to get out of the habit of
noticing alluring things:--that is why I refused to do penance for my
birth by turning monk, and shrouding myself in the gown! Now
come--tell me! You seem a good fellow--tell me of the 'Dona
Bradamante' of the silks and the spices."

"The destiny of that person is probably already decided," stated the
priest of the wild tribes, "she is, if I mistake not, too close to the
charge of the Viceroy himself for that destiny to be questioned. The
mother, it is said, died insane, and the time has come when the
daughter also is watched with all care lest she harm herself--or her
attendants. So I hear--the maid I do not know, but the scarf I can
trace. Briefly--the evident place for such a wanton spitfire is the
convent. You can easily see the turmoil a woman like that can make as
each ship brings adventurers--and she seeks a lover out of every
group."

"Jesus!--and hell to come! Then I was only one of a sort--all is fish
to the net of the love lorn lady! Maestro Diego would have had the
romance and the lily if he had walked ahead instead of behind me!--and
he could have had the broken head as well!" Then he sniffed again at
the bit of silk, and regarded the monk quizzically.

"You have a good story, and you tell it well, holy father," he said at
last,--"and I am troubled in my mind to know how little of it may be
truth, and how much a godly lie. But the gold at least is true gold,
and whatever the trick of the lady may be, you say it will serve to
win for me the privilege to seek the mines without blare of trumpets.
Hum!--it is a great favor for an unknown adventurer."

"Unknown you may be to the people of the streets, and to your ship
mates," agreed the Padre. "But be sure the Viceroy has more than a
hint that you are not of the rabble. The broils you may draw to
yourself may serve to disquiet him much--yet he would scarce send you
to the stocks, or the service of the roads. Be sure he would rather
than all else bid you god speed on a hunting journey."

"But that you are so given to frankness I should look also for a knife
in the back to be included in his excellency's favors," commented Don
Ruy. "Name of the Devil!--what have I done since I entered the town,
but hold hands with one woman in the dark--and be made to look as if I
had been laid across a butcher block on a busy day! Hell take such a
city to itself! I've no fancy for halting over long in a pit where a
gentleman's amusements are so li