The duke knows and trusts me. Shall I be commissioned to acquaint him with thy arrest, and entreat his intercession with Philip?"
"You give me new life! But not an hour is to be lost; this night--this day-oh, Mother of Mercy! what image have you conjured up! fly to Uzeda, if you would save my very reason. I myself have scarcely seen him since my boyhood--Lerma forbade me seek his friendship. But I am of his race-- his blood."
"Be cheered, I shall see the duke to-day. I have business with him where you wot not. We are bringing strange events to a crisis. Hope the best." With this the governor took his leave.
At the dusk of the evening, Don Juan de la Nuza, wrapped in a dark mantle, stood before a small door deep-set in a massive and gloomy wall, that stretched along one side of a shunned and deserted street. Without sign of living hand, the door opened at his knock, and the governor entered a long and narrow passage that conducted to chambers more associated with images of awe than any in his own prison. Here he suddenly encountered the Jesuit, Fray Louis de Aliaga, confessor to the king.
"How fares the Grand Inquisitor?" asked De la Nuza. "He has just breathed his last," answered the Jesuit. "His illness--so sudden-- defied all aid. Sandoval y Roxas is with the saints."
The governor, who was, as the reader may suppose, one of the sacred body, crossed himself, and answered.--"With whom will rest the appointment of the successor? Who will be first to gain the ear of the king?"
"I know not," replied the Jesuit; "but I am at this instant summoned to Uzeda. Pardon my haste."
So saying, Aliaga glided away.
"With Sandoval y Roxas," muttered Don Juan, "dies the last protector of Calderon and Lerma: unless, indeed, the wily marquis can persuade the king to make Aliaga, his friend, the late cardinal's successor. But Aliaga seeks Uzeda--Uzeda his foe and rival. What can this portend?"
Thus soliloquising, the governor silently continued his way till he came to a door by which stood two men, masked, who saluted him with a mute inclination of the head. The door opened and again closed, as the governor entered. Meanwhile, the confessor had gained the palace of the Duke d' Uzeda. Uzeda was not alone: with him was a man whose sallow complexion, ill-favoured features, and simple dress strangely contrasted the showy person and sumptuous habiliments of the duke. But the instant this personage opened his lips, the comparison was no longer to his prejudice. Something in the sparkle of his deep-set eye-in the singular enchantment of his smile--and above all, in the tone of a very musical and earnest voice, chained attention at once to his words. And, whatever those words, there was about the man, and his mode of thought and expression, the stamp of a mind at once crafty and commanding. This personage was Gaspar de Guzman, then but a gentleman of the Prince's chamber (which post he owed to Calderon, whose creature he was supposed to be), afterwards so celebrated in the history of Philip IV., as Count of Olivares and prime minister of Spain.
The conversation between Guzman and Uzeda, just before the Jesuit entered, was drawing to a close.
"You see," said Uzeda, "that if we desire to crush Calderon, it is on the Inquisition that we must depend. Now is the time to elect, in the successor of Sandoval y Roxas, one pledged to the favourite's ruin. The reason I choose Aliaga is this,--Calderon will never suspect his friendship, and will not, therefore, thwart us with the king. The Jesuit, who would sell all Christendom for the sake of advancement to his order or himself will gladly sell Calderon to obtain the chair of the Inquisition."
"I believe it," replied Guzman. "I approve your choice; and you may rely on me to destroy Calderon with the prince. I have found out the way to rule Philip; it is by never giving him a right to despise his favourites --it is to flatter his vanity, but not to share his vices. Trust me, you alone--if you follow my suggestions--can be minister to the Fourth Philip."
Here a page entered to announce Don Fray Louis de Aliaga. Uzeda advanced to the door, and received the holy man with profound respect.
"Be seated, father, and let me at once to business; for time presses, and all must be despatched to-night. Before interest is made by others with the king, we must be prompt in gaining the appointment of Sandoval's successor."
"Report says that the cardinal-duke, your father, himself desires the vacant chair of the Inquisition."
"My poor father, he is old--his sun has set. No, Aliaga; I have thought of one fitter for that high and stern office in a word, that appointment rests with yourself. I can make you Grand Inquisitor of Spain--!"
"Me!" said the Jesuit, and he turned aside his face. "You jest with me, noble son."
"I am serious--hear me. We have been foes and rivals; why should not our path be the same? Calderon has deprived you of friends more powerful than himself. His hour is come.