Page:Madrid shaver's adventures in the Spanish inquisition (2).pdf/23

23 governor retired to his desk for the purpose of writing them. In the afternoon of the same day, the Minister paid a visit to the captain, and received a packet from the hands of Don Manuel, promised to get forwarded by a safe conveyance according to the direction. In due course of time, this fatal letter from Leonora opened all the horrible transactions to the wretched husband :— “The guilty hand of an expiring wife, under the agonizing operation of a mortal poison, traces these few trembling lines to an injured, wretched husband. If thou hast any pity for my parting spirit, fly the ruin that awaits thee, and avoid this scene of villainy and horror. I have borne a child to the monster, whose poison runs in my veins. The Inquisitor is my murderer.— My pen falls from my hand Farewell for ever!” Had a shot passed through the heart of Don Manuel, it could not more effectually have stopt its motions than the perusal of this fatal writing : he dropped lifeless on the couch, and but for the care and assistance of the captain and Pedrosa, in that posture he had probably expired. Grief like his cannot be described by words, for to words it gave no utterance; ’twas suffocating, silent woe. Let us drop the curtain over this melancholy pause in our narration, and attend upon the mournful widower, now landed upon English ground, and conveyed by his humane and generous preserver to the house of a noble Earl, the father of our amiable captain. At the period of a few tranquillizing weeks, here passed in the