d in place of being slain I
slew one of them. Twice baffled, de Garcia was not defeated. Fight and
murder had failed, but another and surer means remained. I know not how,
but he had won some clue to the history of my life, and of how I
had broken out from the monastery. It was left to him, therefore, to
denounce me to the Holy Office as a renegade and an infidel, and this he
did one night; it was the night before the day when we should have taken
ship. I was sitting with your mother and her mother in their house at
Seville, when six cowled men entered and seized me without a word. When
I prayed to know their purpose they gave no other answer than to hold
a crucifix before my eyes. Then I knew why I was taken, and the women
ceased clinging to me and fell back sobbing. Secretly and silently I was
hurried away to the dungeons of the Holy Office, but of all that befell
me there I will not stop to tell.

'Twice I was racked, once I was seared with hot irons, thrice I was
flogged with wire whips, and all this while I was fed on food such as we
should scarcely offer to a dog here in England. At length my offence of
having escaped from a monastery and sundry blasphemies, so-called, being
proved against me, I was condemned to death by fire.

'Then at last, when after a long year of torment and of horror, I had
abandoned hope and resigned myself to die, help came. On the eve of the
day upon which I was to be consumed by flame, the chief of my tormentors
entered the dungeon where I lay on straw, and embracing me bade me be
of good cheer, for the church had taken pity on my youth and given me
my freedom. At first I laughed wildly, for I thought that this was but
another torment, and not till I was freed of my fetters, clothed in
decent garments, and set at midnight without the prison gates, would I
believe that so good a thing had befallen me through the hand of God.
I stood weak and wondering outside the gates, not knowing where to fly,
and as I stood a woman glided up to me wrapped in a dark cloak, who
whispered "Come." That woman was your mother. She had learned of my fate
from the boasting of de Garcia and set herself to save me. Thrice her
plans failed, but at length through the help of some cunning agent, gold
won what was denied to justice and to mercy, and my life and liberty
were bought with a very great sum.

'That same night we were married and fled for Cadiz, your mother and I,
but not her mother, who was bedridden w