"You are right," answered the bailiff, with a sardonic smile; "your daughter's blushes must be spared. Well, now Bezenecq the Rich, think of it. I have seen stubborn fellows remain suspended from that hook by the skin for a whole hour, bleeding like a cow in the shambles, and still refuse to relinquish their goods! But they never resist the third trial, with which I am now about to entertain you, Bezenecq the Rich. Give me your ear, the description will interest you."
"Strange!" suddenly exclaimed the merchant, interrupting Garin the Serf-eater. "I smell smoke. Whence does the smell proceed?"
"Father, there is a fire!" cried out Isoline, horrified. "They are making a fire under the iron bars!"
The bourgeois of Nantes turned around sharply and saw the heaped-up combustibles under the gridiron beginning to take fire. Several tongues of flame lighted with their ruddy glow the black walls of the cell, while forcing themselves through thick columns of smoke. A frightful suspicion flashed through the mind of the merchant, but he dared not even allow his thoughts to dwell upon them; and, wishing to comfort his daughter, said to her: "Be not afraid, you dear bundle of fears, that fire is built to drive off the chill in this cell; we may have to spend the night here. I was thanking the worthy bailiff for his thoughtfulness." But immediately upon this answer, uttered only in order to reassure his daughter, the merchant, shivering, despite himself with fear, turned to Garin: "Speaking truly, why is that fire made under the gridiron?"
"Merely to give you an idea of the omnipotence of this last test, Bezenecq the Rich. I now commence the description."
"It is superfluous. I take your word for it."
"A fire is built under the gridiron, as they are doing now; when the fire has ceased to shoot up flames, a necessary precaution, and consists of a bed of live coals, the recalcitrant patient is stretched naked upon the gridiron, and he is kept there with the aid of those rings and iron chains. At the end of a few instants the skin of the patient, red and shriveling, rips up, bleeds, then turns black. I have seen the hot coals patter with fat that, clotted with blood, dripped from the body of men even less fat than you, Bezenecq the Rich."
"Hold on, bailiff! I must confess to you my heart fails me, my head reels at the mere thought of such infliction," said the bourgeois of Nantes, shivering from head to foot. "I am ready to faint. Let me out of this cell with my daughter. I have assigned to your master my whole fortune. You have taken everything——"
"Come, come, Bezenecq the Rich," broke in the bailiff, "a man who empties himself as easily as you did at the first word, and without having suffered the least tortures, must have reserved other riches. That's what we'll learn all about in a moment."
"I? I have reserved part of my fortune!" exclaimed the merchant, struck almost speechless with amazement. "I have given you all, down to my last piece."