THE ROMANCE OF MEXICO
good may come of it," such specious excuses melted away.
In that hour of deep contrition,
He beheld, with clearer vision,
Through all outward show and fashion
Justice, the Avenger, rise.
All the pomp of earth had vanished,
Falsehood and deceit were banished,
Reason spake more loud than passion,
And the truth were no disguise.
Smitten with remorse, Ferdinand promised to redress the terrible wrong, and Las Casas turned away rejoicing. Bitter was the blow when this hard-won victory proved too late! Death stepped in ere the king had fulfilled his good intentions, and the friar was left to mourn the ruin of his high hopes.
A poor imbecile daughter, Joanna, the widow of the Archduke of Austria, was Ferdinand's nominal successor, but as she was quite incapable of ruling, her son Charles was proclaimed King of Spain. This boy of sixteen, who soon afterwards became the Emperor Charles the Fifth, the greatest monarch in Europe, had been born and brought up in his father's dominions in the Netherlands. Flemish in speech, manners, and sympathy, he cared little for Spain, and left its government for a time to a regent Cardinal Ximenes. Before this man, courageous and honourable, but both bigoted and politic, Las Casas now pleaded for his Indian flock. Ximenes listened, and at once sent out to Hispaniola a commission to inquire into and if possible redress the condition of the natives. But the commissioners,
