to hold Donna Inez back, but
she tore herself away; she was panic stricken; she did not know what she
did; she said something to me as she ran out of her room about seeking
protection; she rushed down the stairs in the direction of the
banqueting hall; she never came up them again. As soon as I had hushed
my babes I followed her. She was inside the iron gate; it had closed
upon her as she passed through. It could only be opened by those who
understood the secret spring. There was no one who could come to show us
how to open it. We could not break the gate; that was impossible. We saw
that the further end of the castle was stopped, all filled up with
immense blocks of stone which had crashed in when the tower fell. Don
Alphonzo and more than a hundred men lay under the ruins; they shrieked
and groaned there all through the night. Donna Inez became frantic. She
dashed herself against the iron bars like some newly caged bird. In the
morning when the sun came up from the sea she was dead. I looked for the
ship; it had sailed. I had almost lost the power of moving, but the
cries of my babes called me back to activity. I gathered some covering
and some other things and took them to the Vikings' tomb. I tore away
the earth to make an entrance. We lived there till cold and hunger
killed my babes. I have lived there ever since. Nothing could induce me
ever to enter the castle again."

"Why do you call it the Vikings' tomb, Louisita?" asked Mrs. Carleton.

"That was what Don Alphonzo called it. I think he knew for he was a man
of much learning, although he had no sense. He said the Vikings built
the castle very long ago, and lived here for two hundred years till a
great pestilence prevailed among them, and so many died of it that the
remaining ones deserted the place. He said the Indians cast a spell over
the Vikings and bewitched them, because the Indians used to live here
in wigwams before the Vikings came and drove them away from their own
land, and would not allow them to bury their dead among their
forefathers, for they have a burial place on this island. It is down
there just below the swamp where I saw you gathering flowers one day
soon after you came here. There is a large elm tree down there, the only
one near. The Indians are buried there all round it. They always had an
elm tree in that place. They have a secret charm by which they keep it
there. The Vikings cut down their elm many times, but it sprung up again
in th