between them was unknown as to the subject of it; but he doubted not, by the gloom which sat next day upon both their brows, that it had not been in his favour, and that he should shortly experience all that a cruel and revengeful woman, restrained by no principles of honour, religion, or generosity, could inflict; but, contrary to these suggestions, the intelligencer of the other's meaning told him, that in spite of the coldness with which he had received her queen's affections, and the disregard he paid her, in preferring a foolish vow to her embraces, she still retained a tenderness for him, which would not suffer her to cast him off, and had prevailed on her to wait the expiration of the time he mentioned, for a proof how worthy he was of the passion she had entertained for him. Montrano, said he, answered this message in terms as obliging as he could; and from that time forward was put to no further trouble till the expiration of the year. They soon removed to the great palace, where the deceived Incas received this perjured woman with such demonstrations of kindness, that the knowledge of her ingratitude to such a husband, whose love had raised her from the lowest ebb of fortune, and still continued to support her in all the pomp that that part of the world could afford, made her yet more hateful in his mind; he often told me, that he abhorred even to look upon her. But not to spin out my narration to a tedious length, the whole year of his freedom from her felicitations, he past in contrivances to get from that detested place; but found that impossible, since, had he made his escape to any of the other islands, as perhaps he might have done in a canoe, the Maldives have so good an intelligence with each other, that he must infallibly have been discovered, and sent back to endure the most cruel punishments imaginable. You may think it strange, perhaps, that neither he nor I could have any opportunity of sending to Ceylon, where we both were known, and might early have been ransomed; but the temper of those
