House of Torment

"You have asked me about the Inquisition, Monsieur and Madame," he said in a low voice, "and as ye are going to Seville, I will tell you, for you have been courteous and kind to me since I left Lisbon, and you may as well be warned. I am peculiarly fitted to tell you, because my brother – God and Our Lady rest his blood-stained soul! – was a notary of the Holy Office at Seville. We are, originally, Lisbon people, and my brother was paying a visit to his family, being on leave from his duties. He caught fever and died, and I am bearing back his papers with me to Seville, from which city I shall depart as soon as may be. It is only care for my own skin that makes me act thus as executor to my brother, Garcia Perez. Did I not, they would seek me out wherever I might be."

"You go in fear, then?" Johnnie asked curiously.

"All Spaniards go in fear," Perez answered, "under this reign. It is the horror of the Inquisition that while any one may be haled before it on a complaint which is anonymous, hardly any one ever escapes certain penalties. Señor," his voice trembled, and a deep note of feeling came into it, "if the fate of that wretch is heavy who, being innocent of heresy, will not confess his guilt, and is therefore tortured until he confesses imaginary guilt, and is then burned to death, hardly less is the misery of the victim who recants or repenteth and is freed from the penalty of death."

"Tiens!" said La Motte, shuddering. "I have heard somewhat of this in Paris; but continue, Monsieur, continue."

"No one knows," the little man answered, "how the Holy Office is striking at the root of all national life in my country. And no one has a better knowledge of it all at second hand – for, thank Our Lady, I have never yet been suspected or arraigned – than I myself, for my brother being for long notary and secretary to the Grand Inquisitor of Seville, I have heard much. Now I must tell you, that the place of torture is generally an underground and very dark room, to which one enters through several doors. There is a tribunal erected in it, where the Inquisitor, Inspector, and Secretary sit. When the candles are lighted, and the person to be tortured is brought in, the executioner, who is waiting for him, makes an astonishing and dreadful appearance. He is covered all over with black linen garments down to his feet and tied close to his body. His head and face are all hidden with a long black cowl, only two little holes being left in it for him to see through. All this is intended to strike the miserable wretch with greater terror in mind and body, when he sees himself going to be tortured by the hands of one who thus looks like the very Devil."

Johnnie moved uneasily in his seat and struck the breech of a carronade with his open hand. "Phew! Devil's tricks indeed," he said.

"Whilst," Don Perez went on, "whilst the officers are getting things ready for the torture, the Bishop and Inquisitor by themselves, and other men zealous for the faith, endeavour to persuade the person to be tortured freely to confess the truth, and if he will not, they order the officers to strip him, who do it in an instant.

"Whilst the person to be tortured is stripping, he is persuaded to confess the truth. If he refuses it, he is taken aside by certain men and urged to confess, and told by them that if he confesses he will not be put to death, but only be made to swear that he will not return to the heresy he hath abjured. If he is persuaded neither by threatenings nor promises to confess his crime, he is tortured either more lightly or grievously according as his crime requires, and frequently interrogated during the torture upon those articles for which he is put to it, beginning with the lesser ones, because they think he would sooner confess the lesser matters than the greater."

"Criminals are racked in England," Johnnie said, "and are flogged most grievously, as well they deserve, I do not doubt."

Perez chuckled. "Aye," he said, "that I well know; but you have nothing in England like the Holy Office. But let me tell you more as to the law of it, for, as I have said, my brother was one of them."

He went on in a low regular voice, almost as if he were repeating something learned by rote…

"What think you of this? The Inquisitors themselves must interrogate the criminals during their torture, nor can they commit this business to others unless they are engaged in other important affairs, in which case they may depute certain skilful men for the purpose.

"Although in other nations criminals are publicly tortured, yet in Spain it is forbidden by the Royal Law for any to be present whilst they are torturing, besides the judges, secretaries, and torturers. The Inquisitors must also choose proper torturers, born of ancient Christians, who must be bound by oath by no means to discover their secrets, nor to report anything that is said.

"The judges also shall protest that if the criminal should happen to die under his torture, or by reason of it, or should suffer the loss of any of his limbs, it is not to be imputed to them, but to the criminal himself, who will not plainly confess the truth before he is tortured.

"A heretic may not only be interrogated concerning himself, but in general also concerning his companions and accomplices in his crime, his teachers and his disciples, for he ought to discover them, though he be not interrogated; but when he is interrogated concerning them, he is much more obliged to discover them than his accomplices in any other the most grievous crimes.

"A person also suspected of heresy and fully convicted may be tortured upon another account, that is, to discover his companions and accomplices in the crime. This must be done when he hesitates, or it is half fully proved, at least, that he was actually present with them, or he hath such companions and accomplices in his crime; for in this case he is not tortured as a criminal, but as a witness.

"But he who makes full confession of himself is not tortured upon a different account; whereas if he be a negative he may be tortured upon another account, to discover his accomplices and other heretics though he be full convicted himself, and it be half fully proved that he hath such accomplices.

"The reason of the difference in these cases is this, because he who confesses against himself would certainly much rather confess against other heretics if he knew them. But it is otherwise when the criminal is a negative.

"While these things are doing, the notary writes everything down in the process, as what tortures were inflicted, concerning what matters the prisoner was interrogated, and what he answered.

"If by these tortures they cannot draw from him a confession, they show him other kind of tortures, and tell him he must undergo all of them, unless he confesses the truth.

"If neither by these means they can extort the truth, they may, to terrify him and engage him to confess, assign the second or third day to continue, not to repeat, the torture, till he hath undergone all those kinds of them to which he is condemned."

"It is bitter cruel," Madame La Motte said, "bitter cruel. It is not honest torture such as we have in Paris."

Commendone shuddered. "Honest torture!" he said. "There is no torture which is honest, nor could be liked by Christ our Lord. I saw a saint burned to his death a few weeks agone. It taught me a lesson."

The little Spaniard tittered. "It must be! It must be!" he said; "and who are you and I, Señor, to flout the decrees of Holy Church? The burning doth not last for long. I have seen a many burned upon the Quemadero, and twenty minutes is the limit of their suffering. It is not so in the dungeons of the Holy Office."

"What then do they do?" Madame La Motte asked eagerly, though she trembled as she asked it – morbid excitement alone being able to thrill her vicious, degenerate blood.

"The degrees of torture are five, which are inflicted in turn," Perez answered briskly. "First, the being threatened to be tortured; secondly, being carried to the place of torture; thirdly, by stripping and binding; fourthly, the being hoisted on the rack; fifthly, squassation.

"The stripping is performed without any regard to humanity or honour, not only to men, but to women and virgins, though the most virtuous and chaste, of whom they have sometimes many in their prison at Seville. For they cause them to be stripped even to their very shifts, which they afterwards take off, forgive the expression, and then put on them straight linen drawers, and then make their arms naked quite up to their shoulders. – You ask me what is squassation?"

Nobody had asked him, but he went on:

"It is thus performed: The prisoner hath his hands bound behind his back and weights tied to his feet, and then he is drawn up on high till his head reaches the very pulley. He is kept hanging in this manner for some time, that by the greatness of the weight hanging at his feet, all his joints and limbs may be dreadfully stretched, and on a sudden he is let down with a jerk by slacking the rope, but kept from coming quite to the ground, by the which terrible shake his arms and legs are all disjointed, whereby he is put to the most exquisite pain; the shock which he receives by the sudden stop of the fall, and the weight at his feet, stretching his whole body more intently and cruelly."

Johnnie jumped up from the deck and stretched his arms. "What fiends be these!" he cried. "Is there no justice nor true legal process in Spain?"

"Holy Church! Holy Church, Señor!" the Don replied. "But sit you down again. Sith you are going to Seville, as I understand you to say, let me tell you what happened to a noble lady of that city, Joan Bohorquia, the wife of Francis Varquius, a very eminent man and lord of Highuera, and daughter of Peter Garcia Xeresius, a most wealthy citizen. All this I tell you of my personal knowledge, in that my brother was acquainted with it all and part of the machinery of the Holy Office. And this is a most sad and pitiful story, which, Señor Englishman, you would think a story of the doings of devils from hell! But no! 'Twas all done by the priests of Jesus our Lord; and so now to my story.

"Eight days after her delivery they took the child from her, and on the fifteenth shut her close up, and made her undergo the fate of the other prisoners, and began to manage her with their usual arts and rigour. In so dreadful a calamity she had only this comfort, that a certain pious young woman, who was afterwards burned for her religion by the Inquisitors, was allowed her for her companion.

"This young creature was, on a certain day, carried out to her torture, and being returned from it into her jail, she was so shaken, and had all her limbs so miserably disjointed, that when she laid upon her bed of rushes it rather increased her misery than gave her rest, so that she could not turn herself without most excessive pain.

"In this condition, as Bohorquia had it not in her power to show her any or but very little outward kindness, she endeavoured to comfort her mind with great tenderness.

"The girl had scarce begun to recover from her torture, when Bohorquia was carried out to the same exercise, and was tortured with such diabolical cruelty upon the rack, that the rope pierced and cut into the very bones in several places, and in this manner she was brought back to prison, just ready to expire, the blood immediately running out of her mouth in great plenty. Undoubtedly they had burst her bowels, insomuch that the eighth day after her torture she died.

"And when, after all, they could not procure sufficient evidence to condemn her, though sought after and procured by all their inquisitorial arts, yet as the accused person was born in that place, where they were obliged to give some account of the affair to the people, and, indeed, could not by any means dissemble it, in the first act of triumph appointed her death, they commanded her sentence to be pronounced in these words: 'Because this lady died in prison (without doubt suppressing the causes of it), and was found to be innocent upon inspecting and diligently examining her cause, therefore the holy tribunal pronounces her free from all charges brought against her by the fiscal, and absolving her from any further process, doth restore her both as to her innocence and reputation, and commands all her effects, which had been confiscated, to be restored to those to whom they of right belonged, etc.' And thus, after they had murdered her by torture with savage cruelty, they pronounced her innocent!"

"I will not go to Spain! They'll have me; they're bound to have me! I dare not go!" La Motte spluttered.

"Hush, Madame!" said Perez. "Even here on the high seas you do not know who hears you – there is that man…"

Again Johnnie leapt to his feet; he paced up and down the little portion of the deck between the forecastle and bowsprit.

Elizabeth was sleeping quietly down below. He had seen her father die. His mind whirled. "Jesus!" he said in a low voice, "and is this indeed Thy world, when men who love Thee must die for a shadow of belief in their worship! Surely some savage pagan god would not exact this from his votaries."

He swung round to Perez, still sitting upon the deck.

"And may not we love God and His Mother in Spain?" he asked, "without definitions and little tiny rules? Then, if this is so, God indeed hides His face from Christian countries."

"Chiton!" the Spaniard said. "Hush! if you said that, Señor, or anything like it, where you are going, you would not be twelve hours out of the prisons of the Holy Office. If that hang-faced dog who is down below with the mariners had heard you, you might well look to your landing in the dominions of his Most Catholic Majesty."

He laughed, a bitter and cynical laugh. "Well," he said, "for my part, I shall soon be done with it. Hitherto I have been protected by my brother, who, as I have told you, is but lately dead; but, knowing what I know, I dare no longer remain in Spain. 'Tis a wonder to me, indeed, that men can go about their business under the sun in the fashion that they do. But I am not strong enough to endure the strain, and also I know more than the ordinary – I know too much. So when I have delivered the papers that I carry of my brother's to the authorities in Seville, I sail away. I have enough money to live in ease for the rest of my life, and in some little vineyard of the Apeninnes I shall watch my grapes ripen, live a simple life, and meditate upon the ferocity of men. – But you have not heard all yet, Señor."

Johnnie leant against the forecastle, tall and silent in the moonlight.

"Then tell me more, Señor," he said; "it is well to know all. But" – he looked at Madame La Motte.

"Continuez," the old creature answered in a cracked voice; "I also would hear it all, if, indeed, there is worse than this."

"Worse!" Perez answered. "Let me tell you of the fate of a man I knew well, and liked withal. He was a Jew, Señor, but nevertheless I liked him well. We had dealings together, and I found him more honest in his walking than many a Christian man. Orobio was his name – Isaac Orobio, doctor of physic, who was accused to the Inquisition as a Jew by a certain Moor, his servant, who had, by his order, before this been whipped for thieving. Orobio conformed to religion, but the Moor accused him, and four years after this he was again accused by an enemy of his, for another fact which would have proved him a Jew. But Orobio obstinately denied that he was one."

"I like not Jews," Commendone said, with a little shudder, voicing the popular hatred of the day.

"Art young, Señor," the Spaniard replied, "and doubtless thou hast not known nor been friends with members of that oppressed race. I have known many, and have had sweet friends among them; and among the Ebrews are to be found salt of the earth. But I will give you the story of Orobio's torture as I had it from his own mouth.