of heretical pravity, they commanded the nobles of the Kingdom of
Castile that within fifteen days they should make an exact return
of the persons of both sexes who had sought refuge in their
lordships or jurisdictions; that they arrest all these and lodge
them in the prison of the Inquisition in Seville, confiscating
their property, and holding it at the disposal of the inquisitors;
that none should shelter any fugitive under pain of greater
excommunication and of other penalties by law established against
abettors of heretics.

The harsh injustice that lay in this call to arrest men and women
merely because they had departed from Seville before departure
was in any way forbidden, revealed the severity with which the
inquisitors intended to proceed. It completed the consternation
of the New-Christians who had remained behind, and how numerous
these were may be gathered from the fact that in the district of
Seville alone they numbered a hundred thousand, many of them
occupying, thanks to the industry and talent characteristic of
their race, positions of great eminence. It even disquieted the
well-favoured young Don Rodrigo de Cardona, who in all his vain,
empty, pampered and rather vicious life had never yet known
perturbation. Not that he was a New-Christian. He was of a
lineage that went back to the Visigoths, of purest red Castilian
blood, untainted by any strain of that dark-hued, unclean fluid
alleged to flow in Hebrew veins. But it happened that he was in
love with the daughter of the millionaire Diego de Susan, a girl
whose beauty was so extraordinary that she was known throughout
Seville and for many a mile around as la Hermosa Fembra; and he
knew that such commerce--licit or illicitly conducted--was
disapproved by the holy fathers. His relations with the girl had