"The torturer tied ropes round Orobio's wrists, and then put those ropes about his own back, which was covered with leather to prevent his hurting himself. Then, falling backwards, and putting his feet up against the wall, he drew them with all his might till they cut through Orobio's flesh, even to the very bones; and this torture was repeated thrice, the ropes being tied about his arms, about the distance of two fingers' breadth from his former wound, and drawn with the same violence.
"But it happened to poor Orobio that as the ropes were drawing the second time they slid into the first wound, which caused so great an effusion of blood that he seemed to be dying. Upon this, the physician and surgeon, who are always ready, were sent for out of a neighbouring apartment, to ask their advice, whether the torture could be continued without danger of death, lest the ecclesiastical judges should be guilty of an irregularity if the criminal should die in his torments.
"Now they, Señor, who were very far from being enemies to Orobio, answered that he had strength enough to endure the rest of the torture. And by doing this they preserved him from having the torture he had already endured repeated on him, because his sentence was that he should suffer them all at one time, one after another, so that if at any time they are forced to leave off, through fear of death, the tortures, even those already suffered, must be successively inflicted to satisfy the sentence. Upon this the torture was repeated the third time, and then was ended. After this Orobio was bound up in his own clothes and carried back to his prison, and was scarce healed of his wounds in seventy days, and inasmuch as he made no confession under his torture, he was condemned, not as one convicted, but suspected of Judaism, to wear for two whole years the infamous habit called the sanbenito, and it was further decreed that after that term he should suffer perpetual banishment from the kingdom of Seville."
The Frenchwoman, who had been listening with strained attention, broke in suddenly. "Nom de Dieu!" she cried; "to be banished from there would surely be like entering into paradise!"
Perez went on. He took a morbid pleasure in the telling of these hideous truths. It was obvious that he had long suffered mentally under the obsession that some day some such horrors might happen to himself. Connected with it all by family ties, absolutely unable to say a word for many years, now, under the sweet skies of heaven, in the calm and splendid night, he was disemburdening himself of that which had been pent within him for so long.
He seemed impatient of interruption, anxious to say more....
"Ah," he whispered, "but the Tormento di Toca, that is the worst, that would frighten me more than all—that, the Chafing-dish, and the Water-Cure. The Tormento di Toca is that the torturer—that fellow down there with the sailors has doubtless performed it full many a time—the torturer throws over the victim's mouth and nostrils a thin cloth, so that he is scarce able to breathe through it, and in the meanwhile a small stream of water, like a thread, not drop by drop, falls from on high upon the mouth of the person lying in this miserable condition, and so easily sinks down the thin cloth to the bottom of his throat, so that there is no possibility of breathing, the mouth being stopped with water, and his nostrils with the cloth, so that the poor wretch is in the same agony as persons ready to die, and breathing out their last. When the cloth is drawn out of his throat, as it often is, that he may answer to the questions, it is all wet with water and blood, and is like pulling his bowels through his mouth."
"What is the Chafing-dish?" Madame La Motte asked thinly.
"They order a large iron chafing-dish full of lighted charcoal to be brought in and held close to the soles of the tortured person's feet, greased over with lard, so that the heat of the fire may more quickly pierce through them. And as for the Water-Cure, it was done to William Lithgow, an Englishman, Señor, upon whom my brother saw it performed. He was taken up as a spy in Malaga, and was exposed to most cruel torments as an heretic. He was condemned in the beginning of Lent to suffer the night following eleven most cruel torments, and after Easter to be carried privately to Granada, there to be burned at midnight, and his ashes to be scattered into the air. When night came on his fetters were taken off. Then he was stripped naked, put upon his knees, and his head lifted up by force, after which, opening his mouth with iron instruments, they filled his belly with water till it came out of his jaws. Then they tied a rope hard about his neck, and in this condition rolled him seven times the whole length of the room, till he almost quite strangled. After this they tied a small cord about both his great toes, and hung him up thereby with his head down, letting him remain in this condition till the water discharged out of his mouth, so that he was laid on the ground as just dead, and had his irons put on him again."
"Is this true, Señor?" Commendone asked in a low voice; but even while he asked it he knew how true it was—had he not seen Dr. Taylor beaten to the stake?