(On reverting to the disastrous issue of his appeal, the unfortunate Spaniard was so much overcome, that it was some days before he could resume his narrative.)
VII
Pandere res alta terrâ et caligine mersas.
I’ll show your Grace the strangest sight—
Henry the Eighth
Body o’me, what is it, Butts?—
Of the desolation of mind into which the rejection of my appeal plunged me, I can give no account, for I retain no distinguishing image. All colours disappear in the night, and despair has no diary—monotony is her essence and her curse. Hours have I walked in the garden, without retaining a single impression but that of the sounds of my footsteps;—thought, feeling, passion, and all that employs them—life and futurity, extinct and swallowed up. I was already like an inhabitant of the land where “all things are forgotten.” I hovered on the regions of mental twilight, where the “light is as darkness.” The clouds were gathering that portended the approach of utter night—they were scattered by a sudden and extraordinary light.
The garden was my constant resort—a kind of instinct supplying the place of that choice I had no longer energy enough to make, directed me there to avoid the presence of the monks. One evening I saw a change in its appearance. The fountain was out of repair. The spring that supplied it was beyond the walls of the convent, and the workmen, in prosecuting the repairs, had found it necessary to excavate a passage under the garden-wall, that communicated with an open space in the city. This passage, however, was closely watched during the day while the workmen were employed, and well secured at night by a door erected for the purpose, which was chained, barred, and bolted, the moment the workmen quitted the passage. It was, however, left open during the day; and this tantalizing image of escape and freedom, amid the withering certainty of eternal imprisonment, gave a kind of awakened sting to the pains that were becoming obtuse. I entered the passage, and drew as close as possible to the door that shut me out from life. My seat was one of the stones that were scattered about, my head rested on my hand, and my eyes were sadly fixed on the tree and the well, the scene of that false miracle. I knew not how long I sat thus. I was aroused by a slight noise near me, and perceived a paper, which someone was thrusting under the door, where a slight inequality in the ground rendered the attempt just practicable. I stooped and attempted to seize it. It was withdrawn; but a moment after a voice, whose tones my agitation did not permit me to distinguish, whispered, “Alonzo.”
“Yes—yes,” I answered eagerly. The paper was instantly thrust into my hands, and I heard a sound of steps retreating rapidly.
I lost not a moment in reading the few words it contained.
“Be here tomorrow evening at the same hour. I have suffered much on your account—destroy this.”
It was the hand of my brother Juan, that hand so well remembered from our late eventful correspondence—that hand whose traces I never beheld without feeling corresponding characters of hope and confidence retraced in my soul, as lines before invisible appear on exposure to the heat that seems to vivify them. I am surprised that between this and the following evening my agitation did not betray me to the community. But perhaps it is only agitation arising from frivolous causes, that vents itself in external indications—I was absorbed in mine. It is certain, at least, that my mind was all that day vacillating like a clock that struck every minute the alternate sounds, “There is hope—there is no hope.” The day—the eternal day, was at last over. Evening came on; how I watched the advancing shades! At vespers, with what delight did I trace the gradual mellowing of the gold and purple tinges that gleamed through the great eastern window, and calculated that their western decline, though slower, must come at last!—It came. Never was a more propitious evening. It was calm and dark—the garden deserted, not a form to be seen, not a step to be heard in the walks.—I hurried on. Suddenly I thought I heard the sound of something pursuing me. I paused—it was but the beating of my own heart, audible in the deep stillness of that eventful moment. I pressed my hand on my breast, as a mother would on an infant whom she tried to pacify;—it did not cease to throb, however. I entered the passage. I approached the door, of which hope and despair seemed to stand the alternate portresses. The words still rung in my ears, “Be here tomorrow evening at the same hour.” I stooped, and saw, with eyes that devoured the sight, a piece of paper appear under the door. I seized and buried it in my habit. I trembled with such ecstacy, that I thought I never should be able to
