and lonely woman, and yet not altogether an
unhappy one, for she gave much of her time to good works. Indeed she
told me that had it not been for the wide lands and moneys which
she must manage as my heiress, she would have betaken herself to a
sisterhood, there to wear her life away in peace, since I being lost to
her, and indeed dead, as she was assured,--for the news of the wreck
of the carak found its way to Ditchingham,--she no longer thought of
marriage, though more than one gentleman of condition had sought her
hand. This, with some minor matters, such as the birth and death of
children, and the story of the great storm and flood that smote Bungay,
and indeed the length of the vale of Waveney in those days, was all the
tale that they had to tell who had grown from youth to middle age in
quiet. For of the crowning and end of kings and of matters politic, such
as the downfall of the power of the Pope of Rome and the sacking of the
religious houses which was still in progress, I make no mention here.

But now they called for mine, and I began it at the beginning, and it
was strange to see their faces as they listened. All night long, till
the thrushes sang down the nightingales, and the dawn shone in the
east, I sat at Lily's side telling them my story, and then it was not
finished. So we slept in the chambers that had been made ready for us,
and on the morrow I took it up again, showing them the sword that had
belonged to Bernal Diaz, the great necklace of emeralds which Guatemoc
had given to me, and certain scars and wounds in witness of its truth.
Never did I see folk so much amazed, and when I came to speak of the
last sacrifice of the women of the Otomie, and of the horrid end of de
Garcia who died fighting with his own shadow, or rather with the shadows
of his own wickedness, they cried aloud with fear, as they wept when I
told of the deaths of Isabella de Siguenza and of Guatemoc, and of the
loss of my sons.

But I did not tell all the story to this company, for some of it was for
Lily's ear alone, and to her I spoke of my dealings with Otomie as a
man might speak with a man, for I felt that if I kept anything back now
there would never be complete faith between us. Therefore I set out
all my doubts and troublings, nor did I hide that I had learned to love
Otomie, and that her beauty and sweetness had drawn me from the first
moment when I saw her in the court of Montezuma, or that which had
passed between us