e very thought of them you were so terrified, that you chose
the same way we have done to redeem yourself from death. By what hath
happened to us, we know that Don Francisco hath been your Nero, your
tyrant; for the three colours of our clothes are the distinguishing
tokens of the three holy fathers. The red silk belongs to Don Francisco,
the blue to Don Guerrero, and the green to Don Aliga; and they always
give those colours (after the farce of changing garments and the
short-lived recreations are over) to those ladies whom they bring here
for their respective uses.

"We are strictly commanded to express all the demonstrations of joy, and
to be very merry for three days, when a young lady first comes amongst
us, as we did with you, and as you must now do with others. But
afterward we live like the most wretched prisoners, without seeing any
body but Mary, and the other maid-servants, over whom Mary hath a kind
of superiority, for she acts as housekeeper. We all dine in the great
hall three days in a week; and when any one of the inquisitors hath a
mind for one of his slaves, Mary comes about nine o'clock, and leads her
to his apartment.

"Some nights Mary leaves the doors of our chambers open, and that is a
token that one of the inquisitors hath a mind to come that night; but he
comes so silent that we are ignorant whether he is our patron or not. If
one of us happens to be with child, she is removed into a better chamber
till she is delivered; but during the whole of her pregnancy, she never
sees any body but the person appointed to attend her.

"As soon as the child is born it is taken away, and carried we know not
whither; for we never hear a syllable mentioned about it afterward. I
have been in this house six years, was not fourteen when the officers
took me from my father's house, and have had one child. There are, at
this present time, fifty-two young ladies in the house; but we annually
lose six or eight, though we know not what becomes of them, or whither
they are sent. This, however, does not diminish our number, for new ones
are always brought in to supply the place of those who are removed from
hence; and I remember, at one time, to have seen seventy-three ladies
here together. Our continual torment is to reflect that when they are
tired of any of the ladies, they certainly put to death those they
pretend to send away; for it is natural to think, that they have too
much policy to suffer their atrocious and