"Ah!" he exclaimed, "use the authority of your father's name to stay that cruel punishment." The young girl's lip curled proudly. "It is a self-chosen punishment." "Self-chosen!" "Ay, self-chosen. How should the warrior dare the peril of being made a sacrifice by enemies, if he had not fortitude sufficient to bear the rods of his friends? But come, there is more to see, that the white-face may learn that the warriors of Tlascala know how to suffer, and can thereafter have small chance to fear aught that the most cruel foes can do to them." So saying, the girl once more led the way on to an inner hall opposite to that by which they had first entered. She had, however, scarcely entered it when she turned back again hastily, saying-- "No, not this yet; this is for the last. Come!" But for once the slightly imperative "Come!" was not obeyed by the white-face as it had been before. His keen eyes had alighted on that which had thrilled him with horror. "Verily," he exclaimed, "it seems that if ye have many of the blessings of civilization ye have also its curses, even to an Inquisition with all its iniquities." "What do you mean? what would you do?" exclaimed the girl, half-angered, half-terrified as she saw her companion's perturbed countenance, and could scarcely, with the help of Doña Marina and her attendants, keep him from dashing forward into the dim hall, where a young man lay stretched upon a bier of damp reeds, beneath which burned a great fire of smoking herbs, which were stirred from time to time into greater heat. Truly the punishment, if it were a punishment, was a fearful one; but the Indian girl laid a firm, determined clasp upon Montoro de Diego's arm as she pointed to the young man on his fiery bed. "He too is my brother," she said, with stern pride--"my eldest brother. That is his final trial. When he wins through that he will be enrolled in the noble order of our knights. Now you know why the Indian warrior fights well." "You are a noble race, and worthy of a noble fate," murmured the Spaniard; and many a sigh escaped him as they wended homewards. * * * * * And now we must pass on quickly to the occupation of Mexico itself, and there, in that island city of flowers and palaces and temples and turrets, take our final leave of Hernando Cortes, its great, world-famous conqueror. CHAPTER XXXVI. _ACROSS THE CAUSEWAY._ Scarcely any one in this nineteenth century, who pretends to the name of traveller, neglects to visit the world-famous and beautiful water city of Italy, the white-robed bride of the Adriatic. When the Spanish discoverers set out for the lands of another hemisphere they little dreamt that they were to find out there another Venice, even more strange, more wonderful in its sweet, flowery, marvellous beauty, than the Venice on their own side of the Atlantic.