There came a sudden, rapid exclamation in French. Madame La Motte, speaking in that slow, frightened voice which had been hers throughout the voyage, was interposing.
"I don't understand," she said, "but I want to hear what the gentleman has to say. He speaks French; let us therefore use that language."
Don Perez bowed. "I am quite agreeable," he said; "but I doubt, Madame, that you will care to hear all I was going to tell the Señor here."
"Phut!" said the Frenchwoman. "I know more evil things than you or Don Commendone have ever dreamed of. Say what you will."
Don Perez drew a little nearer to the others, squatting down, with his head against the bow-men's tower.
"You have asked me about the Inquisition, Monsieur and Madame," he said in a low voice, "and as ye are going to Seville, I will tell you, for you have been courteous and kind to me since I left Lisbon, and you may as well be warned. I am peculiarly fitted to tell you, because my brother—God and Our Lady rest his blood-stained soul!—was a notary of the Holy Office at Seville. We are, originally, Lisbon people, and my brother was paying a visit to his family, being on leave from his duties. He caught fever and died, and I am bearing back his papers with me to Seville, from which city I shall depart as soon as may be. It is only care for my own skin that makes me act thus as executor to my brother, Garcia Perez. Did I not, they would seek me out wherever I might be."
"You go in fear, then?" Johnnie asked curiously.
"All Spaniards go in fear," Perez answered, "under this reign. It is the horror of the Inquisition that while any one may be haled before it on a complaint which is anonymous, hardly any one ever escapes certain penalties. Señor," his voice trembled, and a deep note of feeling came into it, "if the fate of that wretch is heavy who, being innocent of heresy, will not confess his guilt, and is therefore tortured until he confesses imaginary guilt, and is then burned to death, hardly less is the misery of the victim who recants or repenteth and is freed from the penalty of death."
"Tiens!" said La Motte, shuddering. "I have heard somewhat of this in Paris; but continue, Monsieur, continue."
"No one knows," the little man answered, "how the Holy Office is striking at the root of all national life in my country. And no one has a better knowledge of it all at second hand—for, thank Our Lady, I have never yet been suspected or arraigned—than I myself, for my brother being for long notary and secretary to the Grand Inquisitor of Seville, I have heard much. Now I must tell you, that the place of torture is generally an underground and very dark room, to which one enters through several doors. There is a tribunal erected in it, where the Inquisitor, Inspector, and Secretary sit. When the candles are lighted, and the person to be tortured is brought in, the executioner, who is waiting for him, makes an astonishing and dreadful appearance. He is covered all over with black linen garments down to his feet and tied close to his body. His head and face are all hidden with a long black cowl, only two little holes being left in it for him to see through. All this is intended to strike the miserable wretch with greater terror in mind and body, when he sees himself going to be tortured by the hands of one who thus looks like the very Devil."