' Her heart might throb no more, but mine
beat still toward it. Across the land, across the sea, across the gulf
of death--if she were dead--still in secret must I desire the love that
I had forsworn.
And so the years rolled on, bringing little of change with them, till
I grew sure that here in this far place I should live and die. But that
was not to be my fate.
If any should read this, the story of my early life, he will remember
that the tale of the death of a certain Isabella de Siguenza is pieced
into its motley. He will remember how this Isabella, in the last moments
of her life, called down a curse upon that holy father who added outrage
and insult to her torment, praying that he might also die by the hands
of fanatics and in a worse fashion. If my memory does not play me false,
I have said that this indeed came to pass, and very strangely. For after
the conquest of Anahuac by Cortes, among others this same fiery priest
came from Spain to turn the Indians to the love of God by torment and by
sword. Indeed, of all of those who entered on this mission of peace, he
was the most zealous. The Indian pabas wrought cruelties enough when,
tearing out the victim's heart, they offered it like incense to Huitzel
or to Quetzal, but they at least dismissed his soul to the Mansions of
the Sun. With the Christian priests the thumb-screw and the stake took
the place of the stone of sacrifice, but the soul which they delivered
from its earthly bondage they consigned to the House of Hell.
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