“I should advise you to fly fast and far,” said Peter. “But, Inez, what hold have you on this friend of yours? He will trick everybody.” “A thousand doubloons—a thousand doubloons!” muttered old Israel like a sleepy parrot. “He may think to screw more than that out of the carcases of some of us, old man. Come, Inez, you are quick at this game. How can we best hold him to his word?” “Dead, I think,” broke in Bernaldez, who knew his danger as the partner and relative of Castell, and the nominal owner of the ship Margaret in which it was purposed that he should escape. “We know all that he can tell, and if we let him go he will betray us soon or late. Kill him out of the way, I say, and burn his body in the oven.” Now Henriques fell upon his knees, and with groans and tears began to implore mercy. “Why do you complain so?” asked Inez, watching him with reflective eyes. “The end would be much gentler than that which you righteous folk mete out to many more honest men, yes, and women too. For my part, I think that the Señor Bernaldez gives good counsel. Better that you should die, who are but one, than all of us and others, for you will understand that we cannot trust you. Has any one got a rope?” Now Henriques grovelled on the ground before her, kissing the hem of her robe, and praying her in the name of all the saints to show pity on one who had been betrayed into this danger by love of her. “Of money you mean, Toad,” she answered, kicking him with her slippered foot. “I had to listen to your talk of love while we journeyed together, and before, but here I need not, and if you speak of it again you shall go living into that baker’s oven. Oh! you have forgotten it, but I have a long score to settle with you. You were a familiar of the Holy Office here at Seville—were you not?—before Morella promoted you to Motril for your zeal, and made you one of his chaplains? Well, I had a sister.” And she knelt down and whispered a name into his ear. He uttered a sound—it was more of a scream than a gasp. “I had nothing to do with her death,” he protested. “She was brought within the walls of the Holy House by some one who had a grudge against her and bore false witness.” “Yes, I know. It was you who had the grudge, you snake-souled rogue, and it was you who gave the false witness. It was you, also, who but the other day volunteered the corroborative evidence that was necessary against Castell, saying that he had passed the Rood at your house in Motril without doing it reverence, and other things. It was you, too, who urged your superiors to put him to the question, because you said he was rich and had rich friends, and much money could be wrung out of him and them, whereof you were to get your share. Oh! yes, my information is good, is it not? Even what passes in the dungeons of the Holy House comes to the ears of the woman Inez. Well, do you still think that baker’s oven too hot for you?”