Montezuma's Daughter

gs of their cell doors. Little wonder that the woman about to die had striven to escape from such a home back to the world of life and lov

he cruel rites she gloried in? Here in England their fetters are broken for ever, and in st

und door that the monk unlocked and locked again upon the further side. Then came another passa

was dimly lighted by torches and lamps, two men with hooded heads, and draped in coarse black gowns, were at work, silently mixing lime that sent up a hot steam upon the stagnant air. By their sides were squares of dressed stone ranged neatly against the end of the vault, and before them was a niche cut in the thickness of the wall itself, shaped like a large coff

ither side of the vault they ceased their singing. After them followed the doomed woman, guarded by two more nuns, and last of all a priest bearing a crucifix. This man wore a black robe, and his thin half-frenzied face was uncovered. All these and other things I noticed and remembered, yet at the time it seemed to me that I saw nothing except the figure of the victim. I knew her again, although I had seen her but once in the moonlight. She was chang

watchers to find a friend among them. Then her eye fell upon the niche and the heap of smoking lime and the men who guarded it,

upon her, which doomed her, 'to be left alone with God and the child of your sin, that He may deal with you as He sees fit.'* To al

brother, and speak with h

elty should see

writer may mention

, he has seen the

was found immured

g. With it is the

cause of her execut

can be no doubt as

ion to other eviden

r limbs were bound

Such in those days

igi

that our talk might not be overheard, and they did so without wonder,

ting heart, and bending o

as I uttered the name she started wildly. 'Where

she answered. 'Not even torture wou

ought with de Garcia on the night when you were taken

aved him, that is

ver had and the last, as you shall learn presently. Tell me where

he is. Months ago he went whither you will scarcely follow,

nd if it should so chance, say h

is wife-tell him that I did my best to hide his name f

that

Tell him that I passed aw

of that Andres de Fonseca whose counsel you put aside to your ruin, and I have given a certain drug to the abbess yonder. When she o

n you for the gift. Now I am no more afraid-for I

nd God be with yo

t unhappy who am about to die thus easily with t

no word. Now the Dominican motioned to all to take t

u aught to say before y

the darkness of this cloister, there to wither dead in life. And so I broke the vows, and I am glad that I have broken them, though it has brought me to this. If I was deceived and my marriage is no marriage before the law as they tell me now, I knew nothing of it, therefore to me it is still valid and holy and on my soul there rests no stain. At the least I have lived, and for some few hours I have been wife and mother, and it is as well

nder went round the vault, 'and blasphemes in her madness. Forge

ing the cross before her face, began to mutter I know not wh

such as you. I take my sins to God and not to

heard and a

nd he named her by ill names and struck

enough, but Isabella de Siguenza wiped her bruise

, this is my last prayer, that you also may perish at the

to the place prepared fo

k, for we thirst

my draught was in the water. But of what befell afterwards I cannot say certainly, for I prayed the Dominican to open the door by which we had entered the vault, and passing through it I

ed well. Before ever a stone was laid mother and child slept

this night's work,' I answered. 'Now, mother

othes and standing in the coffin-shaped niche, proud and defiant to the end, her child clasped to her with one arm while the other was outstretched to take the draught of death. Few have seen such a sight, for the Holy Office and its helpers do not seek witnesses to their dark deeds, and none would wish to see it twice. If I have described it ill, it is not that I have forgotten, but because even now, after the lapse of some seventy years, I can scarcely bear to write of it or to

nally subdued, he fell into the hands of some priests of the war god Huitzel, and by them was sacrificed after their dreadful fashion. I saw him as he went to his death, and without telling that I had been present when it was uttered, I called to his mind the dying curse of Isabella de Siguenza. Then for a moment his courage gave way, for seeing in me nothing but an Indian chief, he believed that the devil had put t

iguenza who was murdered by priests be

I knew where he was, or at least in what portion of the world I might seek him, and there where white men are few he could not hide from me as in Spain. This tidings I had gained from the doomed lady, and I have told her story at some length because it was through it and her that I came to journey to Hispaniola, as it was because of the sacrifice of her tormentor, Father Pedro, by the priests of the Otomie that I am here in England this day, since had it not been for that sacrifice the Spaniards would never have stormed the City of Pines, where, alive or dead, I should doubtless have been to

ence to my own desires and the dying counsels of my benefactor, and to follow

shipped from Seville in a carak bound for the Canary Islands, which carak was there to await the arrival of the fleet sailing for Hispaniola. Indeed from various circumstances I had little doubt that the man was none other than de Garcia himself, which, although I had not thought of it before, was not strange, seei

could do with the gold and other articles of value would be to ship them to England, there to be held in trust for me. So having despatched a message to my friend the captain of the 'Adventuress,' that I had freight of value for him, I made my preparations to depart from Seville with such speed as I might, and to this end I sold my

tay of a year in Seville, I turned my back on it for ever. My sojourn there had been fortunate, for I came to it poor and left it a rich man, to say nothing of what I had

ned from them that my father was in broken health and almost bedridden, and indeed, though I did not know it for many years after, he died in Ditchingham Church upon the very day that I received his letter. It was short and sad, and in it he said that he sorrowed much that he had allowed me to go upon my mission, since he should see me no more and could only commend me to the care of the Almighty, and pray Him for my safe return. As for Lily's letter, which, hearing that the 'Adventu

I believe that I shall die of shame and sorrow. It is hard that I should be thus tormented, and for one reason only, that you are not rich. Still I have good hope that things may better themselves, for I see that my brother Wilfred is much inclined towar

eoffrey was mad with love for her, my father was too ill to meddle in the matter, and Squire Bozard was fiercely set upon the marriage because of

hat I should be welcome now, for my fortune was far greater than my brother's would ever be, and parents do not show the door to suitors who bring more than twelve thousand golden pieces in their baggage. Also I wished to see my father again before he passed beyond my reach. But still between me and my desire lay the shadow of de

e my old master, Doctor Grimstone of Bungay, whom I knew for the honestest of men, my sister Mary Wingfield, and my betrothed, Lily Bozard. I directed them by this deed, which for greater validity I signed upon the ship and caused to be witnessed by Captain Bell and two other Englishmen,

ard should she be unmarried at the date of my death, and the residue to my sister Mary. In

ping of Captain Bell, charging him solemnly to hand them and my possessions to Dr. Grimstone of Bungay, by whom he would b

tly to Lily herself. In these letters I gave an account of my life and fortunes since I had come to Spain, for I gathered that

et my mind upon an object, nothing except death itself can turn me from it, and that in this matter I am bound by an oath which my conscience will not suffer me to break. I could never be happy even at your side if I abandoned my search now. First must come the toil and then

f his conduct in persecuting an undefended maiden and striving to do wron

em to Bungay Staithe and thence to the house of Dr. Grimstone in Nethergate Street. Here were gathered my sister and brother, for my father was then two months buried-and also Squire Bozard and his son and daughter, for Captain Bell had advised them of his coming by mess

lips, seeing that having come into my father's lands, he had brought it about that Lily was to be married to him by might if no other means would serve. For even now a man can force his daughter into marriage while she is under age, and Squire Bozard was not one to shrink from such a deed, holding as he did that a woman's fancies were of no account. But on this day, so great is the power of gold, there was no more talk of her marrying any man except myself, indeed her father would have held her back from such a thing had

for many a year passed away