A Jesuit at his side flung an arm across the old man's mouth; and as quickly the Familiar whipped out a cloth, pulled his head back, and gagged him. The young Jew had turned and was staring, still with his fierce, eager look. He was wheeled about and plucked forward.
Next through the gateway issued a troupe of Familiars on horseback, some of them nobles of the first families in Portugal; after them the Inquisitors and other Officers of the Court upon mules; last of all, amid a train of nobles, the Inquisitor-General himself on a white horse led by two grooms: his delicate hands resting on the reins, his face a pale green by reason of the sunlight falling on it through a silken scarf of that colour pendant over the brim of his immense black hat.
All this passed before Ruth's eyes, and close, as she sat in the mule-chaise beside Sir Oliver. She would have drawn the leathern curtains, but he had put out a hand forbidding this.
She could not at any rate have escaped hearing the old man's exclamation; for their chaise was jammed in the crowd beside the gateway. Her ears still kept the echo of his vibrant voice; almost she was persuaded that his eyes had singled her out from the crowd.
—And why not? Had not she, also, cause to know what cruelties men will commit in the name of religion?
Her heart was wrathful as well as pitiful. Her lord had given her no warning of the auto-da-fe, and she now suspected that in suggesting this Sunday morning drive he had purposely decoyed her to it. Presently, as the crowd began to clear, he confirmed the suspicion.
"Since we are here, we may as well see the sp—" He was going to say "sport," but, warned by a sudden stiffening of her body, he corrected the word to "spectacle." "They erect a grand stand on these occasions; or, if you prefer, we can bribe them to give room for the chaise."
He bent forward and called to the coachman, "Turn the mules' heads, and follow!"
"Indeed I will not," she said firmly. "Do you go—if such crimes amuse you. . . . For me, I shall walk home."
He shrugged his shoulders. "It is the custom of the country. . . . But, as for your walking, I cannot allow it for a moment. Juan shall drive you home."