- The nefarious Mother Morro is a disreputable innkeeper who charges smugglers protection money. After she procures an innocent young girl for Capt. Jose's pleasure, the girl's father puts a curse on the old woman. Soon after, Morro's beloved convent reared daughter Mercedes falls in love with the lecherous Jose. To avenge her daughter's stolen innocence, Morro arranges for Amadio to kill Jose, but Mercedes overhears the plan and offers her life to save Jose's. Upon learning that her daughter's body has been thrown over the cliff, Morro becomes demented and falls to her death. On moonlit nights her ghost haunts Morro Castle.
- Mother Morro is a disreputable innkeeper. The smugglers who deposit their goods with her, under the protection of Captain Jose of the revenue squad, hate her for the large percentage which she forces from them. For the captain, she victimizes Rosetta, daughter of an old fruit dealer, who seeks out the captain and denounces him. Concealed in a convent, lives Mercedes, Mother Morro's daughter. Mercedes steals away one night and seeks her mother. Fearful that the girl may learn of her true mode of living, Mother Morro tries to hide Mercedes and to hurry her back, but Captain Jose has seen her. He follows her to the convent garden. Dazzled by him, she allows his advances. Time passes and Mercedes becomes enamored of Jose. She steals from the convent to meet him. The smugglers see her and set upon a plan to win the captain's good graces. Knowing his love of women and at the same time, anxious to work harm upon Mother Morro, they decide to abduct the girl from the convent. Thus, Mercedes, gagged and veiled, is brought to the inn, where Mother Morro, in her ignorance of the girl's identity, serves them all with drinks. As Mercedes is being led from the inn, she drops her ivory crucifix. When Mother Morro discovers this, she realizes that her daughter is being taken to the captain. She rushes after the others, but the smugglers prevent her from reaching the captain. As the girl staggers out, she joins her mother, who swears vengeance. Mother Morro hires Amadio, an assassin, to make the captain expiate his sin. Thus, Annetta, Amadio's sister, lures Jose to a lonely inn. In spite of all that has happened, Mercedes' love for Jose persists. It is to kill this love that her mother allows Mercedes to watch through an open window of the old inn, Jose's love-making to Annetta. Mercedes overhears Rosetta begging Amadio not to murder the unsuspecting captain. Amadio insists that he must fulfill his contract and that Jose can be saved only by appearance of some other person who could be done away with and whose body could be passed in a sack to Mother Morro as that of the captain. Thus it is, that Mercedes resolves to save Jose's life. Mercedes makes her way to Amadio's. As she is admitted into the room, the assassin's knife lays her low. Mother Morro is waiting on the battlements of Morro Castle. Amadio appears with the sack and demands payment. Morbid curiosity prompts the old woman to take a last look at the body of her daughter's seducer, but the appearance of a soldier on the road deters her. Amadio seizes the opportunity of covering up the deception and hurls the sack into the sea. At this moment Captain Jose passes them on his way home from Amadio's inn. Mother Morro gazes over the battlements to find her daughter lying dead on the rocks. Her mind leaves her and with a last oath at Amadio, she flings herself into the sea to rest forever by her daughter's side. Nightly the ghost of Mother Morro is seen to rise and swiftly make its way up the battlements of the old castle.
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