"I should most gladly accept your invitation, illustrious senor commandant; but as I have vowed henceforth, whenever I shall meet a Spaniard, neither to give nor take quarter, I trust that our paths to glory may lie in different directions."The commandant shrugged his shoulders; the ship was put again before the wind, and as the shores of the Main faded lower and dimmer behind her, a mighty cheer broke from all on board; and for once the cry from every mouth was Eastward-ho!
Scrap by scrap, as weakness and confusion of intellect permitted her, Lucy Passmore told her story.It was a simple one after all, and Amyas might almost have guessed it for himself.Rose had not yielded to the Spaniard without a struggle.He had visited her two or three times at Lucy's house (how he found out Lucy's existence she herself could never tell, unless from the Jesuits) before she agreed to go with him.He had gained Lucy to his side by huge promises of Indian gold; and, in fine, they had gone to Lundy, where the lovers were married by a priest, who was none other, Lucy would swear, than the shorter and stouter of the two who had carried off her husband and his boat--in a word, Father Parsons.
Amyas gnashed his teeth at the thought that he had had Parsons in his power at Brenttor down, and let him go.It was a fresh proof to him that Heaven's vengeance was upon him for letting one of its enemies escape.Though what good to Rose or Frank the hanging of Parsons would have been, I, for my part, cannot see.
But when had Eustace been at Lundy? Lucy could throw no light on that matter.It was evidently some by-thread in the huge spider's web of Jesuit intrigue, which was, perhaps, not worth knowing after all.
They sailed from Lundy in a Portugal ship, were at Lisbon a few days (during which Rose and Lucy remained on board), and then away for the West Indies; while all went merry as a marriage bell.
"Sir, he would have kissed the dust off her dear feet, till that evil eye of Mr.Eustace's came, no one knew how or whence." And, from that time, all went wrong.Eustace got power over Don Guzman, whether by threatening that the marriage should be dissolved, whether by working on his superstitious scruples about leaving his wife still a heretic, or whether (and this last Lucy much suspected) by insinuations that her heart was still at home in England, and that she was longing for Amyas and his ship to come and take her home again; the house soon became a den of misery, and Eustace the presiding evil genius.Don Guzman had even commanded him to leave it--and he went; but, somehow, within a week he was there again, in greater favor than ever.Then came preparations to meet the English, and high words about it between Don Guzman and Rose; till a few days before Amyas's arrival, the Don had dashed out of the house in a fury, saying openly that she preferred these Lutheran dogs to him, and that he would have their hearts' blood first, and hers after.
The rest was soon told.Amyas knew but too much of it already.
The very morning after he had gone up to the villa, Lucy and her mistress were taken (they knew not by whom) down to the quay, in the name of the Holy Office, and shipped off to Cartagena.
There they were examined, and confronted on a charge of witchcraft, which the wretched Lucy could not well deny.She was tortured to make her inculpate Rose; and what she said, or did not say, under the torture, the poor wretch could never tell.She recanted, and became a Romanist; Rose remained firm.Three weeks afterwards, they were brought out to an Auto-da-fe; and there, for the first time, Lucy saw Frank walking, dressed in a San Benito, in that ghastly procession.Lucy was adjudged to receive publicly two hundred stripes, and to be sent to "The Holy House" at Seville to perpetual prison.Frank and Rose, with a renegade Jew, and a negro who had been convicted of practising "Obi," were sentenced to death as impenitent, and delivered over to the secular arm, with prayers that there might be no shedding of blood.In compliance with which request, the Jew and the negro were burnt at one stake, Frank and Rose at another.She thought they did not feel it more than twenty minutes.They were both very bold and steadfast, and held each other's hand (that she would swear to) to the very last.
And so ended Lucy Passmore's story.And if Amyas Leigh, after he had heard it, vowed afresh to give no quarter to Spaniards wherever he should find them, who can wonder, even if they blame?
