teem of the profligate
Infant? Ah, thou changest colour."

"By Heaven! you madden me with these devilish surmises. Speak plainly."

"I see thou knowest not Calderon," said the governor, with a bitter
smile. "I do--for my niece was beautiful, and the prince wooed her--.
But enough of that: at his scaffold, or at the rack, I shall be avenged
on Roderigo Calderon. You said the Cardinal was your kinsman; you are,
then, equally related to his son, the Duke d'Uzeda. Apply not to Lerma;
he is the tool of Calderon. Apply yourself to Uzeda; he is Calderon's
mortal foe. While Calderon gains ground with the prince, Uzeda advances
with the king. Uzeda by a word can procure thy release. The duke knows
and trusts me. Shall I be commissioned to acquaint him with thy arrest,
and entreat his intercession with Philip?"

"You give me new life! But not an hour is to be lost; this night--this
day-oh, Mother of Mercy! what image have you conjured up! fly to Uzeda,
if you would save my very reason. I myself have scarcely seen him
since my boyhood--Lerma forbade me seek his friendship. But I am of his
race--his blood."

"Be cheered, I shall see the duke to-day. I have business with him where
you wot not. We are bringing strange events to a crisis. Hope the best."
With this the governor took his leave.

At the dusk of the evening, Don Juan de la Nuza, wrapped in a dark
mantle, stood before a small door deep-set in a massive and gloomy wall,
that stretched along one side of a shunned and deserted street. Without
sign of living hand, the door opened at his knock, and the governor
entered a long and narrow passage that conducted to chambers more
associated with images of awe than any in his own prison. Here he
suddenly encountered the Jesuit, Fray Louis de Aliaga, confessor to the
king.

"How fares the Grand Inquisitor?" asked De la Nuza. "He has just
breathed his last," answered the Jesuit. "His illness--so sudden--defied
all aid. Sandoval y Roxas is with the saints."

The governor, who was, as the reader may suppose, one of the sacred
body, crossed himself, and answered.--"With whom will rest the
appointment of the successor? Who will be first to gain the ear of the
king?"

"I know not," replied the Jesuit; "but I am at this instant summoned to
Uzeda. Pardon my haste."

So saying, Aliaga glided away.

"With Sandoval y Roxas," muttered Don Juan, "dies the last protector of
Calderon and Lerma: unless, indeed, the wily marquis can pers