to complain of discomfort or poor fare, for we
had all that men can require, and were well treated, save that at night
they guarded us more closely than we liked. But as to food and drink, we
were abundantly served, and so began to wax fat, in spite of our
anxiety.

There was no restriction placed upon our tongues at this time, and
therefore Pharaoh and I talked freely whenever we were out of hearing of
the monk. As for our conversation, it was all of one thing--the prospect
that awaited us in Mexico.

"What will come of this venture, Pharaoh?" I asked him one day as we
drew near our destination. "Shall we come off with whole skins, or
what?"

"It will be well if we come off with our lives, master. I have been
thinking things over to-day, and I make no doubt that this monk will
hand us over to the Inquisition. Put no trust in what he says about
finding us a ship at Vera Cruz. The only ship he will find us will be a
dungeon in some of their prisons. Well, now, what are our chances when
we fall into the hands of these fellows?"

"Nay, very small I should say. I am well-nigh resigned to anything.
Nevertheless, Pharaoh, I shall make a fight for it."

"It may not come to fighting. Can you say the Paternoster, the Ave
Maria, and the Creed?"

"I can say two of them, and I can learn the third. But what difference
does that make?"

"All the difference 'twixt burning at the stake and wearing a San-benito
in a monastery for a year or two. Now, if we are burnt there is an end
of us, but if they put us into a monastery with a San-benito on our
backs we shall still have a chance of life, and shall be poor Englishmen
if we do not take it."

Thus we talked, striving to comfort ourselves, until at the end of the
fourth day we were brought by our captors to the City of Mexico.

CHAPTER XII.

MORE CRUEL THAN WILD BEASTS.

There are times when, looking round these fair lands of Beechcot, and
thinking on the quiet and prosperous life which I have spent in their
midst these many years, I fall to wondering whether those dark days in
Mexico were real or only a dream. It seems to me, sometimes, that all
which then happened to me and to my companion, Pharaoh Nanjulian, must
have been but a dream and naught else, so horrible were the cruelties
and indignities practiced upon us. You could hardly bring yourselves to
believe, you who have lived quiet, stay-at-home lives, how merciless
were the men into whose hands we fell, an