ed to give her an opportunity of speaking to her husband about it;
and at last was so won over by Miranda, that she consented to keep all
intruders out of the way, while Don Sebastian that very night visited
Miranda in her hut.

"The hapless husband, thirsting for his love, was in that hut, be sure,
the moment that kind darkness covered his steps:--and what cheer these
two made of each other, when they once found themselves together,
lovers must fancy for themselves: but so it was, that after many a
leave-taking, there was no departure; and when the night was well-nigh
past, Sebastian and Miranda were still talking together as if they had
never met before, and would never meet again.

"But it befell, ladies (would that I was not speaking truth, but
inventing, that I might have invented something merrier for your ears),
it befell that very night, that the young wife of the cacique, whose
heart was lifted up with the thought that her rival was now at last
disposed of, tried all her wiles to win back her faithless husband;
but in vain. He only answered her caresses by indifference, then by
contempt, then insults, then blows (for with the Indians, woman is
always a slave, or rather a beast of burden), and went on to draw such
cruel comparisons between her dark skin and the glorious fairness of the
Spanish lady, that the wretched girl, beside herself with rage, burst
out at last with her own secret. 'Fool that you are to madden yourself
about a stranger who prizes one hair of her Spanish husband's head more
than your whole body! Much does your new bride care for you! She is at
this moment in her husband's arms!'

"The cacique screamed furiously to know what she meant; and she, her
jealousy and hate of the guiltless lady boiling over once for all, bade
him, if he doubted her, go see for himself.

"What use of many words? They were taken. Love, or rather lust,
repelled, turned in a moment into devilish hate; and the cacique,
summoning his Indians, bade them bind the wretched Don Sebastian to a
tree, and there inflicted on him the lingering death to which he had at
first been doomed. For Miranda he had more exquisite cruelty in store.
And shall I tell it? Yes, ladies, for the honor of love and of Spain,
and for a justification of those cruelties against the Indians which are
so falsely imputed to our most Christian nation, it shall be told: he
delivered the wretched lady over to the tender mercies of his wives; and
what the