House of Torment

"Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" – it was all he could say; it was all he could think of, it was his last prayer. Just the name alone.

And very speedily the prayer was answered. Out of the depths he cried – "De profundis clamavit" – and the door opened, as it opened to the Apostle Paul, and the place where he was was filled with red light.

For a moment he was unable to realise it. He passed one wasted and dirty hand before his eyes. "Jesus!" he said again, in a dreamy, wondering voice.

He felt himself lifted up from where he lay. Two strong hands were under his arms; he was taken out of the stinking oubliette into the corridor beyond.

He stood upright. He stretched out his arms. He breathed another air. It was a damp, fœtid, underground air, but it seemed to him that it came from the gardens of the Hesperides.

Then he became conscious of a voice speaking quietly, quickly, and with great insistence.

The voice in his ear!

… "Señor, we have had to wait. You have had to lie in this dungeon, and I could do nothing for you – for you that saved my life. It hath taken many days to think out a plan to save you and the Señorita. But 'tis done now, 'tis cut and dried, and neither you nor she shall go to the death designed for you both. It hath been designed by the Assessor and the Procurator Fiscal, acting under orders of the Grand Inquisitor, that you shall be tortured to death, or near to it, and that to the Señorita shall be done the same. Then you are to be taken to the Quemadero – that great altar of stone supported by figures of the Holy Apostles – and there burnt to death at the forthcoming auto da fé."

"Then what," – Johnnie's voice came from him in a hollow whisper.

"Hush, hush," the other voice answered him; "'tis all arranged. 'Tis all settled, but still it dependeth upon you, Señor. Will you save your lady love, and go free with her from here, and with your servant also, or will you die and let her die too?"

"Then she hath not been tortured?"

"Not yet; it is for to-night. You come afterwards. But you do not know me, Señor; you do not realise who I am."

At this Johnnie looked into the face of the man who supported him.

"Ah," he said, in a dreamy voice, "Alonso! – I took you from the sea, did not I?"

Everything was circling round him, he wanted to fall, to lie down and sleep in this new air…

The torturer saw it – he had a dreadful knowledge of those who were about to faint. He caught hold of Johnnie somewhere at the back of the neck. There was a sudden scientific pressure of the flat thumb upon a nerve, and the sinking senses of the captive came back to him in a flood of painful consciousness.

"Ah!" he cried, "but I feel better now! Go on, go on, tell me, what is all this?.."

One big thumb was pressed gently at the back of Johnnie's head. "It is this," said the voice, "and now, Señor, listen to me as if you had never listened to any other voice in this whole world. In the first place, you have much money; you have much money to be employed for you, in the hands of your servant, and from him I hear that you are noble and wealthy in England. I myself am a young man, but lately introduced to do the work I do. I am in debt, Señor, and neither my father nor my brother will help me. There is a family feud between us. Now my father is the head sworn-torturer of the Holy Office; my brother is his assistant, and I am the assistant to my brother. The three of us do rack and put to pain those who come before us. But I myself am tired of this business, and would away to a country where I can earn a more honest and kindly living. Therefore if thou wilt help me to do this, all will be well. There is a carrack sailing for the port of Rome this very night, and we can all be aboard of it, and save ourselves, if thou wilt do what we have made a plan of."

"And what is that?" Johnnie asked.

"'Tis a dangerous and deadly thing. We may win a way to safety and joy, or it may be that we perish. I'll put it upon the throw of the die, and so must you, Señor."

Johnnie clutched Alonso by the arm. "Man! man!" he said, "there is some doubt in your voice. What is it? what is it? I would do anything but lose my immortal soul to save the Señorita from what is to be done to her to-night."

"'Tis well," the other answered briefly. "Then now I will tell you what you must do. 'Tis now the hour of sunset. In two hours more the Señorita will be brought to the rooms of the Question. Thy servant is of the height and build of my father. Thou art the same as regards my brother. If you consent to what I shall tell you, you and your servant will take the place of my brother and father. No one will know you from them, because we wear black linen garments and a hood which covereth our faces. I will go away, and I will put something in their wine which will send my father and my brother to sleep for long hours – sometimes we put it in the water we give to drink to those who come to us for torture, and who are able, or their relatives indeed, to pay well for such service. My people will know nothing, and you, with Juan thy servant, will take their places. Nor will the Inquisitor know. It hath been well thought out, Señor. I shall give you your directions, and understanding Spanish you will follow them out as if you were indeed my blood-brother. As for the man Juan, it will be your part to whisper to him what he has to do, for I cannot otherwise make him understand."

Suddenly a dreadful thought flashed into Johnnie's mind. This man understood no word of English. How, then, had he plotted this scheme of rescue and escape with John Hull? Was this not one of those dreadful traps – themselves part of a devilish scheme of torture – of which he had heard in England, and of which Don Perez had more than hinted?

"And how dost thou understand my man John," he said, "seeing that thou knowest no word of his language?"

The other made an impatient movement of his hands. "Señor," he said, "I marked that you did not seem to trust me. I am here to adventure my life, in recompense for that you did so for me. I am here also to get away from Spain with the aid of thy money – to get away to Rome, where the Holy Office will reach none of us. In doing this, I am risking my life, as I have said. And for me I am risking far more than life. I, that have done so many grievous things to others, am a great coward, and go in horrid fear of pain. I could not stand the least of the tortures, and if I am caught in this enterprise, I shall endure the worst of all. In any case, thou hast nothing to lose, for if I am indeed endeavouring to entrap you, you will gain nothing. The worst is reserved for you – as we have previous orders – for it is whispered that yours is not so much a matter of heresy, but that you did things against King Philip's Majesty in England."

Johnnie nodded. "'Tis true," he said; "but still, tell me for a further sign and token of thy fidelity how thou camest to be in communication with John Hull."

"Did I not tell thee?" the man answered, in amazement. "Why, 'twas through the second captain of the St. Iago, I cannot say his name, who hath been with Juan these many days, and speakest Spanish near as well as you."

Johnnie realised the truth at once, surprised that it had not come to him before. It was Mr. Mew, whom he had tackled for his friendship with Alonso! "Then what am I to do?" he said.

Alonso began to speak slowly and with some hesitation.

"The work to do to-night," he said, "is to put a Carthusian monk, Luis Mercader, to the torture of the trampezo. After that, the Señorita will be brought in, interrogated, and is to be scourged as the first of her tortures."

The man started away – Johnnie had growled in his throat like a dog…

"It will not be, it will not be, Señor," Alonso said. "When Luis is finished with, he will be taken away by the surgeon and afterwards by the jailors. Then they will bring the Señorita and retire. There will be none in the room of the Question but thou, Juan, and myself, wearing our linen hoods, and Father Deza, that is the Grand Inquisitor newly come from England, his notary, and the physician. The doors leading to the prisons will be locked, for none must see the torture save only the officials concerned therein – as hath long been the law. It will be easy for us three to overpower the Inquisitor, the surgeon, and the notary. Then we can escape through the private rooms of us torturers, which lead to the back entrance of the fortress. The caballeros will not be discovered, if bound – or killed, indeed – for some hours, for none are allowed to approach the room of Question from the prisons until they are summoned by a bell. I shall have everything ready, and mules waiting, so that we may go straight to the muelle– the wharf to which the carrack is tied. The captain thereof is the Italian mariner Pozzi, who hath no love towards Spain, and we shall be upon the high seas before even our absence is discovered."

"Good," Johnnie answered, his voice unconsciously assuming the note of command it was wont to use, the wine having reanimated him, his whole body and brain tense with excitement, ready for the daring deed that awaited him.

"My friend," he said, "I will not only take you away from all this wickedness and horror, but you shall have money enough to live like a gentleman in Italy. I have – now I understand it – plenty of money in the hands of my servant to bring us well to Rome. Once in Rome, I can send letters to my friends in England, and be rich in a few short months. I shall not forget you; I shall see to your guerdon."

The man spat upon his hands and rubbed them together – those large prehensile hands. "I knew it," he said, half to himself, "I pay a debt for my life, as is but right and just, and I win a fortune too! I knew it!"

"Tell me exactly what is to happen," Johnnie said.

In the flickering light of the torch, once more Alonso looked curiously at Commendone. He hesitated for a moment, and then he spoke.

"There is just the business of the heretic Luis," he said. "He must be tortured before ever the Señorita is brought in. And you and Juan must help in the torture to sustain your parts."

Johnnie started. Until this very moment he had not realised that hideous necessity. He understood Alonso's hesitation now.

There was a dead silence for a moment or two. Alonso broke it.

"I shall do the principal part, Señor," he said hurriedly. "It is nothing to me. I have done so much of it! But there are certain things that thou must do and thy servant also, or at least must seem to do. There is no other way."

Johnnie put his poor soiled hands to his face. "I cannot do it," he said, in a low voice, from which hope, which had rung in it before, had now departed. "I cannot do it. I will not stain my honour thus."

"So said Juan to me at first," the other answered. "They have been hunting high and low for Juan, but he hath escaped the Familiars, in that I have hid him. For himself, Juan said he would do nothing of the sort, but for you he finally said he would do it. 'For, look you,' Juan said to me, 'I love the gentleman that is my master, and I love my little mistress better, so that I will even help to torture this Spaniard, and let no word escape me in the doing of it that may betray our design.' That was what thy servant said, Señor. And now, what sayest thou?"

"She would not wish it," Commendone half said, half sobbed. "If she knew, she would die a thousand deaths rather than that I should do it."

"That may be very sure, Señor, but she will never know it if we win to safety. And as for this Luis Mercader, he must die, anyhow. There is no hope for him. He must be tortured, if not by you, Juan, and I, then by myself, my father, and my brother. It is remediless."

"I cannot do evil that good may come," Johnnie replied, in a whisper.

Alonso stamped upon the ground in his impatience. He could not understand the prisoner's attitude, though he had realised some possibility of it from his conferences with John Hull. He had half known, when he came to Commendone, that there would be something of this sort. If the rough man of his own rank turned in horror and dislike from the only opportunity presented for saving the Señorita, how much more would the master do so?

For himself, he could not understand it. He did his hideous work with the regularity of a machine, and with as little pity. Outside in his private life, he was much as other men. He could be tender to a woman he loved, kindly and generous to his friends. But business was business, and he was hardly human at his work.

Habit makes slaves of us all, and this mental attitude of the sworn torturer – horrible as it may seem at first glance – is very easily understood by the psychologist, though hardly by the sentimentalist, who is always a thoroughly illogical person. Alonso tortured human beings. In doing this he had the sanction and the order of his social superiors and his ecclesiastical directors. In 1910 one has not heard, for example, that a pretty and gentle girl refuses to marry a butcher because he plunges his knife into the neck of the sheep tied down upon the stool, twists his little cord around the snout of some shrieking pig and cuts its throat with his keen blade…

Alonso could not understand the man whom he hoped to save, but he recognised and was prepared for his point of view.