Read Ebook: Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom by Allies T W Thomas William

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Ebook has 231 lines and 13522 words, and 5 pages

CHAP. PAGE.

MARIANELA.

GONE ASTRAY.

The sun had set. After the brief interval of twilight the night fell calm and dark, and in its gloomy bosom the last sounds of a sleepy world died gently away. The traveller went forward on his way, hastening his step as night came on; the path he followed was narrow and worn by the constant tread of men and beasts, and led gently up a hill on whose verdant slopes grew picturesque clumps of wild cherry trees, beeches and oaks.--The reader perceives that we are in the north of Spain.

Our traveller was a man of middle age, strongly built, tall and broad-shouldered; his movements were brisk and resolute, his step firm, his manner somewhat rugged, his eye bold and bright; his pace was nimble, considering that he was decidedly stout, and he was--the reader may at once be told, though somewhat prematurely--as good a soul as you may meet with anywhere. He was dressed, as a man in easy circumstances should be dressed for a journey in spring weather, with one of those round shady hats, which, from their ugly shape, have been nicknamed mushrooms , a pair of field-glasses hanging to a strap, and a knotted stick which, when he did not use it to support his steps, served to push aside the brambles when they flung their thorny branches across so as to catch his dress.

He presently stopped, and gazing round the dim horizon, he seemed vexed and puzzled. He evidently was not sure of his way and was looking round for some passing native of the district who might give him such topographical information as might enable him to reach his destination.

But before he had gone much farther, he added: "I have lost my way, beyond a doubt I have lost my way.--This, Teodoro Golfin, is the result of your 'on, straight on.' Bah! these blockheads do not know the meaning of words; either they meant to laugh at you or else they did not know the way to the mines of Socartes. A huge mining establishment must be evident to the senses, with its buildings and chimneys, its noise of hammers and snorting of furnaces, neighing of horses and clattering of machinery--and I neither see, nor hear, nor smell anything. I might be in a desert! How absolutely solitary! If I believed in witches, I could fancy that Fate intended me this night to have the honor of making acquaintance with some. Deuce take it! why is there no one to be seen in these parts? And it will be half an hour yet before the moon rises. Ah! treacherous Luna, it is you who are to blame for my misadventure.--If only I could see what sort of place I am in.--However, what could I expect?" and he shrugged his shoulders with the air of a vigorous man who scorns danger. "What, Golfin, after having wandered all round the world are you going to give in now? The peasants were right after all: 'on, straight on.' The universal law of locomotion cannot fail me here."

And he bravely set out to test the law, and went on about a kilometre farther, following the paths which seemed to start from under his feet, crossing each other and breaking off at a short distance, in a thousand angles which puzzled and tired him. Stout as his resolution was, at last he grew weary of his vain efforts. The paths, which had at first all led upwards, began to slope downwards as they crossed each other, and at last he came to so steep a slope that he could only hope to get to the bottom by rolling down it.

"A pretty state of things!" he exclaimed, trying to console himself for this provoking situation by his sense of the ridiculous. "Where have you got to now my friend? This is a perfect abyss. Is anything to be seen at the bottom. No, nothing, absolutely nothing--the hill-side has disappeared, the earth has been dug away. There is nothing to be seen but stones and barren soil tinged red with iron. I have reached the mines, no doubt of that--and yet there is not a living soul to be seen, no smoky chimneys; no noise, not a train in the distance, not even a dog barking. What am I to do? Out there the path seems to slope up again.--Shall I follow that? Shall I leave the beaten track? Shall I go back again? Oh! this is absurd! Either I am not myself or I will reach Socartes to-night, and be welcomed by my worthy brother! 'On, straight on.'"

He took a step, and his foot sank in the soft and crumbling soil. "What next, ye ruling stars? Am I to be swallowed up alive? If only that lazy moon would favor us with a little light we might see each other's faces--and, upon my soul, I can hardly expect to find Paradise at the bottom of this hole. It seems to be the crater of some extinct volcano.... Nothing could be easier than a slide down this beautiful precipice. What have we here?... A stone; capital--a good seat while I smoke a cigar and wait for the moon to rise."

The philosophical Golfin seated himself as calmly as if it were a bench by a promenade, and was preparing for his smoke, when he heard a voice--yes, beyond a doubt, a human voice, at some little distance--a plaintive air, or to speak more accurately, a melancholy chant of a single phrase, of which the last cadence was prolonged into a "dying fall," and which at last sank into the silence of the night, so softly that the ear could not detect when it ceased.

"Come," said the listener, well pleased, "there are some human beings about. That was a girl's voice; yes, certainly a girl's, and a lovely voice too. I like the popular airs of this country-side. Now it has stopped.... Hark! it will soon begin again.... Yes, I hear it once more. What a beautiful voice, and what a pathetic air! You might believe that it rose from the bowels of the earth, and that Se?or Golfin, the most matter-of-fact and least superstitious man in this world, was going to make acquaintance with sylphs, nymphs, gnomes, dryads, and all the rabble rout that obey the mysterious spirit of the place.--But, if I am not mistaken, the voice is going farther away--the fair singer is departing.... Hi, girl, child, stop--wait a minute!..."

The voice which had for a few minutes so charmed the lost wanderer with its enchanting strains was dying away in the dark void, and at the shouts of Golfin it was suddenly silent. Beyond a doubt the mysterious gnome, who was solacing its underground loneliness by singing its plaintive loves, had taken fright at this rough interruption by a human being, and fled to the deepest caverns of the earth, where precious gems lay hidden, jealous of their own splendor.

"This is a pleasant state of things--" muttered Golfin, thinking that after all he could do no better than light his cigar.--"There seems no reason why it should not go on for a hundred years. I can smoke and wait. It was a clever idea of mine that I could walk up alone to the mines of Socartes. My luggage will have got there before me--a signal proof of the advantages of 'on, straight on.'"

A light breeze at this instant sprang up, and Golfin fancied he heard the sound of footsteps at the bottom of the unknown--or imaginary--abyss before him; he listened sharply, and in a minute felt quite certain that some one was walking below. He stood up and shouted:

"Girl, man, or whoever you are, can I get to the mines of Socartes by this road?"

He had not done speaking when he heard a dog barking wildly, and then a manly voice saying: "Choto, Choto! come here!"

"Hi there!" cried the traveller. "My good friend--man, boy, demon, or whatever you are, call back your dog, for I am a man of peace."

"Choto, Choto!..."

Golfin could make out the form of a large, black dog coming towards him, but after sniffing round him it retired at its master's call; and at that moment the traveller could distinguish a figure, a man, standing as immovable as a stone image, at about ten paces below him, on a slanting pathway which seemed to cut across the steep incline. This path, and the human form standing there, became quite clear now to Golfin, who, looking up to the sky, exclaimed:

"Thank God! here is the mad moon at last; now we can see where we are. I had not the faintest notion that a path existed so close to me, why, it is quite a road. Tell me, my friend, do you know whether the mines of Socartes are hereabout?"

"Yes, Se?or, these are the mines of Socartes; but we are at some distance from the works."

The voice which spoke thus was youthful and pleasant, with the attractive inflection that indicates a polite readiness to be of service. The doctor was well pleased at detecting this, and still better pleased at observing the soft light, which was spreading through the darkness and bringing resurrection to earth and sky, as though calling them forth from nothingness.

"Are you going to the works?" asked the strange youth, without stirring from the spot or looking up towards the doctor, who was now quite near him.

"Yes, Se?or; but I have certainly lost my way."

"Well, this is not the entrance to the mines. The entrance is by the steps at Rabagones, from which the road runs and the tram-way that they are making. If you had gone that way you would have reached the works in ten minutes. From here it is a long way, and a very bad road. We are at the outer circle of the mining galleries, and shall have to go through passages and tunnels, down ladders, through cuttings, up slopes, and then down the inclined plane; in short, cross the mines from this side to the other, where the workshops are and the furnaces, the machines and the smelting-house."

"Well, I seem to have been uncommonly stupid," said Golfin, laughing.

"I will guide you with much pleasure, for I know every inch of the place."

Golfin, whose feet sank in the loose earth, slipping here and tottering there, had at last reached the solid ground of the path, and his first idea was to look closely at the good-natured lad who addressed him. For a minute or two he was speechless with surprise.

"You!" he said, in a low voice.

"I am blind, it is true, Se?or," said the boy. "But I can run without seeing from one end to the other of the mines of Socartes. This stick I carry prevents my stumbling, and Choto is always with me, when I have not got Nela with me, who is my guide. So, follow me, Se?or, and allow me to guide you."

GUIDED RIGHT.

"And were you born blind?" asked Golfin, with eager interest, arising not only from compassion.

"Yes, Se?or, born blind," replied the lad, with perfect simplicity. "I only know the world by fancy, feeling and hearing. I have learned to understand that the most wonderful portion of the universe is that which is unknown to me. I know that the eyes of other people are not like mine, since they are able to distinguish things by them--but the power seems to me so extraordinary, that I cannot even imagine the possibility of its existence."

"Who knows ..." Golfin began. "But what strange scene is this, my friend? What a wonderful place we are in!"

The traveller, who had been walking by the side of his companion, stood still in astonishment at the weird view which lay before him. They were in a deep basin resembling the crater of a volcano; the ground at the bottom was broken and rough, and the sloping sides still more so. Round the margin and in the middle of the vast caldron, which looked even larger than it was in the deceptive chiaroscuro of the moonlit night, stood colossal figures, deformed caricatures of humanity, monsters lying prone with their feet in the air, with arms spread in despair, stunted growths, distorted faces such as we see in the whimsical wreathing of floating clouds--but all still, silent, and turned to stone. In color they were mummy-like, a reddish bistre; their action suggested the delirium of fever arrested by sudden death. It was as though giant forms had petrified in the midst of some demoniacal orgy, and their gestures and the burlesque grimaces of the monstrous heads had been stricken into fixity, like the motionless attitudes of sculpture. The silence which prevailed in this volcanic-looking hollow was itself terrifying. One might fancy that the cries and shrieks of a thousand voices had been petrified too, and had been held there locked in stone for ages.

"Where are we, my young friend?" asked Golfin. "This place is like a nightmare."

"A wonderful effect,--yes--" said the stranger, who still stood gazing at the scene, "but which to me is more terrible than pleasing, for it reminds me of the horrors of neuralgia.--Shall I tell you what it is like? It is as if I were standing inside a monstrous brain suffering from a fearful headache. Those figures are like the images which present themselves to the tortured brain, and become confounded with the hideous fancies and visions created by a fevered mind."

"Choto, Choto, here!" called the blind lad. "Take care now, Se?or, how you walk; we are going into a gallery." And, in fact, Golfin saw that his guide, feeling with his stick, was making his way towards a narrow entrance distinguished by three stout posts.

The dog went in first, snuffing at the black cavern; the blind boy followed him with the calm indifference of a man who dwells in perpetual darkness. Golfin followed, not without some instinctive trepidation and repugnance at an underground expedition.

"It is really wonderful," he said, "that you should go in and out of such a place without stumbling."

"I have lived all my life in these places, and know them as well as my own home. Here it is very cold; wrap yourself up if have you a cloak with you. We shall soon be out at the other end." He walked on, feeling his way with his hand along the wall, which was formed of upright beams, and saying:

"Mind you do not stumble over the ruts in the path; they bring the mineral along here from the diggings above. Are you cold?"

"Tell me," said the doctor, gaily. "Are you quite certain that the earth has not swallowed us up? This passage is the gullet of some monstrous insectivorous brute into whose stomach we miserable worms have inadvertently crept.--Do you often take a walk in this delectable spot?"

"Yes, often, and at all hours, and I think the place delightful. Now we are in the most arid part--the ground here is pure sand--now we are on the stones again. Here there is a constant drip of sulphurous water, and down there we have a block of rock in which there are petrified shells. There are layers of slate over there. Do you hear that toad croaking? we are near the opening now; the rascal sits there every night; I know him quite well. He has a hoarse, slow voice."

"Who--the toad?"

"Yes, Se?or; we are near the end now."

"So I see; it looks like an eye staring at us--that is the mouth of the corridor."

No sooner were they out in the air again, than the first thing that struck the doctor's ear was the same melancholy song as he had heard before. The blind boy heard it too; he turned round to his companion and said, smiling with pride and pleasure:

"Do you hear her?"

"I heard that voice before and it charmed me wonderfully. Who is the singer?"

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