Judaism; thy brother
Vidal is young and malleable, he will follow us. We will be secret;
from my girlhood I know how suspicion may be evaded. We will gradually
change all the servants save Pedro, and have none but blacks. Why
shouldst thou leave this beautiful home of thine, thy friends, thy
station in society, thy chances of a noble match?"

"Mother, thou painest me. What is all else beside our duty to truth,
to reason, to God? I must worship all these under the naked sky."

"My brave boy! forgive me!" And she sprang up to embrace him. "We will
go with thee; we will found a new home at Amsterdam."

"Nay, not at thy years, mother." And he smoothed her silver hair.

"Yea; I, too, have studied the Old Testament." And her eyes smiled
through their tears. "'Wherever thou goest, I will go. Thy country
shall be my country, and thy God my God.'"

He kissed her wet cheek.

Ere they separated in the gray dawn they had threshed out ways and
means; how to realize their property with as little loss and as little
observation as possible, and how secretly to ship for the Netherlands.
The slightest imprudence might betray them to the Holy Office, and so
Vidal was not told till 'twas absolutely essential.

The poor young man grew pale with fright.

"Wouldst drive me to Purgatory?" he asked.

"Nay, Judaism hath no Purgatory." Then seeing the consolation was
somewhat confused, Gabriel added emphatically, to ease the distress of
one he loved dearly, "There is no Purgatory."

Vidal looked more frightened than ever. "But the Church says--" he
began.

"The Church says Purgatory is beneath the earth; but the world being
round, there is no beneath, and, mayhap, men like ourselves do inhabit
our Antipodes. And the Church holds with Aristotle that the heavens be
incorruptible, and contemns Copernicus his theory; yet have I heard
from Dom Diego de Balthasar, who hath the science of the University,
that a young Italian, hight Galileo Galilei, hath just made a wondrous
instrument which magnifies objects thirty-two times, and that
therewith he hath discovered a new star. Also doth he declare the
Milky Way to be but little stars; for the which the Holy Office is
wroth with him, men say."

"But what have I to make with the Milky Way?" whimpered Vidal, his own
face as milk.

Gabriel was somewhat taken aback. "'Tis the infallibility of the Pope
that is shaken," he explained. "But in itself the Christian faith is
more abhorrent to Reaso