House of Torment

"Señor," he said, in a thick, hurried voice, "I will do it all myself. You will have to help in the binding, and to stand by. That is all. Think of the little Señorita whom you love. That French lady drove a table-knife into her heart, rather than endure the torments. Think of the Señorita! You will not let her die thus? For you, it is different; I well know that you would endure all that is in store, if it were but a question of saving your own life. But you must think of her, and you must remember always that the man Luis is most certainly doomed, and that no action of yours can stay that doom. You will have to look on, that is all – to seem as if you approved and were helping."

He had said enough. His cause was won. Johnnie had seen Dr. Rowland Taylor die in pious agony, and had neither lifted voice nor drawn sword to prevent it.

"I thank you, I thank you, Alonso," he said. "I must endure it for the sake of the Señorita. And more than all I thank you that you will not require me to agonise this unhappy wretch myself."

"Good; that is understood," Alonso answered. "We have already been talking too long. Get you back, Señor, into your prison, for an hour or more. Then I will come to you. Indeed, more depends upon this than upon any other detail of what we purpose. We who are sworn to torture are distinct and separate from the prison jailors. We are paid a larger salary, but we have no jurisdiction or power within the prisons themselves, save only what we make by interest. But the man who bringeth you your food is a friend of my family, and hath cast an eye upon my sister, though she as yet has responded little to his overtures. I have made private cause with Isabella, and she hath given him a meeting this very night outside the church of Santa Ana. He could not meet with her this night, were it not for my intervention. He came to me in great perplexity, longing before anything to meet Isabella. I told him, though I was difficult to be approached on the point, that I would myself look after the prisoners in this ward, and that he must give me his keys. This he hath done, and I am free of this part of the prison. So that, Señor, in an hour or two I shall come to you again with your dress of a tormentor. I shall take you through devious ways out of the prison proper, and into our room on the other side of the Chamber, so all will be well."

Johnnie took the huge splay hand in his, and stumbled back into the stone box. There was a clang as the door closed upon him, and he sank down upon the floor.

He sank down upon the floor no longer in absolute despair. The darkness was as thick and horrible as ever, but Hope was there.

Then he knelt, placed his hands together, recited a Paternoster, and began to pray. He prayed first of all for the soul of the man – the unknown man – whose semi-final torture he was to witness, and perchance help in. Then he prayed to Our Lord that there might be a happy issue out of these present afflictions, that if it pleased Jesus he, Elizabeth, the stout John Hull might yet sail away over the tossing seas towards safety.

Then he made a prayer for the soul of Madame La Motte – she who had traded upon virtue, she who had taken her own life, but in whom was yet some germ of good, a well and fountain of kindliness and sympathy withal.

After that he pulled himself together, felt his muscle, stretched himself to see that his great and supple strength had not deserted him, and remained with a placid mind, waiting for the opening of his prison door again.

The anguish of his thoughts about Elizabeth was absolutely gone. A cool certainty came to him that he would save her.

He was waiting now, alert and aware. Every nerve was ready for the enterprise. With a scrutiny of his own consciousness – for he perfectly realised that death might still be very near – he asked himself if he had performed all his religious duties. If he were to die in the next hour or so, he would have no sacramental absolution. That he knew. Therefore, he was endeavouring to make his private peace with God, and as he looked upon his thoughts with the higher super-brain, it did not seem to him that there was anything lacking in his pious resignation to what should come.

He was going to make a bold and desperate bid for Lizzie's freedom, his own, and their mutual happiness.

As well as he was able, he had put his house in order, and was waiting.

But for Don Diego Deza he did not pray at all. He was but human. That he lacked power to do, and in so far fell away from the Example.

But as he thought of It, and the words so sacrosanct, he remembered that the torturers of Christ knew not what they did. They were even as this man Alonso.

But Don Diego, cultured, highly sensitive, a brilliant man, knew what he did very well.

Even the young man's wholly contrite and more than half-broken heart could send no message to the Throne for the Grand Inquisitor of Seville.

CHAPTER XII

"TENDIMUS IN LATIUM"

It was very hot.

Commendone stood in the ante-chamber of the torturers.

He wore the garment of black linen, the hood of the same, with the two circular orifices for his eyes.

John Hull kept touching him with an almost caressing movement – John Hull, a grotesque and terrible figure also in his torturer's dress.

Alonso moved about the place hurriedly, putting this and that to rights, looking after his instruments, but with a flitting, bird-like movement, showing how deeply he was excited.

The room was a long, low place. The ceiling but just above their heads. A glowing fire was at one end, and shelves all round the room. At one side of the fire was a portable brazier of iron, glowing with coals, and on the top of it a shape of white-hot metal was lying.

Alonso came up to Commendone, a dreadful black figure, a silently moving figure, with nothing humanly alive about him save only the two slits through which his eyes might be seen.

"Courage, Señor," he whispered, "it will not be long now."

Johnnie, unaware that he himself was an equally hideous and sinister figure, nodded, and swallowed something in his throat.

John Hull, short, broad, and dreadful in this black disguise, sidled up to him.

"Master," he whispered, "it will soon be over, and we shall win away. We have been in a very evil case before, and that went well. Now that we are dressed in these grave-clothes and must do bitter business, we must make up our minds to do it. 'Tis for the sake of Mistress Elizabeth, whom we love – Jesus! what is that hell-hound doing?"

The broad figure shuddered, and into the kindly English voice came a note of horror.

Johnnie turned also, and saw that the torturer was tumbling several long-handled pincers into a wooden tray. Then the torturer took one of them up, and turned the glowing something in the brazier, quietly, professionally, though the red glow that fell upon his horrible black costume gave him indeed the aspect of a devil from the pit – the bloody pantomime which was designed!

The two Englishmen stood shoulder to shoulder and shuddered, as they saw this figure moving about the glowing coals.

Johnnie took a half-step forward, when Hull pressed him back.

"God's death, master," Hull said. "We look like that; we are even as he is in aspect; we have to do our work – now!"

A door to the right suddenly swung open. Two steps led up to it, and a face peeped round. It was the face of a bearded man, with heavy eyebrows and very white cheeks. Upon the head was a biretta of black velvet.

The head nodded. "We are ready," came the voice from it. The door fell to again.

Then Alonso came up to Johnnie. "The work begins," he said, in a gruff voice, from which all respect had gone with design. "You and Juan will carry in that brazier of coals."

He went to the door, mounted the two stone steps, and held it open. Johnnie and Hull bore in the brazier up the steps, and into a large room lit, but not very brightly, with candles set in sconces upon the walls.

Following the directions of Alonso, they placed the brazier in a far corner, and stood by it, waiting in silence.

They were in a big, arched dungeon, far under ground, as it seemed. At one end of it there was an alcove, brilliantly lit. In the alcove was a daïs, or platform. On the platform was a long table draped with black, and set with silver candlesticks. On the wall behind was a great crucifix of white and black – the figure of the Christ made of plaster, or white painted wood, the cross of ebony. In the centre of the long table sat Don Diego Deza. On one side of him was a man in a robe of velvet and a flat cap. On the other, the person who had peeped through the door into the room of the torturers.

There came a beating, a heavy, muffled knock, upon a door to the left of the alcove.

Alonso left the others and hurried to the door. With some effort he pulled back a lever which controlled several massive bolts. The door swung open, there was a red glare of torches, and two dark figures, piloted by the torturer, half-led, half-carried the bound figure of a man into the room.

They placed this figure upon an oak stool with a high back, a yard or two away from the daïs, and then quietly retired.

As the door leading to the prison closed, Alonso shot the bolts into their place, and, returning, stood by the stool on which was the figure.

The notary came down from the platform, followed by the physician. In his hand was a parchment and a pen; while a long ink-horn depended from his belt. Father Deza was left alone at the table above.

"I have read thy depositions," the Inquisitor said, speaking down to the man, "wherein thou hast not refuted in detail the terrible blasphemies of Servetus, and therefore, Luis Mercader, I thank the Son of God, Who deputeth to me the power to sentence thee at the end of this thy struggle between Holy Church and thine own obstinate blasphemies. In accordance with justice of my brother inquisitors, I now sign thy warrant for death, which is indeed our right and duty to execute a blasphemous person after a regular examination. Thou art to be burnt anon at the forthcoming Act of Faith. Thou art to be delivered to the secular arm to suffer this last penalty. Thy blood shall not be upon our heads, for the Holy Office is ever merciful. But before thou goest, in our kindness we have ordained that thou shalt learn something of the sufferings to come. For so only, between this night and the day of thy death, shalt thou have opportunity to reason with thyself, perchance recant thy errors, and make thy peace with God."

He had said this in a rapid mutter, a monotone of vengeance. As he concluded he nodded to the black figure by the prisoner's chair.

Alonso turned round. With shaking footsteps, Hull and Johnnie came up to him, carrying ropes.

There was a quick whisper.