My hands were bound tightly together, but my arms remained free, the hilt of the knife resting firmly between the palms.  Although I drew my body somewhat back in readiness for the stroke, I delayed the terrible deed until the last possible moment, the perspiration standing in great beads upon my face.  Oh, how I loved her then! how my half-blinded eyes feasted upon her sweet, sad face, the flames casting a ruddy glow upon it, and playing fitfully amid the masses of her dark, tangled hair!  There swept across my mind every memory of our past, and she was again with me in her girlhood, before sorrow had stamped her with its seal, and she had turned me away tenderly as ever a woman could.  And now she was doomed to death by my hand; with one blow I was to blot out the life I loved a thousand times better than my own.  Merciful God! what a trick had fate played me!  Nor durst I speak to her again, for her fingers toyed with the rosary at her throat, the beads glowing dully in the flame, and I knew she was in prayer, expecting with each instant the coming of that stroke which should send her trusting soul to God.  I, who have seen much of conflict and peril, much of suffering and atrocity, look back on no moment in all my life so fraught with agony as this, when, grasping that deadly knife in both hands, I watched every threatening movement of the savage arbiters of her fate, praying unto God for strength with which to perform my duty.

At last the chiefs stood erect.  In response to their gestures of command, the massed warriors below sprang to their feet, flocking eagerly toward us, giving utterance to one deep vengeful cry.  Already their clutches were upon the struggling Puritan, when I swung high the gleaming knife in both my hands.  For one terrible second I met her unflinching gaze, a glance which will abide with me until my dying day—­then the keen steel fell, barely deflected from the heart, slashing open the bosom of her dress, yet—­thanks be to a kind God!—­finding harmless sheath, not within her quivering flesh but in the hard-packed earth.  It was scarcely less than a miracle that I was thus able to turn the blow, but, even as I aimed it, putting to the hilt my full strength that I might send it surely home, there came into my vision a sudden flash of bright color against the dark, skin-draped wall, and I knew the Queen had come.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN

At first my dimmed eyes beheld her through a mist, my hands shaking as if stricken by palsy, nor did I retain sufficient strength of body to uplift myself from the spot where I had fallen with the force of my blow.  Nevertheless I shall forever retain the vivid picture imprinted on memory.  Before us stood a tall, fair-skinned woman, having dignity of command in every movement, her face thin, strong, dominant, with large, dark, passionate eyes, flashing in scornful beauty over the excited warriors at her