Perceiving, because of such a sign being given him, Señor, that he had committed an error, the master of that house of horror immediately went out from it--and at once disappeared completely and never was heard of again. As for the blacksmith, he was so pained by his share in the matter that always afterward, until the death of him, he was a very unhappy man. And that is the story of the Iron-shod Woman, Señor, from first to last.
This story, Señor--it is about the accursed bell that once was the clock-bell of the Palace--has so many beginnings that the only way really to get at the bones of it would be for a number of people, all talking at once, to tell the different first parts of it at the same time.
For, you see, the curse that was upon this bell--that caused it to be brought to trial before the Consejo of the Inquisition, and by the Consejo to be condemned to have its wicked tongue torn out and to be banished from Spain to this country--was made up of several curses which had been in use in other ways elsewhere previously: so that one beginning is with the Moor, and another with Don Gil de Marcadante, and another with the devil-forged armor, and still another with the loosing of all the curses from the cross (wherein for some hundreds of years they were imprisoned) and the fusing of them into the one great curse wherewith this unfortunate bell was afflicted--which happened when that holy emblem was refounded, and with the metal of it this bell was made.
Concerning the Moor, Señor, I can give you very little information. All that I know about him is that he had the bad name of Muslef; and that he was killed--as he deserved to be killed, being an Infidel--by a Christian knight; and that this knight cut his head off and brought it home with him as an agreeable memento of the occasion, and was very pleased with what he had done. Unfortunately, this knight also brought home with him the Moor's armor--which was of bronze, and so curiously and so beautifully wrought that it evidently had been forged by devils, and which was farther charged with devilishness because it had been worn by an Infidel; and then, still more unfortunately, he neglected to have the armor purified by causing the devils to be exorcised out of it by a Christian priest. Therefore, of course, the devils remained in the armor--ready to make trouble whenever they got the chance.