ady love; and that as for the gold which they
had taken, if they had never allowed that fresh and fair young May to be
forced into marrying that old January, he should never have meddled with
their gold; so that was rather their fault than his. And added, that if
he was to be hanged, as he supposed, the only favor which he asked for
was a long drop and no priests. And all the while, gentlemen, he still
kept his eyes fixed on the lady's corpse, till he was led away with me,
while all that stood by, God reward them for it, lamented openly the
tragical end of those two sinful lovers.

"And now, sirs, what befell me after that matters little; for I never
saw Captain Oxenham again, nor ever shall in this life."

"He was hanged, then?"

"So I heard for certain the next year, and with him the gunner and
sundry more: but some were given away for slaves to the Spaniards,
and may be alive now, unless, like me, they have fallen into the cruel
clutches of the Inquisition. For the Inquisition now, gentlemen, claims
the bodies and souls of all heretics all over the world (as the devils
told me with their own lips, when I pleaded that I was no Spanish
subject); and none that it catches, whether peaceable merchants or
shipwrecked mariners, but must turn or burn."

"But how did you get into the Inquisition?"

"Why, sir, after we were taken, we set forth to go down the river again;
and the old Don took the little maid with him in one boat (and bitterly
she screeched at parting from us and from the poor dead corpse), and Mr.
Oxenham with Don Diego de Trees in another, and I in a third. And from
the Spaniards I learnt that we were to be taken down to Lima, to the
Viceroy; but that the old man lived hard by Panama, and was going
straight back to Panama forthwith with the little maid. But they said,
'It will be well for her if she ever gets there, for the old man swears
she is none of his, and would have left her behind him in the woods,
now, if Don Diego had not shamed him out of it.' And when I heard that,
seeing that there was nothing but death before me, I made up my mind
to escape; and the very first night, sirs, by God's help, I did it,
and went southward away into the forest, avoiding the tracks of the
Cimaroons, till I came to an Indian town. And there, gentlemen, I got
more mercy from heathens than ever I had from Christians; for when they
found that I was no Spaniard, they fed me and gave me a house, and
a wife (and a good wif