The lieutenant, with a look that told Manzon what he wanted to know, took his arm and escorted him to the carriage.

Bitten by curiosity I hired a taxi to follow Manzon. He went directly to the infamous, blood-drenched court of the Jesuit inquisitors at the Plaza of the Inquisition. I followed him into a large hall an austere high-ceilinged room, and watched him walk with dramatic slowness to a platform at the end of the room. For a long moment he stood stiffly before it, his fists clenched. The floor beneath him creaked and I saw he was standing on what appeared to be a trap door, then he disappeared through a doorway at the side.

I asked my taxi driver whose English was almost as poor as my Spanish if he knew anyone who could tell me about Manzon. He nodded and took me to the home of Jose de Luque, a balding middle aged school teacher with red lacquered nails and a flair for histrionics. Whenever Jose's facile tongue relaxed, his slender, expressive hands carried on. He began with Manzon's paternal ancestry.

*

The year 1557. At the door of their home in Lima Lieutenant Geronimo Perez clasped Don Fernando Martin, captain of pikemen, warmly to his breast, tears came into his eyes, he couldn't speak; for this was the end of their days and nights together, a period of six years duration.

Geronimo, a personable young man of 25 years, of dark complexion and martial bearing had arrived in Peru during the insurrection against the rebel, Francisco Giron. He forthwith enlisted as a soldier and quickly became an officer. From what part of Spain he came only Don Fernando knew. He neither drank nor gambled nor consorted with women. Supposedly a devout Catholic, he spent considerable time and money in the

churches and convents. Never had there been a more religious soldier. Now after a tearful parting from his devoted Don Fernando he saddled his horse and rode north to Potosi. A year later he discovered a silver mine of such rich lode he became immensely wealthy overnight. He sent for Don Fernando and made him manager of his mine. Then in 1571 he married an Inca princess. Not that he loved her but she reminded him of her brother of whom he had been exceedingly fond and for whom he suffered agony when he was killed by a condor. A vear later his son, Rodrigo, was born. Then suddenly to everyone's amazement he sold his mine to a company of Basques, settled a large fortune on his wife and son, then chartered a boat and took the remainder of his wealth to Seville. There he distributed considerable money among monasteries and homes for orphan boys. Then he vanished as completely as steam in the wind. The only explanation that seemed logical to those who knew him was that Giron's sympathizers had abducted and killed him.

In Potosi, Don Fernando received the news with a leaden heart. He was determined to find Geronimo. and with a large fortune he had accumulated at the mine he sailed for Spain. Off the Spanish coast Barbary pirates seized him and all the men aboard the ship and sold them as slaves to the vizier, Sig Al-Amar of Algiers. They were sent to one of the vizier's many possessions some distance from his palace. None of the slaves saw him nor knew anything about him. However. Sig Al-Amar wondered about his new slaves and one afternoon with a cortege of Mussulmen went to inspect them. Don Fernando, digging in the garden, didn't even look up, so it was to his amazement that night that he received an order to go alone to the vizier's private quarters. Eyes to the

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