House of Torment

"Tie him up —thus—yes, the hands behind the back of the stool; the left leg bound fast – it is the right foot upon which we put the trampezo."

They did it deftly and quietly. Under the long linen garments which concealed them, their hearts were beating like drums, their throats were parched and dry, their eyes burnt as they looked out upon this dreadful scene.

The notary went back to the daïs, and sat beside Father Deza. The surgeon took Alonso aside. Johnnie heard what he said…

"It will be all right; he can bear it; he will not die; in any case the auto da fé will be in three days; he must endure it; have the water ready to bring him back if he fainteth."

The chirurgeon went back to the alcove and sat on the other side of the Inquisitor.

"Bring up the brazier," Alonso said to Commendone.

Together Johnnie and Hull carried it to the chair.

"Now send Juan for the pincers…"

There came a long, low wail of despair from the broken, motionless figure on the stool. The long pincers, like those with which a blacksmith pulls out a shoe from the charcoal, were produced…

The torturer took the glowing thing on the top of the brazier, and pulled it off, scattering the coals as he did so.

Close to the foot of the bound figure he placed the glowing shoe. Then he motioned to Hull to take up the other side of it with his pincers, and put it in place so that the foot of the victim should be clamped to it and burnt away.

John Hull took up the long pincers, and caught hold of one side of the shoe.

Johnnie turned his head away; he looked straight through his black hood at the three people on the daïs.

The notary was quietly writing. The surgeon was looking on with cool professional eye; but Don Deza was watching the imminent horror below him with a white face which dripped with sweat, with eyes dilated to two rims, gazing, gazing, drinking the sight in. Every now and again the Inquisitor licked his pallid lips with his tongue. And in that moment of watching, Johnnie knew that Cruelty, for the sake of Cruelty, the mad pleasure of watching suffering in its most hideous forms, was the hidden vice, the true nature, of this priest of Courts.

At the moment, and doubtless at many other moments in the past, Father Deza was compensating, and had compensated, for a life of abstinence from sensual indulgence. He was giving scope to the deadlier vices of the heart, pride, bigotry, intolerance, and horrid cruelty – those vices far more opposed to the hope of salvation, and far more extensively mischievous to society, than anything the sensualist can do.

The bitterness of it; the horror of it – this was the wine the brilliant priest was drinking, had drunk, and would ever drink. Into him had come a devil which had killed his soul, and looked out from his narrow twitching eyes, rejoicing that it saw these things with the symbol of God's pain high above it, with the cloak of God's Church upon his shoulders.

As Johnnie watched, fascinated with an unnameable horror, he heard a loud shout close to his ear. He saw a black-hooded, thick figure pass him and rush towards the daïs.

In the hands of this figure was a long pair of blacksmith's pincers, and at the end of the pincers was a shoe of white-hot metal.

There was another loud shout, a broad band of white light, as the mass of glowing metal shot through the air in a hissing arc, and then the face of the Inquisitor disappeared and was no more.

At that moment both Commendone and the sworn torturer realised what had happened. They leapt nimbly on to the daïs. From under his robe Alonso took a stiletto and plunged it into the throat of the notary; while Johnnie, in a mad fury, caught the physician by the neck, placed his open hand upon the man's chin, and bent his head back, slowly, steadily, and with terrible pressure, until there was a faint click, and the black-robed figure sank down.

The trampezo was burning into the wooden floor of the daïs. Alonso ran back into the room, caught up a pail of water, and poured it upon the gathering flames. There was a hiss, and a column of steam rose up into the alcove.

He turned his head and looked at the motionless form of the Inquisitor. The face was all black and red, and rising into white blisters.

He turned to Commendone. "He's dead, or dying," he said, "and now, thou hast indeed cast the die, and all is over. Thy man hath spoilt it all, and nothing remains for us but death."

"Silence!" Johnnie answered, captain of himself now, and of all of them there. "How is the next prisoner to be summoned?"

The torturer understood him. "Why," he said, "we may yet save ourselves! – that bell there" – he pointed to a hanging cord. "That summons the jailors. They are waiting to bring the Señorita for judgment. Don Luis, there, who was to undergo the trampezo, would not have been taken back into the prison at once, but into our room, where the surgeon would have attended him. Therefore, we will ring for the Señorita. She will be pushed into this place very gently. The door will not be opened wide. Doors are never widely opened in the Holy Office. The jailors will see us taking charge of her, and all will be well. If not, get your poignard ready, Señor, and you, too, Juan, for 'twill be better to die a fighting death in this cellar than to wait for what would come hereafter."

He stretched out his hand and pulled down the bell-cord.

They stood waiting in absolute silence, Alonso and John Hull, in their dreadful disguise, standing close to the door.

There was not a sound in the brilliantly lit room. The victim that was to be had fainted away, and lay as dead as the three corpses upon the daïs. There was a smell of hot coal, of burning wood, and still there came a little sizzling noise from the half-quenched glowing iron upon the platform.

Thud!

A quiet answering knock from Alonso. Another thud – the heave of the lever, the slither of the bolts, the door opening a little, murmured voices, and a low, shuddering cry of horror, as a tall girl, in a long woollen garment, a coarse garment of wool dyed yellow, was pushed into the embrace of the black-hooded figures who stood waiting for her.

Clang – the bolts were shot back.

Then a tearing, ripping noise, as Hull pulled the black hood from his face and shoulders.

"My dear, my dear," he cried, "Miss Lizzie. 'Tis over now. Fear nothing! I and thy true love have brought thee to safety."

The girl gave a great cry. "Johnnie! Johnnie!"

He rushed up to her, and held her in his arms. He was still clothed in the dreadful disguise of a torturer. It had not come into his mind to take it off. But she was not frightened. She knew his arms, she heard his voice, she sank fainting upon his shoulder.

Once more it was John Hull speaking in English who brought the lovers to realisation. His strong and anxious voice was seconded by the Spanish of Alonso.

"Quick! quick!" both the men said. "All hath gone well. We have a start of many hours, but we must be gone from here at once."

Johnnie released Elizabeth from his arms, and then he also doffed the terror-inspiring costume which he wore.

"Sweetheart," he said, "go you with John Hull and this Alonso into the room beyond, where they will give you robes to wear. I will join you in less than a minute."

They passed away with quick, frightened footsteps.

But as for Commendone, he went to the centre of the alcove, and knelt down just below the long black table.

The three bodies of the men they had slain he could not see. He could only see the black form of the tablecloth, and above it the great white Crucifix.

He prayed that nothing he had done upon this night should stain his soul, that Jesus – as indeed he believed – had been looking on him and all that he did, with help and favour.

And once more he renewed his vow to live for Jesus and for the girl he loved.

Crossing himself, he rose, and clapped his hands to his right side. Once more he found he was without a sword. He bowed again to the cross. "It will come back to me," he said, in a quiet voice.

He turned to go, he had no concern with those who lay dead above him; but as he went towards the door leading to the place of the torturers, his eye fell upon the oak stool in the middle of the room – the oak chair by which the brazier still glowed, and in which a silent, doll-like figure was bound.

He stepped up to the chair, and immediately he saw that Don Luis was dead.

The shock had killed him. He lay back there with patches of grey marked in his hair, as if fingers had been placed upon it – a young face, now prematurely old, and writhed into horror, but with a little quiet smile of satisfaction upon it after all…

And so they sailed away to the Court of Rome, to take a high part in what went forward in the palace of the Vatican. They were to be fused into that wonderful revival of Learning and the Arts known as the Renaissance.

God willing, and still seeing fit to give strength to the hand and mind of the present chronicler, what they did in Rome, all that befell them there, and of Johnnie's friendship and adventures with Messer Benvenuto Cellini will be duly set out in another volume during the year of Grace to come.