One day, an officer, attending the levee of the prince, with whom he was a special favourite, presented a memorial requesting the interest of his highness for an appointment in the royal armies, that, he had just learned by an express was vacant.
"And whose death comes so opportunely for thy rise, Don Alvar?" asked the Infant.
"Don Martin Fonseca. He fell in the late skirmish, pierced by a hundred wounds."
The prince started and turned hastily away. The officer lost all favour from that hour, and never learned his offence.
Meanwhile months passed, and Calderon still languished in his dungeon. At last the Inquisition opened against him its dark register of accusations. First of these charges was that of sorcery, practised on the king; the rest were for the most part equally grotesque and extravagant. These accusations Calderon met with a dignity which confounded his foes, and belied the popular belief in the elements of his character. Submitted to the rack, he bore its tortures without a groan; and all historians have accorded concurrent testimony to the patience and heroism which characterised the close of his wild and meteoric career. At length Philip the Third died: the Infant ascended the throne; that prince, for whom the ambitious courtier had perilled alike life and soul! The people now believed that they should be defrauded of their victim. They were mistaken. The new king, by this time, had forgotten even the existence of the favourite of the prince. But Guzman, who, while affecting to minister to the interests of Uzeda, was secretly aiming at the monopoly of the royal favour, felt himself insecure while Calderon yet lived. The operations of the Inquisition were too slow for the impatience of his fears; and as that dread tribunal affected never to inflict death until the accused had confessed his guilt, the firmness of Calderon baffled the vengeance of the ecclesiastical law. New inquiries were set on foot: a corpse was discovered, buried in Calderon's garden--the corpse of a female. He was accused of the murder. Upon that charge he was transferred from the Inquisition to the regular courts of justice. No evidence could be produced against him; but, to the astonishment of all, he made no defence, and his silence was held the witness of his crime. He was adjudged to the scaffold--he smiled when he heard the sentence.
An immense crowd, one bright day in summer, were assembled in the place of execution. A shout of savage exultation rent the air as Roderigo Calderon, Marquis de Siete Iglesias, appeared upon the scaffold But, when the eyes of the multitude rested--not upon that lofty and stately form, in all the pride of manhood, which they had been accustomed to associate with their fears of the stern genius and iron power of the favourite--but upon a bent and spectral figure, that seemed already on the verge of a natural grave, with a face ploughed deep with traces of unutterable woe, and hollow eyes that looked with dim and scarce conscious light over the human sea that murmured and swayed below, the tide of the popular emotion changed; to rage and triumph succeeded shame and pity. Not a hand was lifted up in accusation--not a voice was raised in rebuke or joy. Beside Calderon stood the appointed priest, whispering cheer and consolation.
"Fear not, my son," said the holy man. "The pang of the body strikes years of purgatory from thy doom. Think of this, and bless even the agony of this hour."
"Yes," muttered Calderon; "I do bless this hour. Inez, thy daughter has avenged thy murder! May Heaven accept the sacrifice! and may my eyes, even athwart the fiery gulf, awaken upon thee!"
With that a serene and contented smile passed over the face on which the crowd gazed with breathless awe. A minute more, and a groan, a cry, broke from that countless multitude; and a gory and ghastly head, severed from its trunk, was raised on high.
Two spectators of that execution were in one of the balconies that commanded a full view of its terrors.
"So perishes my worst foe!" said Uzeda.
"We must sacrifice all things, friends as foes, in the ruthless march of the Great Cause," rejoined the Grand Inquisitor; but he sighed as he spoke.
"Guzman is now with the king," said Uzeda, turning into the chamber. "I expect every instant a summons into the royal presence."
"I cannot share thy sanguine hopes, my son," said Aliaga, shaking his head. "My profession has made me a deep reader of human character. Gaspar de Guzman will remove every rival from his path."
While he spoke, there entered a gentleman of the royal chamber. He presented to the Grand Inquisitor and the expectant duke two letters signed by the royal hand. They were the mandates of banishment and disgrace. Not even the ghostly rank of the Grand Inquisitor, not even the profound manoeuvres of the son of Lerma, availed them against the vigilance and vigour of the new favourite. Simultaneously, a shout from the changeable crowd below proclaimed that the king's choice of his new minister was published and approved.