Adventure stories; Spain -- History -- Ferdinand and Isabella, 1479-1516 -- Fiction
“Yes, Señora, with those few alterations the dress will be perfect. You
shall have it back tonight without fail, and I can cut the others that
you have been pleased to order from the same pattern. Oh! I thank you,
Señora, you are too good to a poor girl, and,” in a whisper, “the
Mother of God have you in her guard, and send that Peter has improved
in his love making!” and, half hidden in garments, Inez bowed herself
out of the room through the door which the governor had already opened.
About nine o’clock on the following morning one of the jailers came to
summon Margaret and her father to be led before the court. Margaret
asked anxiously if the Señor Brome was coming too, but the man replied
that he knew nothing of the Señor Brome, as he was in one of the cells
for dangerous criminals, which he did not serve.
So forth they went, dressed in their new clothes, which were as fine as
money could buy, and in the latest Seville fashion, and were conducted
to the courtyard. Here, to her joy, Margaret saw Peter waiting for them
under guard, and dressed also in the Christian garments which they had
begged might be supplied to him at their cost. She sprang to his side,
none hindering her, and, forgetting her bashfulness, suffered him to
embrace her before them all, asking him how he had fared since they
were parted.
“None too well,” answered Peter gloomily, “who did not know if we
should ever meet again; also, my prison is underground, where but
little light comes through a grating, and there are rats in it which
will not let a man sleep, so I must lie awake the most of the night
thinking of you. But where go we now?”
“To be put upon our trial before the queen, I think. Hold my hand and
walk close beside me, but do not stare at me so hard. Is aught wrong
with my dress?”
“Nothing,” answered Peter. “I stare because you look so beautiful in
it. Could you not have worn a veil? Doubtless there are more marquises
about this court.”
“Only the Moors wear veils, Peter, and now we are Christians again.
Listen—I think that none of them understand English. I have seen Inez,
who asked after you very tenderly—nay, do not blush, it is unseemly in
a man. Have you seen her also? No—well, she escaped from Granada as she
planned, and Betty is married to the marquis.”
“It will never hold good,” answered Peter shaking his head, “being but
a trick, and I fear that she will pay for it, poor woman! Still, she
gave us a start, though, so far as prisons go, I was better off in
Granada than in that rat-trap.”
“Yes,” answered Margaret innocently, “you had a garden to walk in
there, had you not? No, don’t be angry with me. Do you know what Betty
did?” And she told him of how she had lifted her veil and kissed
Morella without being discovered.
“That isn’t so wonderful,” said Peter, “since if they are painted up
young women look very much alike in a half-lit room——”
“Or garden?” suggested Margaret.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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