The cause of the Governor's visit to this secluded spot nobody could divine; but the general astonishment on this head was still further increased, when, a few days after, the body of a near relative of Don Guiterre--one of the principal officers of the Holy Inquisition--was discovered at the very same spot, and bearing marks of having met with a similar death.
A clue to the solution of these mysterious and appalling events was at length, however, obtained; though it still left many of the particulars open to conjecture. An old and faithful servant of the late Governor was, not many days after, found in the bed of the stream, having also, as it appeared, fallen from the enchanted bridge. Life, however, was not extinct. He was conveyed to a neighbouring monastery, where every attention was paid to his wounds, though without the slightest hope of his ultimate recovery. The excessive pain, caused by a severe wound in the head, brought on delirium; so that little information could be gathered from him; but in his paroxysms he raved of a brilliant light that shone constantly before his eyes, which, with piercing cries for mercy, intermixed with frightful imprecations on Don Guiterre, he fervently invoked.--But in the last moments of his wretched existence, he became somewhat more tranquil; and the monk who attended him, (a brother of one of my distant ancestors) collected at intervals the following particulars of his melancholy story.
His master it appeared had willingly entered into the plot--already alluded to--projected by the old Moor. The inquisitorial visit, planned by these two fiends in human form, was brought about by information secretly furnished to the Holy Tribunal, by the wretched maniac himself. Their _professed_ object in procuring Hinzára's incarceration was, to frighten her into a marriage with Don Guiterre, whose influence over the Inquisitor, his relative, was to be employed in procuring her liberation, on condition that she gave proof of her innocence by consenting to marry him.--Each of these miscreants imagined, however, that he was making a dupe of his confederate; for each breathed only vengeance on the innocent Hinzára. Don Guiterre could not forgive her contemptuous rejection of his suit; and, his ungovernable passion continuing unabated, he hoped, by acceding to the terms on which only it was proposed, she should obtain her liberation,--to have her in his power to satisfy his revenge, after he had gratified his yet more hateful passion: or, should she, contrary to his expectations, continue obdurate, to feast his eyes on the tortures of his hapless victim. Abenhabuz, on the other hand, knew his daughter too well to imagine she would consent to purchase life on the terms proposed. His sole object was to procure her death,--which, as he conceived, was merited as much by her disobedience to his commands, as by the unpardonable sin of deserting the faith of her forefathers;--and, as he himself could not inflict the punishment without exciting suspicion, he hit upon the plan of making Don Guiterre a tool to effect his purpose. But, in the words of the Roman Fabulist, "_Vindictæ cupidus sibi malum accersit_." Each of these monsters reaped the just fruit of his crime.