On the threshold of her tomb Isabella de Siguenza paused and looked round wildly as though for help, scanning each of the silent watchers to find a friend among them. Then her eye fell upon the niche and the heap of smoking lime and the men who guarded it, and she shuddered and would have fallen had not those who attended her led her to the chair and placed her in it–a living corpse.
Now the dreadful rites began. The Dominican father stood before her and recited her offence, and the sentence that had been passed upon her, which doomed her, ‘to be left alone with God and the child of your sin, that He may deal with you as He sees fit.’* To all of this she seemed to pay no heed, nor to the exhortation that followed. At length he ceased with a sigh, and turning to me said:
‘Draw near to this sinner, brother, and speak with her before it is too late.’
* Lest such cruelty should seem impossible and unprecedented, the writer may mention that in the museum of the city of Mexico, he has seen the desiccated body of a young woman, which was found immured in the walls of a religious building. With it is the body of an infant. Although the exact cause of her execution remains a matter of conjecture, there can be no doubt as to the manner of her death, for in addition to other evidences, the marks of the rope with which her limbs were bound in life are still distinctly visible. Such in those days were the mercies of religion!
Then he bade all present gather themselves at the far end of the vault that our talk might not be overheard, and they did so without wonder, thinking doubtless that I was a monk sent to confess the doomed woman.
So I drew near with a beating heart, and bending over her I spoke in her ear.
‘Listen to me, Isabella de Siguenza!’ I said; and as I uttered the name she started wildly. ‘Where is that de Garcia who deceived and deserted you?’
‘How have you learnt his true name?’ she answered. ‘Not even torture would have wrung it from me as you know.’
‘I am no monk and I know nothing. I am that man who fought with de Garcia on the night when you were taken, and who would have killed him had you not seized me.’
‘At the least I saved him, that is my comfort now.’
‘Isabella de Siguenza,’ I said, ‘I am your friend, the best you ever had and the last, as you shall learn presently. Tell me where this man is, for there is that between us which must be settled.’
‘If you are my friend, weary me no more. I do not know where he is. Months ago he went whither you will scarcely follow, to the furthest Indies; but you will never find him there.’
‘It may still be that I shall, and if it should so chance, say have you any message for this man?’
‘None–yes, this. Tell him how we died, his child and his wife– tell him that I did my best to hide his name from the priests lest some like fate should befall him.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes. No, it is not all. Tell him that I passed away loving and forgiving.’
‘My time is short,’ I said; ‘awake and listen!’ for having spoken thus she seemed to be sinking into a lethargy. ‘I was the assistant of that Andres de Fonseca whose counsel you put aside to your ruin, and I have given a certain drug to the abbess yonder. When she offers you the cup of water, see that you drink and deep, you and the child. If so none shall ever die more happily. Do you understand?’
‘Yes–yes,’ she gasped, ‘and may blessings rest upon you for the gift. Now I am no more afraid–for I have long desired to die–it was the way I feared.’
‘Then farewell, and God be with you, unhappy woman.’
‘Farewell,’ she answered softly, ‘but call me not unhappy who am about to die thus easily with that I love.’ And she glanced at the sleeping babe.