’That same night we were married and fled for Cadiz, your mother and I, but not her mother, who was bedridden with a sickness.  For my sake your beloved mother abandoned her people, what remained to her of her fortune after paying the price of my life, and her country, so strong is the love of woman.  All had been made ready, for at Cadiz lay an English ship, the “Mary” of Bristol, in which passage was taken for us.  But the “Mary” was delayed in port by a contrary wind which blew so strongly that notwithstanding his desire to save us, her master dared not take the sea.  Two days and a night we lay in the harbour, fearing all things not without cause, and yet most happy in each other’s love.  Now those who had charge of me in the dungeon had given out that I had escaped by the help of my master the Devil, and I was searched for throughout the country side.  De Garcia also, finding that his cousin and affianced wife was missing, guessed that we two were not far apart.  It was his cunning, sharpened by jealousy and hate, that dogged us down step by step till at length he found us.

’On the morning of the third day, the gale having abated, the anchor of the “Mary” was got home and she swung out into the tideway.  As she came round and while the seamen were making ready to hoist the sails, a boat carrying some twenty soldiers, and followed by two others, shot alongside and summoned the captain to heave to, that his ship might be boarded and searched under warrant from the Holy Office.  It chanced that I was on deck at the time, and suddenly, as I prepared to hide myself below, a man, in whom I knew de Garcia himself, stood up and called out that I was the escaped heretic whom they sought.  Fearing lest his ship should be boarded and he himself thrown into prison with the rest of his crew, the captain would then have surrendered me.  But I, desperate with fear, tore my clothes from my body and showed the cruel scars that marked it.

’"You are Englishmen,” I cried to the sailors, “and will you deliver me to these foreign devils, who am of your blood?  Look at their handiwork,” and I pointed to the half-healed scars left by the red-hot pincers; “if you give me up, you send me back to more of this torment and to death by burning.  Pity my wife if you will not pity me, or if you will pity neither, then lend me a sword that by death I may save myself from torture.”

’Then one of the seamen, a Southwold man who had known my father, called out:  “By God!  I for one will stand by you, Thomas Wingfield.  If they want you and your sweet lady they must kill me first,” and seizing a bow from the rack he drew it out of its case and strung it, and setting an arrow on the string he pointed it at the Spaniards in the boat.

’Then the others broke into shouts of: 

’"If you want any man from among us, come aboard and take him, you torturing devils,” and the like.

’Seeing where the heart of the crew lay, the captain found courage in his turn.  He made no answer to the Spaniards, but bade half of the men hoist the sails with all speed, and the rest make ready to keep off the soldiers should they seek to board us.