This, with some minor matters, such as the birth and death of
children, and the story of the great storm and flood that smote Bungay,
and indeed the length of the vale of Waveney in those days, was all the
tale that they had to tell who had grown from youth to middle age in
quiet. For of the crowning and end of kings and of matters politic, such
as the downfall of the power of the Pope of Rome and the sacking of the
religious houses which was still in progress, I make no mention here.
But now they called for mine, and I began it at the beginning, and it
was strange to see their faces as they listened. All night long, till
the thrushes sang down the nightingales, and the dawn shone in the
east, I sat at Lily's side telling them my story, and then it was not
finished. So we slept in the chambers that had been made ready for us,
and on the morrow I took it up again, showing them the sword that had
belonged to Bernal Diaz, the great necklace of emeralds which Guatemoc
had given to me, and certain scars and wounds in witness of its truth.
Never did I see folk so much amazed, and when I came to speak of the
last sacrifice of the women of the Otomie, and of the horrid end of de
Garcia who died fighting with his own shadow, or rather with the shadows
of his own wickedness, they cried aloud with fear, as they wept when I
told of the deaths of Isabella de Siguenza and of Guatemoc, and of the
loss of my sons.
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