"Then tell me more, Señor," he said; "it is well to know all. But"—he looked at Madame La Motte.
"Continuez," the old creature answered in a cracked voice; "I also would hear it all, if, indeed, there is worse than this."
"Worse!" Perez answered. "Let me tell you of the fate of a man I knew well, and liked withal. He was a Jew, Señor, but nevertheless I liked him well. We had dealings together, and I found him more honest in his walking than many a Christian man. Orobio was his name—Isaac Orobio, doctor of physic, who was accused to the Inquisition as a Jew by a certain Moor, his servant, who had, by his order, before this been whipped for thieving. Orobio conformed to religion, but the Moor accused him, and four years after this he was again accused by an enemy of his, for another fact which would have proved him a Jew. But Orobio obstinately denied that he was one."
"I like not Jews," Commendone said, with a little shudder, voicing the popular hatred of the day.
"Art young, Señor," the Spaniard replied, "and doubtless thou hast not known nor been friends with members of that oppressed race. I have known many, and have had sweet friends among them; and among the Ebrews are to be found salt of the earth. But I will give you the story of Orobio's torture as I had it from his own mouth.
"After three whole years which he had been in jail, and several examinations, and the discovery of the crimes to him of which he was accused, in order to his confession and his constant denial of them, he was, at length, carried out of his jail and through several turnings and brought to the place of torture. This was towards evening.
"It was a large, underground room, arched, and the walls covered with black hangings. The candlesticks were fastened to the wall, and the whole room enlightened with candles placed in them. At one end of it there was an enclosed place like a closet, where the Inquisitor and notary sat at a table—that notary, Señor, was my brother. The place seemed to Orobio as the very mansion of death, everything appearing so terrible and awful. Here the Inquisitor again admonished him to confess the truth before his torment began.
"When he answered he had told the truth, the Inquisitor gravely protested that since he was so obstinate as to suffer the torture, the Holy Office would be innocent if he should shed his blood, or even expire in his torments. When he had said this, they put a linen garment over Orobio's body, and drew it so very close on each side as almost to squeeze him to death. When he was almost dying, they slackened, at once, the sides of the garment, and after he began to breathe again, the sudden alteration put him to most grievous anguish and pain. When he had overcome this torture, the same admonition was repeated, that he would confess the truth in order to prevent further torment.
"And as he persisted in his denial, they tied his thumbs so very tightly with small cords as made the extremities of them greatly swell, and caused the blood to spurt out from under his nails. After this, he was placed with his back against the wall and fixed upon a little bench. Into the wall were fastened little iron pulleys, through which there were ropes drawn and tied round his body in several places, and especially his arms and legs. The executioner drawing these ropes with great violence, fastened his body with them to the wall, so that his hands and feet, and especially his fingers and toes, being bound so straitly with them, put him to the most exquisite pain, and seemed to him just as though he had been dissolving in flames. In the midst of these torments, the torturer of a sudden drew the bench from under him, so that the miserable wretch hung by the cords without anything to support him, and by the weight of his body drew the knots yet much closer.
"After this a new kind of torture succeeded. There was an instrument like a small ladder, made of two upright pieces of wood and five cross ones, sharpened before. This the torturer placed over against him, and by a certain proper motion struck it with great violence against both his shins, so that he received upon each of them, at once, five violent strokes, which put him to such intolerable anguish that he fainted away. After he came to himself they inflicted on him the last torture.