us scruples about leaving his wife still a heretic, or
whether (and this last Lucy much suspected) by insinuations that her
heart was still at home in England, and that she was longing for Amyas
and his ship to come and take her home again; the house soon became a
den of misery, and Eustace the presiding evil genius. Don Guzman had
even commanded him to leave it--and he went; but, somehow, within a week
he was there again, in greater favor than ever. Then came preparations
to meet the English, and high words about it between Don Guzman and
Rose; till a few days before Amyas's arrival, the Don had dashed out
of the house in a fury, saying openly that she preferred these Lutheran
dogs to him, and that he would have their hearts' blood first, and hers
after.

The rest was soon told. Amyas knew but too much of it already. The very
morning after he had gone up to the villa, Lucy and her mistress were
taken (they knew not by whom) down to the quay, in the name of the Holy
Office, and shipped off to Cartagena.

There they were examined, and confronted on a charge of witchcraft,
which the wretched Lucy could not well deny. She was tortured to
make her inculpate Rose; and what she said, or did not say, under the
torture, the poor wretch could never tell. She recanted, and became a
Romanist; Rose remained firm. Three weeks afterwards, they were brought
out to an Auto-da-fe; and there, for the first time, Lucy saw Frank
walking, dressed in a San Benito, in that ghastly procession. Lucy was
adjudged to receive publicly two hundred stripes, and to be sent to
"The Holy House" at Seville to perpetual prison. Frank and Rose, with
a renegade Jew, and a negro who had been convicted of practising "Obi,"
were sentenced to death as impenitent, and delivered over to the
secular arm, with prayers that there might be no shedding of blood. In
compliance with which request, the Jew and the negro were burnt at one
stake, Frank and Rose at another. She thought they did not feel it more
than twenty minutes. They were both very bold and steadfast, and held
each other's hand (that she would swear to) to the very last.

And so ended Lucy Passmore's story. And if Amyas Leigh, after he had
heard it, vowed afresh to give no quarter to Spaniards wherever he
should find them, who can wonder, even if they blame?

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW SALVATION YEO FOUND HIS LITTLE MAID AGAIN

"All precious things, discover'd late,
To them who seek them