Gold and glory; or, Wild ways of other days, a tale of early American discoveryStebbing, Grace
History
Gold and glory; or, Wild ways of other days, a tale of early American discovery
Stebbing, Grace
Mexico -- History -- Conquest, 1519-1540 -- Fiction
And so, with forgiveness and love in his heart, and the light of coming
glory on his face, this rescued victim of the Inquisition died in his
daughter's arms, just as the sun's first golden rays were brightening
the streets of Saragossa. Those rays that were glowing on the walls of
the dungeons, within which slept, for the last time on earth, those
innocent ones who were that day to be burnt in one of the awful Autos
da Fé; those rays that were glowing on the walls and windows of the
palace where Arbues the Inquisitor still slumbered.
"For so He maketh His sun to shine on the evil and the good."
The morning was still young when Don Diego received two visitors.
The first, Jerome Tivoli, was quickly dismissed with the curt but
satisfying speech:
"A noble of Aragon ever keeps his word. The miserable treasure you
crave is yours."
His interview with Don Alonso was far longer.
"Surely now you must join us," urged that fiery spirit with impatient
indignation. "You cannot refuse to aid in avenging the wrongs of your
father-in-law."
"His mode," murmured the other, "of avenging his own wrongs, was to
pray for light for his murderers."
But Don Alonso was marching with hasty strides up and down the
apartment, and did not hear the words. His own conscience was ill
at ease, as the head of conspirators having assassination for their
object, and he had an unacknowledged feeling that he would be more
comfortable in his mind if the upright Montoro would throw in his lot
with them. But Don Diego was firm in his refusal. That recent death-bed
scene had given him back his faith in the wisdom and love of God, in
spite of the darkness now around him, and he ended the discussion at
last, by saying:
"No, Alonso, I will keep my honour whatever else I may be forced to
lose. But, although I will not join you, I will tell you whom I would
join, were my Rachel a man, or, being a woman, had she but been inured
to hardships as a mountain peasant. I would suffer exile thankfully, so
embittered to me has my native land become."
"Embittered indeed to us all," almost groaned the other, adding, "But
whom then is it you would join in your exile? Any of our friends, or
one I know not?"
"One you know not, nor I either, personally," was the reply; "but one
whom we both know well by reputation. That Christopher Colon, the
Genoese, who, for the past six months almost, has been wearying our
Queen Isabella of Castile to provide him means to find some strange
new world; some vision of wonder that has risen in his imagination,
brilliant with lands of gold and pearl, and perfumed with sweeter
spices than the Indies."
Don Alonso uttered a short laugh of contempt.
"Ah, ha! And you mean to tell me that you would be willing to throw in
your lot with that beggarly, visionary adventurer! Our King Ferdinand
knows better than to waste his maravedis on such moon-struck projects,
or to let his consort do so either."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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