The Spanish Brothers. Deborah Alcock

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      With a cry of dismay on his lips, Carlos turned and looked at him – "God help us! Are we then Lutherans?"

      "It may be Christ is asking another question – Are we amongst those who follow him whithersoever he goeth?"

      "Oh, not there– not to that!" cried Carlos, rising in his agitation and beginning to pace the room. "I abhor heresy – I eschew the thought. From my cradle I have done so. Anywhere but that!"

      Pausing at last in his walk before the place where De Seso sat, he asked, "And you, señor, have you considered whither this would lead?"

      "I have. I do not ask thee to follow. But this I say: if Christ bids any man leave the ship and come to him upon these dark and stormy waters, he will stretch out his own right hand to uphold and sustain him."

      "To leave the ship – his Church? That would be leaving him. And leaving him, I am lost, soul and body – lost – lost!"

      "Fear not. At his feet, clinging to him, soul of man was never lost yet."

      "I will cleave to him, and to the Church too."

      "Still, if one must be forsaken, let not that one be Christ."

      "Never, never– so help me God!" After a pause he added, as if speaking to himself, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

      He stood motionless, wrapt in thought; while De Seso rose softly, and going to the window, put aside the rude shutter that had been fastened across it.

      "The night is bright," said Carlos dreamily. "The moon must have risen."

      "That is daylight you see," returned his companion with a smile. "Time for wayfarers to seek rest in sleep."

      "Prayer is better than sleep."

      "True, and we who own the same precious faith can well unite in prayer."

      With the willing consent of Carlos, his new friend laid their common desires and perplexities before God. The prayer was in itself a revelation to him; he forgot even to wonder that it came from the lips of a layman. For De Seso spoke as one accustomed to converse with the Unseen, and to enter by faith to the inner sanctuary, the very presence of God himself. And Carlos found that it was good thus to draw nigh to God. He felt his troubled soul returning to its rest, to its quiet confidence in Him who, he knew, would guide him by his counsel, and afterwards receive him into glory.

      When they rose, instinctively their right hands sought each other, and were locked in that strong grasp which is sometimes worth more than an embrace.

      "We have confidence each in the other," said De Seso, "so that we need exchange no pledge of faithfulness or secrecy."

      Carlos bowed his head. "Pray for me, señor," he said. "Pray that God, who sent you here to teach me, may in his own time complete the work he has begun."

      Then both lay down in their cloaks; one to sleep, the other to ponder and pray.

      In the morning each went his several way. And never was it given to Carlos, in this world, to look upon that face or to grasp that hand again.

      He who had thus crossed his path, as it were for a moment, was perhaps the noblest of all the heroic band of Spanish martyrs, that forlorn hope of Christ's army, who fought and fell "where Satan's seat was." His high birth and lofty station, his distinguished abilities, even those more superficial graces of person and manner which are not without their strong fascination, were all – like the precious ointment with the odour of which the house was filled – consecrated to the service of the Lord for whom he lived and died. The eye of imagination lingers with special and reverential love upon that grand calm figure. But our simple story leads us far away amongst other scenes and other characters. We must now turn to a different part of the wide missionary harvest-field, in which the lowly muleteer Juliano Hernandez, and the great noble Don Carlos de Seso, were both labouring. Was their labour in vain?