poken out of my
conviction, and he knew it. "No," he said. "I do not believe it. I will
never believe it of the Queen! Look you! I have thought it out in the
night. The night is good for thinking out. You would not believe how
many enemies I have in Spain. Margarite and Father Buil are but two of
a crowd. Fonseca, who should give me all aid, gives me all hindrance. I
have throngs of foes; men who envy me; men who thought I might give them
the golden sun, and I could not; hidalgos who hold that God made them to
enjoy, standing on other men's shoulders, eating the grapes and throwing
down the empty skins, and I made them to labor like the others; and not
in Heaven or Hell will they forgive me! And others--and others. They
have turned the King a little their way. I knew that, ere I went to find
that great new land where are pearls, that slopes upward by littles to
the Height of the World and the Earthly Paradise. Turned the King, but
not the Queen. But now I make it they have worked upon her. I make it
that she does not know the character of Don Francisco de Bobadilla. I
make it that, holding him to be far wiser than he is, she with the
King gave him great power as commissioner. I make it that they gave him
letters of authority, and a last letter, superseding the Viceroy, naming
him Governor whom all must obey. I make it that he was only to use this
if after long examination it was found by a wise, just man that I had
done after my enemies' hopes. I make it that here across Ocean-Sea,
far, far from Spain, he chose not to wait. He clucked to him all the
disaffected and flew with a strong beak at the eyes of my friends." He
moved his arms and his chains clanked. "I make it that this severity is
Don Francisco de Bobadilla's, not King Ferdinand's, not--oh, more than
not--the good Queen's!"

Juan Lepe thought that he had made out the probabilities, probably the
certainties.

"If I may win to Spain!" he ended. "It all hinges on that! If I may see
the Sovereigns--if I may see the good Queen! I hope to God he will soon
chain me in a ship and send me!"

Had he seen Don Francisco de Bobadilla?

No, he had not seen Don Francisco de Bobadilla. He thought that on the
whole that Hidalgo and Commander of Calatrava was afraid.

Outside of the fortress that afternoon Juan Lepe kept company with one
who had come with the fire-new Governor, a grim, quiet fellow named
Pedro Lopez. He and Luis Torres had been neighbors in Spain; it was
L