On February 1 1595 Luis de Carvajal the Younger was arrested by the Mexican Inquisition for the second time. He was searched. Found in his possession was a leather bag containing three contraband items: a book of Psalms a book containing Neviim and another book containing Bereishis. If the searchers had looked under Luis’s hat they also would have found a small version of the Ten Commandments sewn into its rim.   As a relapsed Judaizer Luis knew that only a miracle would save him from the fires of the auto-da-fé. Yet he still clung to the hope that at least his mother and sisters would be spared from the same fate. That hope crumbled when he was brought to the inquisitors’ audience chambers. During the questioning one of his interrogators produced the Inquisition’s most potent weapon against Luis and his family: a diary written in Luis’s own hand. Within the pages of the small black leather book was Luis’s life story the tale of his transformation from a Christian boy in Spain to the leader of the “Judaizing” community in New Spain. Along with an account of the events that brought him across the ocean to the New World Luis revealed his hopes his fears his frustrations and his dreams as well as his belief in Hashem and the truth of the Jewish faith. The Inquisition of course viewed the memoir as a book of heresy evidence that Luis had committed the ultimate crime. It was attached to Luis’s file where it remained until the early 1930s when it disappeared under mysterious circumstances. For us today it reads as a remarkable testimony to Luis’s unshakeable emunah — a faith made even more remarkable by the fact that ifLuis had chosen differently his path might have led not to the stake but to the leadership of a kingdom in New Spain.