But all this had not escaped the ears of Juan, who had spies
in the household, and was jealous and revengeful as only a Spaniard can
be. First he tried to be rid of me by challenging me to a duel, but we
were parted before we could draw swords. Then he hired bravos to murder
me as I walked the streets at night, but I wore a chain shirt beneath my
doublet and their daggers broke upon it, and in place of being slain I
slew one of them. Twice baffled, de Garcia was not defeated. Fight and
murder had failed, but another and surer means remained. I know not how,
but he had won some clue to the history of my life, and of how I
had broken out from the monastery. It was left to him, therefore, to
denounce me to the Holy Office as a renegade and an infidel, and this he
did one night; it was the night before the day when we should have taken
ship. I was sitting with your mother and her mother in their house at
Seville, when six cowled men entered and seized me without a word. When
I prayed to know their purpose they gave no other answer than to hold
a crucifix before my eyes. Then I knew why I was taken, and the women
ceased clinging to me and fell back sobbing. Secretly and silently I was
hurried away to the dungeons of the Holy Office, but of all that befell
me there I will not stop to tell.
'Twice I was racked, once I was seared with hot irons, thrice I was
flogged with wire whips, and all this while I was fed on food such as we
should scarcely offer to a dog here in England.
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