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.'[3] 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.'
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.
Then I drew back and stood with bent head, speaking no word. Now the Dominican motioned to all to take the places where they had stood before and asked her:
'Erring sister, have you aught to say before you are silent for ever?'
'Yes,' she answered in a clear, sweet voice, that never even quavered, so bold had she become since she learned that her death would be swift and easy. 'Yes, I have this to say, that I go to my end with a clean heart, for if I have sinned it is against custom and not against God. I broke the vows indeed, but I was forced to take those vows, and, therefore, they did not bind. I was a woman born for light and love, and yet I was thrust into the darkness of this cloister, there to wither dead in life. And so I broke the vows, and I am glad that I have broken them, though it has brought me to this. If I was deceived and my marriage is no marriage before the law as they tell me now, I knew nothing of it, therefore to me it is still valid and holy and on my soul there rests no stain. At the least I have lived, and for some few hours I have been wife and mother, and it is as well to die swiftly in this cell that your mercy has prepared, as more slowly in those above. And now for you-I tell you that your wickedness shall find you out, you who dare to say to God's children-"Ye shall not love," and to work murder on them because they will not listen. It shall find you out I say, and not only you but the Church you serve. Both priest and Church shall be broken together and shall be a scorn in the mouths of men to come.'
'She is distraught,' said the Dominican as a sigh of fear and wonder went round the vault, 'and blasphemes in her madness. Forget her words. Shrive her, brother, swiftly ere she adds to them.'
Then the black-robed, keen-eyed priest came to her, and holding the cross before her face, began to mutter I know not what. But she rose from the chair and thrust the crucifix aside.
'Peace!' she said, 'I will not be shriven by such as you. I take my sins to God and not to you-you who do murder in the name of Christ.'
The fanatic heard and a fury took him.
'Then go unshriven down to hell, you-' and he named her by ill names and struck her in the face with the ivory crucifix.
The Dominican bade him cease his revilings angrily enough, but Isabella de Siguenza wiped her bruised brow and laughed aloud a dreadful laugh to hear.
'Now I see that you are a coward also,' she said. 'Priest, this is my last prayer, that you also may perish at the hands of fanatics, and more terribly than I die to-night.'
Then they hurried her into the place prepared for her and she spoke again:
'Give me to drink, for we thirst, my babe and I!'
Now I saw the abbess enter that passage whence the victim had been led. Presently she came back bearing a cup of water in her hand and with it a loaf of bread, and I knew by her mien that my draught was in the water. But of what befell afterwards I cannot say certainly, for I prayed the Dominican to open the door by which we had entered the vault, and passing through it I stood dazed with horror at some distance. A while went by, I do not know how long, till at length I saw the abbess standing before me, a lantern in her hand, and she was sobbing bitterly.
'All is done,' she said. 'Nay, have no fear, the draught worked well. Before ever a stone was laid mother and child slept sound. Alas for her soul who died unrepentant and unshriven!'
'Alas for the souls of all who have shared in this night's work,' I answered. 'Now, mother, let me hence, and may we never meet again!'
Then she led me back to the cell, where I tore off that accursed monk's robe, and thence to the door in the garden wall and to the boat which still waited on the river, and I rejoiced to feel the sweet air upon my face as one rejoices who awakes from some foul dream. But I won little sleep that night, nor indeed for some days to come. For whenever I closed my eyes there rose before me the vision of that beauteous woman as I saw her last by the murky torchlight, wrapped in grave clothes and standing in the coffin-shaped niche, proud and defiant to the end, her child clasped to her with one arm while the other was outstretched to take the draught of death. Few have seen such a sight, for the Holy Office and its helpers do not seek witnesses to their dark deeds, and none would wish to see it twice. If I have described it ill, it is not that I have forgotten, but because even now, after the lapse of some seventy years, I can scarcely bear to write of it or to set out its horrors fully. But of all that was wonderful about it perhaps the most wonderful was that even to the last this unfortunate lady should still have clung to her love for the villain who, having deceived her by a false marriage, deserted her, leaving her to such a doom. To what end can so holy a gift as this great love of hers have been bestowed on such a man? None can say, but so it was. Yet now that I think of it, there is one thing even stranger than her faithfulness.
3
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.