“I did not.” The stern old man seemed to shrink bodily under the frightful humiliation to which he was subjected.
“Very well, then you cannot swear that she was not in the room. But you did not see her there. Then I am sorry to say that there can have been no extenuating circumstances. You entered his Highness’s bedchamber, you did not even speak to him, you drew your sword and you killed him. All this shows that you went there fully determined to commit the crime. But with regard to its motive, this strange confession of your daughter’s makes that quite clear. She had been extremely imprudent with Don John, you were aware of the fact, and you revenged yourself in the most brutal way. Such vengeance never can produce any but the most fatal results. You yourself must die, in the first place, a degrading and painful death on the scaffold, and you die leaving behind you a ruined girl, who must bury herself in a convent and never be seen by her worldly equals again. And besides that, you have deprived your King of a beloved brother, and Spain of her most brilliant general. Could anything be worse?”
“Yes. There are worse things than that, your Majesty, and worse things have been done. It would have been a thousand times worse if I had done the deed and cast the blame of it on a man so devoted to me that he would bear the guilt in my stead, and a hundred thousand times worse if I had then held up that man to the execration of mankind, and tortured him with every distortion of evidence which great falsehoods can put upon a little truth. That would indeed have been far worse than anything I have done. God may find forgiveness for murderers, but there is only hell for traitors, and the hell of hells is the place of men who betray their friends.”
“His mind is unsettled, I fear,” said the King, speaking to Perez. “These are signs of madness.”
“Indeed I fear so, Sire,” answered the smooth Secretary, shaking his head solemnly. “He does not know what he says.”
“I am not mad, and I know what I am saying, for I am a man under the hand of death.” Mendoza’s eyes glared at the King savagely as he spoke, and then at Perez, but neither could look at him, for neither dared to meet his gaze. “As for this confession my daughter has made, I do not believe in it. But if she has said these things, you might have let me die without the bitterness of knowing them, since that was in your power. And God knows that I have staked my life freely for your Majesty and for Spain these many years, and would again if I had it to lose instead of having thrown it away. And God knows, too, that for what I have done, be it good or bad, I will bear whatsoever your Majesty shall choose to say to me alone in the way of reproach. But as I am a dying man I will not forgive that scribbler there for having seen a Spanish gentleman’s honour torn to rags, and an old soldier’s last humiliation, and I pray Heaven with my dying breath, that he may some day be tormented as he has seen me tormented, and worse, till he shall cry out for mercy — as I will not!”
The cruelly injured man’s prayer was answered eight years from that day, and even now Perez turned slowly pale as he heard the words, for they were spoken with all the vehemence of a dying man’s curse. But Philip was unmoved. He was probably not making Mendoza suffer merely for the pleasure of watching his pain, though others’ suffering seems always to have caused him a sort of morbid satisfaction. What he desired most was to establish a logical reason for which Mendoza might have committed the crime, lest in the absence of sound evidence he himself should be suspected of having instigated it. He had no intention whatever of allowing Mendoza to be subjected to torture during the trial that was to ensue. On the contrary, he intended to prepare all the evidence for the judges and to prevent Mendoza from saying anything in self-defence. To that end it was necessary that the facts elicited should be clearly connected from first cause to final effect, and by the skill of Antonio Perez in writing down only the words which contributed to that end, the King’s purpose was now accomplished. He heard every word of Mendoza’s imprecation and thought it proper to rebuke him for speaking so freely.
“You forget yourself, sir,” he said coldly. “Don Antonio Perez is my private Secretary, and you must respect him. While you belonged to the court his position was higher and more important than your own; now that you stand convicted of an outrageous murder in cold blood, you need not forget that he is an innocent man. I have done, Mendoza. You will not see me again, for you will be kept in confinement until your trial, which can only have one issue. Come here.”
He sat upright in his chair and held out his hand, while Mendoza approached with unsteady steps, and knelt upon one knee, as was the custom.
“I am not unforgiving,” said the King. “Forgiveness is a very beautiful Christian virtue, which we are taught to exercise from our earliest childhood. You have cut off my dearly loved brother in the flower of his youth, but you shall not die believing that I bear you any malice. So far as I am able, I freely forgive you for what you have done, and in token I give you my hand, that you may have that comfort at the last.”
With incredible calmness Philip took Mendoza’s hand as he spoke, held it for a moment in his, and pressed it almost warmly at the last words. The old man’s loyalty to his sovereign had been a devotion almost amounting to real adoration, and bitterly as he had suffered throughout the terrible interview, he well-nigh forgot every suffering as he felt the pressure of the royal fingers. In an instant he had told himself that it had all been but a play, necessary to deceive Perez, and to clear the King from suspicion before the world, and that in this sense the unbearable agony he had borne had served his sovereign. He forgot all for a moment, and bending his iron-grey head, he kissed the thin and yellow hand fervently, and looked up to Philip’s cold face and felt that there were tears of gratitude in his own eyes, of gratitude at being allowed to leave the world he hated with the certainty that his death was to serve his sovereign idol.
“I shall be faithful to your Majesty until the end,” he said simply, as the King withdrew his fingers, and he rose to his feet.
The King nodded slowly, and his stony look watched Mendoza with a sort of fixed curiosity. Even he had not known that such men lived.
“Call the guards to the door, Perez,” he said coldly. “Tell the officer to take Don Diego Mendoza to the west tower for to-night, and to treat him with every consideration.”
Perez obeyed. A detachment of halberdiers with an officer were stationed in the short, broad corridor that led to the room where Dolores was waiting. Perez gave the lieutenant his orders.
Mendoza walked backwards to the door from the King’s presence, making three low bows as he went. At the door he turned, taking no notice of the Secretary, marched out with head erect, and gave himself up to the soldiers.
CHAPTER XVII
THE HALBERDIERS CLOSED round their old chief, but did not press upon him. Three went before him, three behind, and one walked on each side, and the lieutenant led the little detachment. The men were too much accustomed to seeing courtiers in the extremes of favour and disfavour to be much surprised at the arrest of Mendoza, and they felt no great sympathy for him. He had always been too rigidly exacting for their taste, and they longed for a younger commander who should devote more time to his own pleasure and less to inspecting uniforms and finding fault with details. Yet Mendoza had been a very just man, and he possessed the eminently military bearing and temper which always impose themselves on soldiers. At the present moment, too, they were more inclined to pity him than to treat him roughly, for if they did not guess what had really taken place, they were quite sure that Don John of Austria had been murdered by the King’s orders, like Don Carlos and Queen Isabel and a fair number of other unfortunate persons; and if the King had chosen Mendoza to do the deed, the soldiers thought that he was probably not meant to suffer for it in the end, and that before long he would be restored to his command. It would, therefore, be the better for them, later, if they showed him a certain deference in his misfortune. Besides, they had heard Antonio Perez tell their officer that Mendoza was to be treated with every consideration.
They marched in time, with heavy tread and the swinging gait to right and left that is natural to a soldier who carries for a weapon a long halberd with a very heavy head. Mendoza was as tall as any of them, and kept their step, holding his head high. He was bareheaded, but was otherwise still in the complete uniform he wore when on duty on state occasions.
The corridor, which seemed short on account of its breadth and in comparison with the great size of the halls in the palace, was some thirty paces long and lighted by a number of chandeliers that hung from the painted vault. The party reached the door of the waiting room and halted a moment, while one of the King’s footmen opened the doors wide. Don Ruy Gomez and Dolores were waiting within. The servant passed rapidly through to open the doors beyond. Ruy Gomez stood up and drew his chair aside, somewhat surprised at the entrance of the soldiers, who rarely passed that way. Dolores opened her eyes at the sound of marching, but in the uncertain light of the candles she did not at first see Mendoza, half hidden as he was by the men who guarded him. She paid little attention, for she was accustomed to seeing such detachments of halberdiers marching through the corridors when the sentries were relieved, and as she had never been in the King’s apartments she was not surprised by the sudden appearance of the soldiers, as her companion was. But as the latter made way for them he lifted his hat, which as a Grandee he wore even in the King’s presence, and he bent his head courteously as Mendoza went by. He hoped that Dolores would not see her father, but his own recognition of the prisoner had attracted her attention. She sprang to her feet with a cry. Mendoza turned his head and saw her before she could reach him, for she was moving forward. He stood still, and the soldiers halted instinctively and parted before her, for they all knew their commander’s daughter.
“Father!” she cried, and she tried to take his hand.
But he pushed her away and turned his face resolutely towards the door before him.
“Close up! Forward — march!” he said, in his harsh tone of command.
The men obeyed, gently forcing Dolores aside. They made two steps forward, but Ruy Gomez stopped them by a gesture, standing in their way and raising one hand, while he laid the other on the young lieutenant’s shoulder. Ruy Gomez was one of the greatest personages in Spain; he was the majorduomo of the palace, and had almost unlimited authority. But the officer had his orders directly from the King and felt bound to carry them out to the letter.
“His Majesty has directed me to convey Don Diego de Mendoza to the west tower without delay,” he said. “I beg your Excellency to let us proceed.”
Ruy Gomez still held him by the shoulder with a gentle pressure.
“That I will not,” he said firmly; “and if you are blamed for being slow in the execution of your duty, say that Ruy Gomez de Silva hindered you, and fear nothing. It is not right that father and daughter should part as these two are parting.”
“I have nothing to say to my daughter,” said Mendoza harshly; but the words seemed to hurt him.
“Don Diego,” answered Ruy Gomez, “the deed of which you have accused yourself is as much worse than anything your child has done as hatred is worse than love. By the right of mere humanity I take upon myself to say that you shall be left here a while with your daughter, that you may take leave of one another.” He turned to the officer. “Withdraw your men, sir,” he said. “Wait at the door. You have my word for the security of your prisoner, and my authority for what you do. I will call you when it is time.”
He spoke in a tone that admitted of no refusal, and he was obeyed. The officers and the men filed out, and Ruy Gomez closed the door after them. He himself recrossed the room and went out by the other way into the broad corridor. He meant to wait there. His orders had been carried out so quickly that Mendoza found himself alone with Dolores, almost as by a surprise. In his desperate mood he resented what Ruy Gomez had done, as an interference in his family affairs, and he bent his bushy brows together as he stood facing Dolores, with folded arms. Four hours had not passed since they had last spoken together alone in his own dwelling; there was a lifetime of tragedy between that moment and this.
Dolores had not spoken since he had pushed her away. She stood beside a chair, resting one hand upon it, dead white, with the dark shadow of pain under her eyes, her lips almost colourless, but firm, and evenly closed. There were lines of suffering in her young face that looked as if they never could be effaced. It seemed to her that the worst conflict of all was raging in her heart as she watched her father’s face, waiting for the sound of his voice; and as for him, he would rather have gone back to the King’s presence to be tormented under the eyes of Antonio Perez than stand there, forced to see her and speak to her. In his eyes, in the light of what he had been told, she was a ruined and shameless woman, who had deceived him day in, day out, for more than two years. And to her, so far as she could understand, he was the condemned murderer of the man she had so innocently and truly loved. But yet, she had a doubt, and for that possibility, she had cast her good name to the winds in the hope of saving his life. At one moment, in a vision of dread, she saw his armed hand striking at her lover — at the next she felt that he could never have struck the blow, and that there was an unsolved mystery behind it all. Never were two innocent human beings so utterly deceived, each about the other.
“Father,” she said, at last, in a trembling tone, “can you not speak to me, if I can find heart to hear you?”
“What can we two say to each other?” he asked sternly. “Why did you stop me? I am ready to die for killing the man who ruined you. I am glad. Why should I say anything to you, and what words can you have for me? I hope your end may come quickly, with such peace as you can find from your shame at the last. That is what I wish for you, and it is a good wish, for you have made death on the scaffold look easy to me, so that I long for it. Do you understand?”
“Condemned to death!” she cried out, almost incoherently, before he had finished speaking. “But they cannot condemn you — I have told them that I was there — that it was not you — they must believe me — O God of mercy!”
“They believe you — yes. They believe that I found you together and killed him. I shall be tried by judges, but I am condemned beforehand, and I must die.” He spoke calmly enough. “Your mad confession before the court only made my conviction more certain,” he said. “It gave the reason for the deed — and it burned away the last doubt I had. If they are slow in trying me, you will have been before the executioner, for he will find me dead — by your hand. You might have spared me that — and spared yourself. You still had the remnant of a good name, and your lover being dead, you might have worn the rag of your honour still. You have chosen to throw it away, and let me know my full disgrace before I die a disgraceful death. And yet you wish to speak to me. Do you expect my blessing?”
Dolores had lost the power of speech. Passing her hand now and then across her forehead, as though trying to brush away a material veil, she stood half paralyzed, staring wildly at him while he spoke. But when she saw him turn away from her towards the door, as if he would go out and leave her there, her strength was loosed from the spell, and she sprang before him and caught his wrists with her hands.
“I am as innocent as when my mother bore me,” she said, and her low voice rang with the truth. “I told the lie to save your life. Do you believe me now?”
He gazed at her with haggard eyes for many moments before he spoke.
“How can it be true?” he asked, but his voice shook in his throat. “You were there — I saw you leave his room—”
“No, that you never saw!” she cried, well knowing how impossible it was, since she had been locked in till after he had gone away.
“I saw your dress — not this one — what you wore this afternoon.”
“Not this one? I put on this court dress before I got out of the room in which you had locked me up. Inez helped me — I pretended that I was she, and wore her cloak, and slipped away, and I have not been back again. You did
not see me.”
Mendoza passed his hand over his eyes and drew back from her. If what she said were true, the strongest link was gone from the chain of facts by which he had argued so much sorrow and shame. Forgetting himself and his own near fate, he looked at the court dress she wore, and a mere glance convinced him that it was not the one he had seen.
“But—” he was suddenly confused— “but why did you need to disguise yourself? I left the Princess of Eboli with you, and I gave her permission to take you away to stay with her. You needed no disguise.”
“I never saw her. She must have found Inez in the room. I was gone long before that.”
“Gone — where?” Mendoza was fast losing the thread of it all — in his confusion of ideas he grasped the clue of his chief sorrow, which was far beyond any thought for himself. “But if you are innocent — pray God you may be, as you say — how is it possible — oh, no! I cannot believe it — I cannot! No woman could do that — no innocent girl could stand out before a multitude of men and women, and say what you said—”
“I hoped to save your life. I had the strength. I did it.”
Her clear grey eyes looked into his, and his doubt began to break away before the truth.
“Make me believe it!” he cried, his voice breaking. “Oh, God! Make me believe it before I die!”
“It is true,” she cried, in a low, strong voice that carried belief to his breast in spite of such reasoning as still had some power over him. “It is true, and you shall believe it; and if you will not, the man you have killed, the man I loved and trusted, the dead man who knows the whole truth as I know it, will come back from the dead to prove it true — for I swear it upon his soul in heaven, and upon yours and mine that will not be long on earth — as I will swear it in the hour of your death and mine, since we must die!”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 973