"It is true," said Cortes, with a vain effort at composed utterance. "I confessed my folly to thee before. I have persecuted the son of my sister almost to death, and for an imaginary crime. There were villains about me--I will tell thee, by and by, my delusion." "Senor," continued Gregorio, "I found in thy camp a villain, whose subtle and malicious nature was in harmony with my own. This was Villafana, whose representations of thy cruelty in the matter of Juan, stirred up my evil passions; and until the day when Juan returned, I was very eager to avenge his wrongs. Upon that day, I discovered that Magdalena was living. Now," he exclaimed, with vehemence, "thou mayst understand the cause of my seeming madness: now thou mayst know that the vengeance of heaven was punishing my old sin with lashes of horror. Thou knowest the evil slanders cast by the ribald soldiers upon thee, in relation to Magdalena. That dreadful suspicion was soon at an end; but there remained the other, the persuasion, supported by strong circumstances and by the malign averments of Villafana,--the dreadful, damning belief, that a horrible and unnatural sin, the direct consequence of my own, had plunged the brother and sister into a never-ending wretchedness. Ask not my feelings, when I made this supposed discovery. They caused me to seek the life of the unhappy brother, to attempt it with my own hands, and finally through thine; and all in a distraction, that mingled a thirst of vengeance with the precautions of pity. Thou knowest the rest: he was snatched out of our hands; and from Magdalena I discovered the blessed--the blissful truth, that heaven had not punished them for _my_ sin! A course of extraordinary calamities, while it covered them with misery, yet kept them asunder.--But why should I trifle thus? The girl also was taken from me, and by the pagans, who left me on the lake-side weltering in blood. When I recovered speech and sense, I besought Guzman to send for you; nay, in my distracted impatience, being myself incapable of any effort beyond mere speech, I confided to him the secret of their birth--" "Villain that he was, a double-dyed villain!" exclaimed Cortes, "this then accounts for his attempt upon your life, of which I had something more than mere suspicion to bring against him. I see it all now: exposure of a long series of malignant deceptions, must have followed the revealment, if it found the young Lerma--the young Castillejo, shall I say?--yet living. Is it not true? did he do you violence?" "Not with his own hands," replied Gregorio; "nor can I say he really designed my death, not being able to communicate with the Indians, who dragged me by night from Tezcuco, carried me to the mountains, and finally took me back again, when Guzman was no longer the governor. But I doubt not, his intentions were evil."