The All-Story Magazine, Vol. IX, No. 1

About this issue

All-Story Magazine, September 1907, serial installment. News arrives at the island of Rocaverde that Don Luis de Lucena's ships have returned from sea. Don Estevan de Lucena, Luis's twenty-five-year-old cousin, receives a private warning from Pedro Mirando regarding a conspiracy against Luis's rule. Gonsalvo, one of the conspirators, has been arrested but refuses to confess; Don Luis threatens to use torture or the Inquisition to extract names of other plotters. Estevan expresses moral qualms about these methods. Later, Mirando lures Estevan to a private chamber where four of Luis's officers reveal themselves, apparently seeking Estevan's involvement in some undisclosed matter. The narrative emphasizes dynastic heritage—the Lucenas descend from a fourteenth-century Spanish noble who married a Viking woman—and the castle's wealth derived from Moorish treasures, lending the family a reputation for piracy among neighboring powers.