My father! my father!” she sobbed forth. “O God, I thank Thee for this unlooked-for mercy. I have seen him once again.”

“Thou—art thou my child, my Josephine, whom I left in such bright, blooming beauty—whom I have sought in such trembling anguish from the moment I might reach these shores? Child of my Rachel, art thou, canst thou be? Oh, yes, yes, yes! ’Twas thus she looked when I departed. Could I hope to see thee as I left thee, when blight and misery fell upon thy native vale, as on all the dwellings of thy wretched race? And I—O God!—my child, my child, curse me, hate me—I hurled down destruction on thy house.”

But even as he spoke in those wild accents of ungovernable passion, but too familiar to the ears that heard, he had raised and strained her convulsively to his breast, covering her cheeks and lips with kisses, till his burning tears of agonized remorse mingled with those of softer feeling on the cheeks of Josephine. But not long might she indulge in the blessed luxury of tears; shuddering, she repeated his last words, gazing up in his face with eyes of horrified inquiry.

“Yes, I, even I, my child. I was not sufficiently wretched—the bitter cup of remorse was not yet full. The edict was proclaimed. On all sides there was but wretchedness and unutterable misery, beyond all this woe-built world hath known. Then came a wild yearning to look again upon my native vale—to know if in truth its concealed and sheltered caves had escaped uninjured by the wide-spreading, devastating scourge that edict brought—to look on thee, my child, if I might without endangering that precious life—to know the fate of my unborn babe. I dared not dream my wife yet lived. Josephine, I looked upon her tomb, and by its side beheld my own, my beautiful, my unknown boy. O God! O God! my crime was visited upon his innocent head; and where—oh, where is he? Why may I not look upon his sweet face again?”

He ceased, choked by overwhelming emotion, and some minutes passed ere either of his agitated listeners could summon sufficient composure to reply. But the anguish of Castello seemed incapable of increase. For several minutes, indeed, he was silent; the convulsive workings of his features denoting how deeply that simple narrative had sunk.

When he spoke, it was briefly and hurriedly to relate how he had lingered in the vicinity of Eshcol, till at length discovered by a party of Spaniards sent to seek him, with a message from the sovereigns. His wanderings had been tracked, and that which he had most desired to avert he had been the means of accomplishing—the discovery of the vale. And then convulsively clasping the hands of Josephine and Imri in his own, he besought them to remove in part the load of misery from his heart—to say they would not leave him more.

“Goest thou then forth, my father? Hast thou indeed tarried for us, that we may seek a home together?” The father’s eyes shrunk beneath those mild inquiring eyes.

“My child, I go not forth,” he said at length, and his voice trembled. Josephine gently withdrew herself from his arms, and laid her hand on her husband’s.

“My child! my noble child,” he said, in smothered accents, “I am not perjured. I am still a son of Israel, though to the world a Catholic. Oh, do not turn from me. Come with me to my home, and thou shall see how the exiled and the persecuted can defy the power of their destroyers. Life, with every luxury, shall be thy portion; thine Imri shall have every dream of ambition and joy fulfilled. The children of Sigismund Castello will be courted, cherished, and loved. ’Tis but to kneel in public before the cross of the Nazarene—in private, we are sons of Israel still.”

“Father, urge me not; it cannot be,” was her calm and firm reply.

“Hast thought on all that must befall thee in other, perchance equally hostile, lands? My child, thou knowest not all thou mayest have to endure.”

“It is welcome,” she answered; “the more rugged the path to heaven, the more blessed will seem my final rest.”

“And thou wilt leave me to all the agonies of remorse; to struggle on with the blackening thought, that not only have I murdered those I love best on earth—my wife, my boy—but sent ye forth to poverty, privation, and misery. Josephine, Josephine, have mercy!” and the father threw himself before his child, grovelling in the sand, and clasping his hands in the wild energy of supplication.

“Father, father, drive me not mad! I cannot, cannot bear this. Imri, my husband, if thou wouldst save my heart from treachery, raise him—in mercy raise him. I cannot answer with him there! God, God of Israel! leave me not now. My brain is reeling—save me from myself.”

She staggered back, and terrified at those accents of almost madness, her father sprang from the ground, he caught her again in his arms, while Imri, kneeling beside her, chafed her cold hands in his, imploring her to speak, to look on him again.

“My child, my child, wake, wake! I will not grieve thee thus again. But oh, thy husband’s look would pray thee not to go forth! The God of love, of pity, demands not this self-sacrifice. Imri, one word from thee would be sufficient. Look on her. Think to what thou bearest her, when peace, comfort, and luxuries await ye, with but one word. Speak, speak! Thou canst not, wilt not take her hence.”

Though well-nigh senseless, well-nigh so exhausted alike in body and mind that further exertion seemed impossible, Josephine roused herself from that trance of faintness to gaze wildly and fearfully on the face of her husband. It was terribly agitated. She threw herself on his neck, and gasped forth, “Canst thou bid me do this thing, my husband?” He struggled to answer, but there came no word. Strength, the mighty strength of virtue, returned to that sinking frame. She stood erect, and spoke without one quivering accent or one failing word.

“Imri, my husband! by the love thou bearest me, by all we both hold sacred, by that great and ineffable name we are forbidden to pronounce, I charge thee answer me truly. Didst thou stand alone—were Josephine no more—how wouldst thou decide? The eye of God is upon thee—deceive me not!”

He turned from that searching glance, his strong frame shook with emotion; his voice was scarcely audible, yet these words came—

“I NEVER could deny my God! Exile and death were welcome—but for thee!”

“Enough, my husband!” she exclaimed, and throwing her arms around him, she turned again to her father, a glow of holy triumph tinging her pallid cheek. “And wouldst thou tempt him to perjury for my sake? On, no, no! father, beloved, revered, from the first hour I could lisp thy name, oh, pardon me this first disobedience to thy will! Did I linger, how might I save thee from remorse; when each day, each hour, thou wouldst see me fade beneath the whelming weight of perjury and falsity? No, no! Bless me, oh, bless me, ere I go, and the prayers of thy child shall rise each hour for thee!”

Again she knelt before him, and Castello, inexpressibly affected, felt he dared urge no more. How might he agonize that heart; when in neither word, nor hint, nor sign did she utter reproach on him? Again and again he reiterated blessings on her sainted head; and when he could release her from his embrace, it was to secure their speedy passage in the vessel, which his command had detained in her moorings; though the hope that he should once more look upon his child had well-nigh faded ere she came.

The exiles stood upon the deck. A hundred other of the miserable fugitives had found a refuge in this same vessel, whose captain, somewhat more humane than many of his fellows, and richly bribed by Castello, set food before the famishing wanderers directly they had weighed anchor. But even the cravings of nature were lost in the one feeling, that they gazed for the last time on the land they loved. There were dark thunder-clouds sweeping over the sky, mingled with others of brilliant colouring, that proclaimed the hour of sunset. The ocean-horizon seemed buried in murky gloom; but the shores of Spain stood forth bathed in a glow of warm red light, as if to bid the unhappy wanderers farewell in unrivalled brilliance. For awhile there was silence on the vessel, so deep, so unbroken, that the flapping of the sails against the masts was alone distinguishable. It was then a wild and wailing strain burst simultaneously from the fugitives; the young and the old, the strong man and exhausted female, joined almost unconsciously. In the language of Jerusalem they chanted forth their wild farewell, which may thus be rendered in English verse.

Farewell! farewell! we wander forth,
Doom’d by th’ Eternal’s awful wrath;
With nought to bless our lonely path,
Across the stormy wave.
Cast forth as wanderers on the earth;
Torn from the land that hailed our birth,
From childhood’s cot, from manhood’s hearth,
From temple and from grave.

Farewell! farewell! thou beauteous sod,
Which Israel has for ages trod;
We leave thee to the oppressor’s rod,
Weeping the exiles’ doom.
We go! no more thy turf we press;
No more thy fruits and vineyards bless;
No land to love—no home possess,
Save earth’s cold breast—the tomb.

Where we have roamed the strangers roam;
The stranger claims each cherished home;
And we must ride on ocean’s foam,
Accursed and alone.
False gods pollute our holy fane,
False hearts its sacred precincts stain;
False tongues our fathers’ God profane;
But WE are still HIS OWN.

Farewell! farewell! o’er land and sea,
Where’er we roam, our soul shall be,
Land we have loved so long, with thee,
Though sad and lone we dwell.
Thou land, where happy childhood played;
Where youth in love’s sweet fancies strayed;
Where long our fathers’ bones have laid;
Our own bright land—farewell!

Wilder and louder thrilled the strain until the last verse, when mournfully the voices for a few seconds swelled, and then gradually died away to silence, broken only by sobs and tears. Imri and Josephine alone sat apart; they had not joined the melody, but their souls in silence echoed back its mournful wailing. Josephine half sat, half reclined on a pile of cushions, where she might command the last view of Spain. Imri leaned against a mast, close beside her; but few words passed between them, for each felt the effort to speak was made only for the other, and they ceased to war thus with nature.

A sudden gloom darkened the heavens. The glow passed from the beautiful shores. A heavy fall of dense clouds hung over them, and concealed them from the eyes which in that direction lingered still. The last gleam of light disclosed to Imri his Josephine in the attitude of calm and happy slumber. Her head reclined upon her arm, and the long dark curls had fallen over her face and neck. He rejoiced; for he thought nature had at length found the repose she so much needed. His own eyelids felt heavy, and his limbs much exhausted; but he remained watching, untired, the sleep of his beloved. Heavy gusts now at intervals swept along the ocean. The blackened waves rolled higher and higher at the call, now crested by the snowy foam. The vessel rocked and heaved, and speedily driven from her course, mocked every effort to guide her southward, one moment riding proudly on the topmost wave, the next sinking in a deep valley, as about to be whelmed by huge mountains of roaring water. Distant thunder, mingled with the moaning gust, coming nearer and nearer, till it burst above their heads, louder and longer than the discharge of a hundred cannons. The foiled lightning streamed through the ebon sky, illumining all around for above a minute by that blue and vivid glare, and then vanishing in darkness yet more terrible.

The elements were at war around them, cries of human terror joined with the roar of the ocean, the rolling thunder, the groaning blasts; but there was no movement in the form of Josephine. Could she still sleep? Could exhaustion render her insensible to sounds like these? Imri knelt beside her and called her by name:—“Josephine, my beloved! Oh, waken!”

There was no answer. At that moment a bright flash darted through the gloom, and sea and sky appeared on fire. A strange and crashing sound succeeded, followed by a cry of agony, which, bursting from a hundred throats, echoed far and near, drowning even the noise of the raging storm, for it was the deep tone of human terror and despair. The topmast fell, shivered by the lightning, in the very centre of the deck; flames burst forth where it fell, and on went the devoted vessel, a blazing pile on the booming waters.

Imri Benalmar moved not from his knee—he heard not the cries of suffering echoing round—he knew not the cause of that livid glare, which had so suddenly illumined every object—he knew nothing, felt nothing, save that he gazed on the face of the DEAD.

* * * * *

A fearful sound, seeming distinct from the warring elements, called forth many of the hardy inhabitants of Malaga from their homes. They hurried to the beach, and appalled and startled, beheld one part of the horizon completely bathed in living fire; sea and sky united by a sheet of flame. Presently it appeared to divide, and borne onwards by the winds and waves, a ball of fire floated on the water. It came nearer—and horror and sympathy usurped the place of superstition, as a burning vessel rose and fell with every heaving wave. The storm was abated, though the sea yet raged, and many a hardy fisherman pushed out his boat in the pious hope of saving some of the unfortunate crew. Their efforts were in vain; ere half the distance was accomplished, there came a hissing sound; the flames for one brief moment blazed with appalling brilliance—then sunk, and there was a void on the wide waste of waters.

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_The Escape._

A TALE OF 1755.

“Dark lowers our fate,
And terrible the storm that gathers o’er us;
But nothing, till that latest agony
Which severs thee from nature shall unloose
This fixed and sacred hold. In thy dark prison-house;
In the terrific force of armed law;
Yea! on the scaffold, if it needs must be,
I never will forsake thee.”—JOANNA BAILLIE.

ABOUT the middle of the eighteenth century, the little town of Montes, situated some forty or fifty miles from Lisbon, was thrown into most unusual excitement by the magnificence attending the nuptials of Alvar Rodriguez and Almah Diaz; an excitement which the extraordinary beauty of the bride, who, though the betrothed of Alvar from her childhood, had never been seen in Montes before, of course not a little increased. The little church of Montes looked gay and glittering, for the large sums lavished by Alvar on the officiating priests, and in presents to their patron saints, had occasioned every picture, shrine, and image to blaze in uncovered gold and jewels, and the altar to be fed with the richest incense, and lighted with tapers of the finest wax, to do him honour.

The church was full; for, although the bridal party did not exceed twenty, the village appeared to have emptied itself there; Alvar’s munificence to all classes, on all occasions, having rendered him the universal idol, and caused the fame of that day’s rejoicing to extend many miles around.

There was nothing remarkable in the behaviour of either bride or bridegroom, except that both were decidedly more calm than such occasions usually warrant. Nay, in the fine, manly countenance of Alvar, ever and anon an expression seemed to flit, that in any but so true a son of the church would have been accounted scorn. In such a one, of course, it was neither seen nor regarded, except by his bride; for at such times her eyes met his with an earnest and entreating glance, that the peculiar look was changed into a quiet, tender seriousness which reassured her.

From the church they adjourned to the lordly mansion of Rodriguez, which, in the midst of the flowering orange and citron trees, stood about two miles from the town.

The remainder of the day passed in festivity. The banquet and dance and song, both within and around the house, diversified the scene and increased hilarity in all. By sunset, all but the immediate friends and relatives of the newly wedded had departed. Some splendid and novel fireworks from the heights having attracted universal attention, Alvar, with his usual indulgence, gave his servants and retainers permission to join the festive crowds; liberty, to all who wished it, was given for the next two hours.

In a very brief interval the house was cleared, with the exception of a young Moor, the secretary or book-keeper of Alvar, and four or five middle-aged domestics of both sexes.

Gradually, and it appeared undesignedly, the bride and her female companions were left alone, and for the first time the beautiful face of Almah was shadowed by emotion.

“Shall I, oh, shall I indeed be his?” she said, half-aloud. “There are moments when our dread secrets are so terrible; it seems to forbode discovery at the very moment it would be most agonizing to bear.”

“Hush, silly one!” was the reply of an older friend; “discovery is not so easily or readily accomplished. The persecuted and the nameless have acquired wisdom and caution at the price of blood—learned to deceive, that they may triumph—to conceal, that they may flourish still. Almah, we are not to fall!”

“I know it, Inez. A superhuman agency upholds us; we had been cast off, rooted out, plucked from the very face of the earth long since else. But there are times when human nature will shrink and tremble—when the path of deception and concealment allotted for us to tread seems fraught with danger at every turn. I know it is all folly, yet there is a dim foreboding, shadowing our fair horizon of joy as a hovering thunder-cloud. There has been suspicion, torture, death. Oh, if my Alvar—”

“Nay, Almah; this is childish. It is only because you are too happy, and happiness, in its extent is ever pain. In good time comes your venerable guardian, to chide and silence all such foolish fancies. How many weddings have there been, and will there still be, like this? Come, smile, love, while I re-arrange your veil.”

Almah obeyed, though the smile was faint, as if the soul yet trembled in its joy. On the entrance of Gonzolas, her guardian (she was an orphan and an heiress), her veil was thrown around her, so as completely to envelope face and form. Taking his arm, and followed by all her female companions, she was hastily and silently led to a sort of ante-room or cabinet, opening, by a massive door concealed with tapestry, from the suite of rooms appropriated to the private use of the merchant and his family. There Alvar and his friends awaited her. A canopy, supported by four of the youngest males present, was held over the bride and bridegroom as they stood facing the east. A silver salver lay at their feet, and opposite stood an aged man, with a small richly-bound volume in his hand. It was open and displayed letters and words of unusual form and sound. Another of Alvar’s friends stood near, holding a goblet of sacred wine; and to a third was given a slight and thin Venetian glass. After a brief and solemn pause, the old man read or rather chanted from the book he held, joined in parts by those around; and then he tasted the sacred wine, and passed it to the bride and bridegroom. Almah’s veil was upraised, for her to touch the goblet with her lips, now quivering with emotion, and not permitted to fall again. And Alvar, where now was the expression of scorn and contempt that had been stamped on his bold brow and curling lip before? Gone—lost before the powerful emotion which scarcely permitted his lifting the goblet a second time to his lips. Then, taking the Venetian glass, he broke it on the salver at his feet, and the strange rites were completed.

Yet no words of congratulation came. Drawn together in a closer knot, while Alvar folded the now almost fainting Almah to his bosom, and said, in the deep, low tones of intense feeling, “Mine, mine for ever now—mine in the sight of our God, the God of the exile and the faithful; our fate, whatever it be, henceforth is one;” the old man lifted up his clasped hands, and prayed.

“God of the nameless and homeless,” he said, and it was in the same strange yet solemn-sounding language as before, “have mercy on these Thy servants, joined together in Thy Holy name, to share the lot on earth Thy will assigns them, with one heart and mind. Strengthen Thou them to keep the secret of their faith and race—to teach it to their offspring as they received it from their fathers. Pardon Thou, them and us, the deceit we do to keep holy Thy law and Thine inheritance. In the land of the persecutor, the exterminator, be Thou their shield, and save them for Thy Holy name. But if discovery and its horrible consequences—imprisonment, torture, death—await them, strengthen Thou them for their endurance—to die as they would live for Thee. Father, hear us! homeless and nameless upon earth, we are Thine own!”

“Aye, strengthen me for him, my husband; turn my woman weakness into Thy strength for him, Almighty Father,” was the voiceless prayer with which Almah lifted up her pale face from her husband’s bosom, where it had rested during the whole of that strange and terrible prayer; and in the calmness stealing on her throbbing heart, she read her answer.

It was some few minutes ere the excited spirits of the devoted few then present, male or female, master or servant, could subside into their wonted control. But such scenes, such feelings were not of rare occurrence; and ere the domestics of Rodriguez returned, there was nothing either in the mansion or its inmates to denote that anything uncommon had taken place during their absence.

The Portuguese are not fond of society at any time, so that Alvar and his young bride should, after one week of festivity, live in comparative retirement, elicited no surprise. The former attended his house of business at Montes as usual; and whoever chanced to visit him at his beautiful estate, returned delighted with his entertainment and his hosts; so that, far and near, the merchant Alvar became noted alike for his munificence and the strict orthodox Catholicism in which he conducted his establishment.

And was Alvar Rodriguez indeed what he seemed? If so, what were those strange mysterious rites with which in secret he celebrated his marriage? For what were those many contrivances in his mansion, secret receptacles even from his own sitting-rooms, into which all kinds of forbidden food were conveyed from his very table, that his soul might not be polluted by disobedience? How did it so happen that one day in every year Alvar gave a general holiday—leave of absence for four and twenty hours, under some well-arranged pretence, to all save those who entreated permission to remain with him? And that on that day, Alvar, his wife, his Moorish secretary, and all those domestics who had witnessed his marriage, spent in holy fast and prayer—permitting no particle of food or drink to pass their lips from eve unto eve; or if, by any chance, the holiday could not be given, their several meals to be laid and served, yet so contriving that, while the food looked as if it had been partaken of, not a portion had they touched? That the Saturday should be passed in seeming preparation for the Sunday, in cessation from work of any kind, and in frequent prayer, was perhaps of trivial importance; but for the previous mysteries—mysteries known to Alvar, his wife, and five or six of his establishment, yet never by word or sign betrayed; how may we account for them? There may be some to whom the memory of such things, as common to their ancestors, may be yet familiar; but to by far the greater number of English readers, they are, in all probability, as incomprehensible as uncommon.

Alvar Rodriguez was a Jew. One of the many who, in Portugal and Spain, fulfilled the awful prophecy of their great lawgiver Moses, and bowed before the imaged saints and martyrs of the Catholic, to shrine the religion of their fathers yet closer in their hearts and homes. From father to son the secret of their faith and race descended, so early and so mysteriously taught, that little children imbibed it—not alone the faith, but so effectually to conceal it, as to avert and mystify all inquisitorial questioning, long before they knew the meaning or necessity of what they learned.

How this was accomplished, how the religion of God was thus preserved in the very midst of persecution and intolerance, must ever remain a mystery, as, happily for Israel such fearful training is no longer needed. But that it did exist, that Jewish children, in the very midst of monastic and convent tuition, yet adhered to the religion of their fathers, never by word or sign betrayed the secret with which they were intrusted; and, in their turn, became husbands and fathers, conveying their solemn and dangerous inheritance to their posterity—that such things were, there are those still amongst the Hebrews of England to affirm and recall, claiming among their own ancestry, but one generation removed, those who have thus concealed and thus adhered. It was the power of God, not the power of man. Human strength had been utterly inefficient. Torture and death would long before have annihilated every remnant of Israel’s devoted race. But it might not be; for God had spoken. And, as a living miracle, a lasting record of His truth, His justice, aye, and mercy, Israel was preserved in the midst of danger, in the very face of death, and will be preserved for ever.

It was no mere rejoicing ceremony, that of marriage, amongst the disguised and hidden Israelites of Portugal and Spain. They were binding themselves to preserve and propagate a persecuted faith. They were no longer its sole repositors. Did the strength of one waver, all was at end. They were united in the sweet links of love—framing for themselves new ties, new hopes, new blessings in a rising family—all of which, at one blow, might be destroyed. They existed in an atmosphere of death, yet they lived and flourished. But so situated, it was not strange that human emotion, both in Alvar and his bride, should, on their wedding-day, have gained ascendency; and the solemn hour which made them one in the sight of the God they worshipped, should have been fraught with a terror and a shuddering, of which Jewish lovers in free and happy England can have no knowledge.

Alvar Rodriguez was one of those high and noble spirits, on whom the chain of deceit and concealment weighed heavily; and there were times when it had been difficult to suppress and conceal his scorn of those outward observances which his apparent Catholicism compelled. When united to Almah, however, he had a stronger incentive than his own safety; and as time passed on, and he became a father, caution and circumspection, if possible, increased with the deep passionate feelings of tenderness towards the mother and child. As the boy grew and flourished, the first feelings of dread, which the very love he excited called forth at his birth, subsided into a kind of tranquil calm, which even Almah’s foreboding spirit trusted would last, as the happiness of others of her race.

Though Alvar’s business was carried on both at Montes and at Lisbon, the bulk of both his own and his wife’s property was, by a strange chance, invested at Badajoz, a frontier town of Spain, and whence he had often intended to remove it, but had always been prevented. It happened that early in the month of June, some affairs calling him to Lisbon, he resolved to delay removing it no longer, smiling at his young wife’s half solicitation to let it remain where it was, and playfully accusing her of superstition, a charge she cared not to deny. The night before his intended departure his young Moorish secretary, in other words, an Israelite of Barbary extraction, entered his private closet, with a countenance of entreaty and alarm, earnestly conjuring his master to give up his Lisbon expedition, and retire with his wife and son to Badajoz or Oporto, or some distant city, at least for a while. Anxiously Rodriguez inquired wherefore.

“You remember the Senor Leyva, your worship’s guest a week or two ago?”

“Perfectly. What of him?”

“Master, I like him not. If danger befall us it will come through him. I watched him closely, and every hour of his stay shrunk from him the more. He was a stranger?”

“Yes; benighted, and had lost his way. It was impossible to refuse him hospitality. That he stayed longer than he had need, I grant; but there is no cause of alarm in that—he liked his quarters.”

“Master,” replied the Moor, earnestly, “I do not believe his tale. He was no casual traveller. I cannot trust him.”

“You are not called upon to do so, man,” said Alvar, laughing. “What do you believe him to be that you would inoculate me with your own baseless alarm?”

Hassan Ben Ahmed’s answer, whatever it might be, for it was whispered fearfully in his master’s ear, had the effect of sending every drop of blood from Alvar’s face to his very heart. But he shook off the stagnating dread. He combated the prejudices of his follower as unreasonable and unfounded. Hassan’s alarm, however, could only be soothed by the fact, that so suddenly to change his plans would but excite suspicion. If Leyva were what he feared, his visit must already have been followed by the usual terrific effects.

Alvar promised, however, to settle his affairs at Lisbon as speedily as he could, and return for Almah and his son, and convey them to some place of greater security until the imagined danger was passed.

In spite of his assumed indifference, however, Rodriguez could not bid his wife and child farewell without a pang of dread, which it was difficult to conceal. The step between life and death—security and destruction—was so small, it might be passed unconsciously, and then the strongest nerve might shudder at the dark abyss before him. Again and again he turned to go, and yet again returned; and it was with a feeling literally of desperation he at length tore himself away.

A fearful trembling was on Almah’s heart as she gazed after him, but she would not listen to its voice.

“It is folly,” she said, self-upbraidingly. “My Alvar is ever chiding this too doubting heart. I will not disobey him, by fear and foreboding in his absence. The God of the nameless is with him and me,” and she raised her eyes to the blue arch above her, with an expression that needed not voice to mark it prayer.

About a week after Alvar’s departure, Almah was sitting by the cradle of her boy, watching his soft and rosy slumbers, with a calm, sweet thankfulness that such a treasure was her own. The season had been unusually hot and dry, but the apartment in which the young mother sat opened on a pleasant spot, thickly shaded with orange, lemon, and almond trees, and decked with a hundred other richly-hued and richly-scented plants; in the centre of which a fountain sent up its heavy showers, which fell back on the marble bed, with a splash and coolness peculiarly refreshing, and sparkled in the sun as glittering gems.

A fleet yet heavy step resounded from the garden, which seemed suddenly and forcibly restrained into a less agitated movement. A shadow fell between her and the sunshine, and, starting, Almah looked hastily up. Hassan Ben Ahmed stood before her, a paleness on his swarthy cheek, and a compression on his nether lip, betraying strong emotion painfully restrained.

“My husband! Hassan. What news bring you of him? Why are you alone?”

He laid his hand on her arm, and answered in a voice which so quivered that only ears eager as her own could have distinguished his meaning.

“Lady, dear, dear lady, you have a firm and faithful heart. Oh! for the love of Him who calls on you to suffer, awake its strength and firmness. My dear, my honoured lady, sink not, fail not! O God of mercy support her now!” he added, flinging himself on his knees before her, as Almah one moment sprang up with a smothered shriek, and the next sank back on her seat rigid as marble.

Not another word she needed. Hassan thought to have prepared, gradually to have told his dread intelligence; but he had said enough. Called upon to suffer, and for Him, her God—her doom was revealed in those brief words. One minute of such agonized struggle, that her soul and body seemed about to part beneath it; and the wife and mother roused herself to do. Lip, cheek, and brow vied in their ashen whiteness with her robe; the blue veins rose distended as cords; and the voice—had not Hassan gazed upon her, he had not known it as her own.

She commanded him to tell her briefly all, and even while he spoke, seemed revolving in her own mind the decision which not four and twenty hours after Hassan’s intelligence she put into execution.

It was as Ben Ahmed had feared. The known popularity and rumoured riches of Alvar Rodriguez had excited the jealousy of that secret and awful tribunal, the Inquisition, one of whose innumerable spies, under the feigned name of Leyva, had obtained entrance within Alvar’s hospitable walls. One unguarded word or movement, the faintest semblance of secrecy or caution, were all-sufficient; nay, without these, more than a common share of wealth or felicity was enough for the unconscious victims to be marked, tracked, and seized, without preparation or suspicion of their fate. Alvar had chanced to mention his intended visit to Lisbon; and the better to conceal the agent of his arrest, as also to make it more secure, they waited till his arrival there, watched their opportunity, and seized and conveyed him to those cells whence few returned in life, propagating the charge of relapsed Judaism as the cause of his arrest. It was a charge too common for remark, and the power which interfered too mighty for resistance. The confusion of the arrest soon subsided; but it lasted long enough for the faithful Hassan to escape, and, by dint of very rapid travelling, he reached Montes not four hours after his master’s seizure. The day was in consequence before them, and he ceased not to conjure his lady to fly at once; the officers of the Inquisition could scarcely be there before nightfall.

“You must take advantage of it, Hassan, and all of you who love me. For my child, my boy,” she had clasped him to her bosom, and a convulsion contracted her beautiful features as she spoke, “you must take care of him; convey him to Holland or England. Take jewels and gold sufficient; and—and make him love his parents—he may never see either of them more. Hassan, Hassan, swear to protect my child!” she added, with a burst of such sudden and passionate agony, it seemed as if life or reason must bend beneath it. Bewildered by her words, as terrified by her emotion, Ben Ahmed gently removed the trembling child from the fond arms that for the first time failed to support him, gave him hastily to the care of his nurse, who was also a Jewess, said a few words in Hebrew, detailing what had passed, beseeching her to prepare for flight, and then returned to his mistress. The effects of that prostrating agony remained, but she had so far conquered, as to seem outwardly calm; and in answer to his respectful and anxious looks, besought him not to fear for her, nor to dissuade her from her purpose, but to aid her in its accomplishment. She summoned her household around her, detailed what had befallen, and bade them seek their own safety in flight; and when in tears and grief they left her, and but those of her own faith remained, she solemnly committed her child to their care, and informed them of her own determination to proceed directly to Lisbon. In vain Hassan Ben Ahmed conjured her to give up the idea; it was little short of madness. How could she aid his master? why not secure her own safety, that if indeed he should escape, the blessing of her love would be yet preserved him?

“Do not fear for your master, Hassan,” was the calm reply; “ask not of my plans, for at this moment they seem but chaos, but of this be assured, we shall live or die together.”

More she revealed not; but when the officers of the Inquisition arrived, near nightfall, they found nothing but deserted walls. The magnificent furniture and splendid paintings which alone remained, of course were seized by the Holy Office, by whom Alvar’s property was also confiscated. Had his arrest been deferred three months longer, all would have gone—swept off by the same rapacious power, to whom great wealth was ever proof of great guilt—but as it was, the greater part, secured in Spain, remained untouched; a circumstance peculiarly fortunate, as Almah’s plans needed the aid of gold.

We have no space to linger on the mother’s feelings, as she parted from her boy; gazing on him, perhaps, for the last time. Yet she neither wept nor sighed. There was but one other feeling strong in that gentle bosom—a wife’s devotion—and to that alone she might listen now.

Great was old Gonzalos’ terror and astonishment when Almah, attended only by Hassan Ben Ahmed, and both attired in the Moorish costume, entered his dwelling and implored his concealment and aid. The arrest of Alvar Rodriguez had, of course, thrown every secret Hebrew into the greatest alarm, though none dared be evinced. Gonzalos’ only hope and consolation was that Almah and her child had escaped; and to see her in the very centre of danger, even to listen to her calmly proposed plans, seemed so like madness, that he used every effort to alarm her into their relinquishment. But this could not be; and with the darkest forebodings, the old man at length yielded to the stronger, more devoted spirit with whom he had to deal.

His mistress once safely under Gonzalos’ roof, Ben Ahmed departed, under cover of night, in compliance with her earnest entreaties, to rejoin her child, and to convey him and his nurse to England, that blessed land, where the veil of secrecy could be removed.

About a week after the incarceration of Alvar, a young Moor sought and obtained admission to the presence of Juan Pacheco, the secretary of the Inquisition, as informer against Alvar Rodriguez. He stated that he had taken service with him as clerk or secretary, on condition that he would give him baptism and instruction in the holy Catholic faith; that Alvar had not yet done so; that many things in his establishment proclaimed a looseness of orthodox principles, which the Holy Office would do well to notice. Meanwhile he humbly offered a purse containing seventy pieces of gold, to obtain masses for his salvation.

This last argument carried more weight than all the rest. The young Moor, who boldly gave his name as Hassan Ben Ahmed (which was confirmation strong of his previous statement, as in Leyva’s information of Alvar and his household the Moorish secretary was particularly specified), was listened to with attention, and finally received in Pacheco’s own household, as junior clerk and servant to the Holy Office.

Despite his extreme youthfulness and delicacy of figure, face, and voice, Hassan’s activity and zeal to oblige every member of the Holy Office, superiors and inferiors, gradually gained him the favour and goodwill of all. There was no end to his resources for serving others; and thus he had more opportunities of seeing the prisoners in a few weeks, than others of the same rank as himself had had in years. But the prisoner he most longed to see was still unfound, and it was not till summoned before his judges, in the grand hall of inquisition and of torture, Hassan Ben Ahmed gazed once more upon his former master. He had attended Pacheco in his situation of junior clerk, but had seated himself so deeply in the shade that, though every movement in both the face and form of Alvar was distinguishable to him, Hassan himself was invisible.

The trial, if trial such iniquitous proceedings may be called, proceeded; but in nought did Alvar Rodriguez fail in his bearing or defence. Marvellous and superhuman must that power have been which, in such a scene and hour, prevented all betrayal of the true faith the victims bore. Once Judaism confessed, the doom was death; and again and again have the sons of Israel remained in the terrible dungeons of the Inquisition—endured every species of torture during a space of seven, ten, or twelve years, and then been released, because no proof could be brought of their being indeed that accursed thing—a Jew. And then it was that they fled from scenes of such fearful trial to lands of toleration and freedom, and there embrace openly and rejoicingly that blessed faith, for which in secret they had borne so much.

Alvar Rodriguez was one of these—prepared to suffer, but not reveal. They applied the torture, but neither word nor groan was extracted from him. Engrossed with the prisoner, for it was his task to write down whatever disjointed words might escape his lips, Pacheco neither noticed not even remembered the presence of the young Moor. No unusual paleness could be visible on his embrowned cheek, but his whole frame felt to himself to have become rigid as stone; a deadly sickness had crept over him, and the terrible conviction of all which rested with him to do alone prevented his sinking senseless on the earth.

The terrible struggle was at length at an end. Alvar was released for the time being, and remanded to his dungeon. Availing himself of the liberty he enjoyed in the little notice now taken of his movements, Hassan reached the prison before either Alvar or his guards. A rapid glance told him its situation, overlooking a retired part of the court, cultivated as a garden. The height of the wall seemed about forty feet, and there were no windows of observation on either side. This was fortunate, the more so as Hassan had before made friends with the old gardener, and pretending excessive love of gardening, had worked just under the window, little dreaming its vicinity to him he sought.

A well-known Hebrew air, with its plaintive Hebrew words, sung tremblingly and softly under his window, first roused Alvar to the sense that a friend was near. He started, almost in superstitious terror, for the voice seemed an echo to that which was ever sounding in his heart. That loved one it could not be, nay, he dared not even wish it; but still the words were Hebrew, and, for the first time, memory flashed back a figure in Moorish garb who had flitted by him on his return to his prison, after his examination.