Within the alcove, Don Rodrigo felt his skin roughening with horror at this speech, which breathed sedition not only against the Sovereigns, but against the very Church. And with his horror was blent a certain increase of fear. If his situation had been perilous before, it was tenfold more dangerous now. Discovery, since he had overheard this treason, must mean his certain death. And Isabella, realizing the same to the exclusion of all else, clutched his arm and cowered against him in the dark. There was worse to follow. Susan’s address was received with a murmur of applause, and then others spoke, and several were named, and their presence thus disclosed. There was the influential Manuel Sauli, who next to Susan was the wealthiest man in Seville; there was Torralba, the Governor of Triana; Juan Abolafio, the farmer of the royal customs, and his brother Fernandez, the licentiate, and there were others—all of them men of substance, some even holding office under the Crown. Not one was there who dissented from anything that Susan had said; rather did each contribute some spur to the general resolve. In the end it was concerted that each of those present should engage himself to raise a proportion of the men, arms and money that would be needed for their enterprise. And upon that the meeting was dissolved, and they departed. Susan himself went with them. He had work to do in the common cause, he announced, and he would do it that very night in which it was supposed that he was absent at Palacios. At last, when all had gone, and the house was still again, Isabella and her lover crept forth from their concealment, and in the light of the lamp which Susan had left burning each looked into the other’s white, startled face. So shaken was Don Rodrigo with horror of what he had overheard, and with the terror of discovery, that it was with difficulty he kept his teeth from chattering. “Heaven protect us!” he gasped. “What Judaizing was this?” “Judaizing!” she echoed. It was the term applied to apostacy, to the relapse of New-Christians to Judaism, an offense to be expiated at the stake. “Here was no Judaizing. Are you mad, Rodrigo? You heard no single word that sinned against the Faith.” “Did I not? I heard treason enough to.” “No, nor treason either. You heard honourable, upright men considering measures of defence against oppression, injustice, and evil acquisitiveness masquerading in the holy garments of religion.” He stared askance at her for a moment, then his full lips curled into a sneer. “Of course you would seek to justify them,” he said. “You are of that foul brood yourself. But you cannot think to cozen me, who am of clean Old-christian blood and a true son of Mother Church. These men plot evil against the Holy Inquisition. Is that not Judaizing when it is done by Jews?” She was white to the lips, and a new horror stared at him from her great dark eyes; her lovely bosom rose and fell in tumult. Yet still she sought to reason with him.