The Prime Minister

The Priest walked round to the back of the ruins, where a wall, in some places thrown down, served to enclose the garden of the convent. He here easily climbed over the fragments, and found himself on comparatively unencumbered ground. He wound his way among the moss-grown paths, impeded by the luxuriant vegetation of the geraniums and rose trees, which, long unpruned, sent their straggling branches in every direction, filling the cool night air with the sweet scents of their flowers. The once trimly-cut box trees had lost all signs of their former shapes; the fountains had ceased to play; the tanks were dry, once stocked with the luscious lamprey, and other rich fish, to feed the holy friars on their days of fasting and penance; indeed, desolation reigned throughout the domain.

The Priest heeded not these things, his eye was familiarised with them; nor did he cast a pitying thought upon the worthy friars who had been driven forth to seek another home; – they were his foes – his rivals on the field he sought to claim as his own. His mind, too, was occupied by matters of vast import to the safety of his order; yet he doubted not that he should ultimately come off victorious.

With some little difficulty he reached the centre of the garden, and, looking carefully around, he seated himself on one of the stone benches by the side of a large circular tank, now empty. He waited for some time till he heard a step approaching, when, starting up, he beheld the figure of a man closely shrouded in a cloak, emerging from among the thick-growing shrubs. He advanced towards him with an eager step, which betrayed his deep anxiety, so unlike his usually cold and calm demeanour.

The stranger threw back his cloak as he approached the Jesuit, so as to exhibit by the uncertain light the features apparently of a young and handsome man. “Father, I have come at your command,” he said, “though with great risk of discovery, if I hasten not back to my post.”

“It is well, Alfonzo. What news do you bring me?” demanded the Jesuit.

“I have naught but the worst to reveal,” answered the young man.

“Speak it without fear: no one can here listen to your words,” exclaimed the Father. “Stay, we will examine well the neighbouring bushes, to see that no lurking spy is there concealed.”

The Jesuit and his young companion, having concluded their search, seated themselves on the stone from which the first had risen. “Now, speak,” said the Father.

“I have long watched for an opportunity to ascertain what you desired,” began the stranger. “Yesterday, while the Minister was absent, I opened his bureau with the key you gave me. With trembling hands I searched each paper, and from all of importance I have made notes. At last I came to one roughly drawn out in Carvalho’s writing: it was a plan to be submitted to the King for abolishing your whole order throughout the kingdom. He proposes to implicate you in some act of rebellion, or some illegal practice; then to surround your colleges, and to embark all who are professed, on board vessels for the coast of Italy, banishing you for ever from Portugal. He advises the King to allow no delay in executing his plan; for that every day you are increasing in power and malevolence, and that you will in time sap the very foundation of his throne.”

“Ah! thinks he so? – he shall find that he is not mistaken!” exclaimed the Jesuit, with greater vehemence than he had ever before given way to. “No time must then be lost in putting our plot into execution, and we will try the success of both. Alfonzo, you have acted well, and will meet with the approbation of our general. You will, when you profess, rise rapidly to the highest rank in our order, and will become one of its brightest ornaments.”

“I merit no praise,” returned the young neophyte, for such the Father declared him to be. “I have but done my duty.”

“You might yet win far greater praise,” said the Father, scarce noticing his answer. “It would be a noble thing to destroy the great enemy of our order. It would at once free us from all further fear of danger.”

The young aspirant started. “I understand not your words, Father,” he said.

“I speak of Carvalho’s death,” answered the Jesuit, calmly. “It is said that the dagger of the assassin cannot reach him, – that often has his life been attempted, but each attempt has failed. What steel cannot accomplish, the poisoned chalice may.”

“What mean you, Father?” gasped forth Alfonzo.

“It is simple to understand, my son: now listen calmly,” returned the Jesuit, in a voice calculated to soothe his listener’s fears. “It is a law, founded on nature and on justice, that we have a right to defend our lives and properties, at every cost, against those who would deprive us of either. No one would scruple to strike the assassin dead who would take our life, or the robber who would steal our purse: then can it be a sin to destroy the man who would blast our name, who would deprive us of our lawful power, and drive us forth to beggary and to death? Can Heaven blame us that we seek to deprive him of life who would thus treat us? No, my son; be assured that the death of that man of crime would be an acceptable sacrifice to the Ruler of the Universe.”

The pupil answered not.

“Listen, Alfonzo,” continued the Master. “You have determined to become the follower of the great Loyola: you seek by that means to gain power and influence among the men you have learned to despise. The way is open to you to follow if you will; but while Carvalho lives, our order in Portugal can never flourish. In him we have the most inveterate and deceitful foe we have ever known. He must die, or we shall meet a certain destruction. Hear me, Alfonzo: I speak not to a weak and trembling child, but to a man who has boldly dared, and successfully performed, and who will yet do more!”

The Jesuit took from beneath his robes a small box, and extracted from it a paper closely folded, which he placed in the hands of his companion. “Take this parcel,” he continued. “It contains a powder, which, when mixed with a glass of water, will not dim its crystal purity. Its effects are deadly, but slow, and no antidote has power to act against it; nor will the most clever physician be able to detect its workings on the human frame. Watch your opportunity, and mix it with the first beverage you see prepared for him; but beware no one else tastes of it, nor do you lose sight of it till he has drunk it to the dregs. Now then will our mighty tyrant have become a thing to loathe!”

“Father!” exclaimed the young man, in a scarcely articulate voice, “I have ever obeyed your commands to the utmost; I have acted a part from which my heart revolts; I have betrayed the man who has confided in me, – but I cannot become a murderer. I could not live, and see the man who has taught me to admire and love him writhing in agony, and know that it was the effect of my foul act. In mercy take back the deadly powder.”

“Alfonzo, I expected not a like answer from you,” replied the Priest, quietly taking back the paper. “I trusted that you had been taught to rise above the common and false prejudices of the world, – that you had bravely conquered the weak feelings of human nature, and were each day advancing in qualifying yourself to become a professed member of our order; but I see, alas! that I was mistaken, and that you are still held back by weak bonds, which a bold man would long ere this have broken through.”

“Spare me, Father, spare me a task I cannot perform!” cried the young man, clasping his hands convulsively together; but the other gazed on him sternly.

“Alfonzo,” he answered, “you have another motive than dread of the deed for your refusal to obey the commands of your superior. I have watched you closely, when you little thought it. I know your inmost feelings. You love! Ah, you start, conscious of your guilt. The fair daughter of the Minister has drawn you from the path of duty. While you betrayed the father, you allowed your heart to be led captive by the daughter’s charms. She loves you in return, perchance; but, think you, even were you to desert the colours you have determined to follow, the powerful and haughty Minister would listen to the suit of one without wealth or family? Naught but the infatuation of madness can lead you on; yet, try your fortune, and hear his answer: he will scorn and drive you from him with derision, even if he consign you not rather to one of the lowest dungeons of his prisons; then, in darkness and solitude, except when the executioner is sent to torture you, will you spend your days, till death puts an end to your sufferings. Such will be your fate if you destroy him not.”

“Such, then, be my fate; I cannot murder,” answered the youth, in a deep tone.

“Have I not told you that self-defence is not murder?” returned the Jesuit. “On my head be the sin, if sin there be. Take your choice. If you still determine to follow our banner, obey my orders; if you seek to continue as a layman, and would gratify your passion by wedding the daughter of Carvalho, take this paper – ’tis not you that give its contents, ’tis I – and no crime can be laid to your charge. ’Tis the shedding of blood alone against which the Scripture speaks. While Carvalho lives the fair girl can never be yours; if he dies, you may find means to win her; but if you pertinaciously refuse to follow my counsels, no power can avert your destruction.”

“Give me the fatal powder,” exclaimed the youth, in a faltering voice. “I will not pledge myself to administer it, but I will act as circumstances demand. You, Father, shall not have cause to taunt me with my faltering purpose.”

“Spoken like one worthy to belong to our holy order,” said the Jesuit. “Take the paper, and preserve it carefully. Meet me here to-morrow, if possible, at the same hour, and bring me all further information you can collect. Falter not in your purpose, my son, and let the high destiny which awaits you be an encouragement to perseverance in the holy course you have chosen.”

The unhappy youth took the packet containing the poison, and the Jesuit, as he delivered it, felt his hand tremble.

“Alfonzo,” he continued, “I know full well what is yet passing in your mind. You hope to escape the performance of your promise. Remember, I speak in kindness, but I warn you. An ever watchful eye notes your every action, ay, and reads your inmost heart; and should you harbour, even for a moment, a thought of treachery, an awful doom will be yours, far more terrible than any the Minister, in his most savage mood, can devise.”

“I know it, I know it,” exclaimed the aspirant, “but my task is a hard one.”

“The more glory in the performance, my son,” returned the Father. “Now go, I have detained you too long already. Farewell, and the blessing of Heaven attend your enterprise.”

The young man, without answering, bowed low before the Superior, and again shrouding his features in his cloak, took his way towards a fallen part of the garden-wall, and walking rapidly onward, found himself on the road towards the residence of Carvalho, before he allowed a definite thought to take possession of his mind. He gained the house, entering by a private door, and, mounting the stairs, eagerly examined the office he had quitted. The Minister had not returned since his departure, and his breathing became more regular – the fear of immediate detection was passed. He endeavoured to apply himself to a task he had left uncompleted, but his hand refused to obey his powerless wishes. One burning thought filled his mind; a weight like molten lead pressed down his soul; he endeavoured to exert his faculties, but the effort was vain. Again and again the one dreadful idea rushed with tenfold vividness before him; he writhed in agony, as the iron entered his soul – he cursed, bitterly cursed, the adamantine fetters with which he lay bound – break loose from them he knew too well he could not. He thought of all he had sacrificed, – youth, talents, happiness, for what? To grasp a shapeless phantom – to serve a lord unseen, unknown, more inexorable than death. Death can but command once, and must be obeyed; the stern dictates of his chief must be followed through a long life, while he must look for death as the only harbinger of freedom. He almost shrieked as he thought of the effects of the act he had undertaken to perform. He beheld the man who had trusted in him, the father of her he had dared to love to desperation, sinking in anguish by the consuming fire he must administer; that manly and majestic form reduced to a mass of inanimate clay; that mighty spirit, which held a whole people in awe, driven forth by his fell deed. He thought, too, that she who had awakened the better spirit within him would recoil with horror as she felt the impious touch of her father’s murderer; instead of love, her bosom would become filled with hatred, with loathing and disgust towards him. Remorse, bitter and eternal, must be his lot. As he mechanically bent over his paper, his pen not moving from the spot on which he had first placed it, the ink dry, a noise startled him – he looked up, and beheld the Minister sternly regarding him. In a moment his faculties were restored to wakefulness.

“You have been somewhat dilatory, Senhor Alfonzo,” said the Minister. “Are the papers I left you prepared?”

The secretary, with some confusion, acknowledged they were not.

“You have been worked hard lately, my good youth, so I will not blame you,” said Carvalho. “This is, however, no time for idleness, and you must persevere, for there are so few I can trust, that I can procure no one to aid you.”

Those few kind words saved the life of the Minister, and sealed the doom of many. In the mean time, the Father Jacinto paced the star-lit garden with slow steps. More than an hour passed away as he was thus left to his solitary meditations; what they were we cannot pretend to say, nor whether his calculating reason, or his cold philosophy, whichever it might be called, had managed to stifle all compunction for his acts – all the whisperings of conscience. Could he have been able calmly to contemplate the moment when his deeds must be tried before the awful judgment-seat of Heaven? for, if he could, he had persuaded himself that he was acting a just part. The sounds of life, which had arisen from the city, had long ceased; it was now close upon the hour of midnight, when he heard a slow and firm foot-fall approaching, and, emerging from the gloom, the tall gaunt figure of the Father Malagrida stood before him.

“I have, at your desire, ventured hither, my brother, in spite of all the dangers with which the wicked threaten me,” said the latter. “What would you of me?”

“The time has arrived for action, and I would consult with you about the means,” returned Father Jacinto. “The Minister has already formed a plan to banish every member of our order from the shores of Portugal. In a few weeks, or perhaps even in a few days, we shall be deprived of our liberty. The King has but to sanction the plan, and it will forthwith be executed.”

“Then the impious Monarch must die,” exclaimed Malagrida. “His death be upon his own head. I have warned him, and he would not listen. I will warn him no more.”

“He deserves no warning voice, holy brother,” said the Father Jacinto, not believing that Malagrida had really appeared before the King. “But haste, inform all those who are willing to become the instruments of Heaven’s vengeance that they must delay the work no longer. Let them take what means they think fit; it matters little, so that the deed be performed. Urge them to it by that mighty eloquence with which Heaven has endowed you for great purposes. Assure them that they are performing a righteous act, which cannot fail to prosper; and thus many whose fears have restrained them, will gladly join in the enterprise. One steady hand might perform the deed; but, alas! no man can be found alone to do it; they all suppose that security exists in numbers.”

“’Tis enough for me to know that it must be done,” answered Malagrida. “Fear not, my brother, I will take measures that it shall be done. By to-morrow night, I will assemble all those who are inimical to Joseph, and will so persuade them, that they shall no longer hesitate to execute my commands.”

“You will perform good service to our holy order, and to our sacred religion,” returned Father Jacinto.

“To that have I ever devoted my life and energies,” said Father Malagrida.

“Truly have you ever been the great upholder of the faith, and have gained the esteem of our community, and the admiration of the world,” answered Father Jacinto.

“A little flattery will incite this madman to the work,” he thought. “If it fails, it will be easy to persuade the world that the idea arose but from the wild workings of his disordered brain. No one will venture to suppose that we could have been the instigators.”

“Brother, I must depart to the wilderness, where the wickedness of this second Pharaoh, and his evil counsellor, have compelled me to dwell,” said Malagrida. “In three days we shall meet again, I trust triumphant; till then, farewell.”

“Farewell, my brother,” returned Father Jacinto, and they separated; the latter, after leaving the deserted garden, returning to his convent, while Malagrida sought the river’s side. He there found a boat awaiting him, with a single rower. He silently took his seat in the stern, and the man plying his oars with vigour, the small skiff shot rapidly from the shore. The Jesuit, keeping a watchful eye on every side, directed her course so as to avoid any of the boats rowing guard on the river, which might have impeded his progress.