The trampezo was burning into the wooden floor of the daïs. Alonso ran back into the room, caught up a pail of water, and poured it upon the gathering flames. There was a hiss, and a column of steam rose up into the alcove.
He turned his head and looked at the motionless form of the Inquisitor. The face was all black and red, and rising into white blisters.
He turned to Commendone. "He's dead, or dying," he said, "and now, thou hast indeed cast the die, and all is over. Thy man hath spoilt it all, and nothing remains for us but death."
"Silence!" Johnnie answered, captain of himself now, and of all of them there. "How is the next prisoner to be summoned?"
The torturer understood him. "Why," he said, "we may yet save ourselves!—that bell there"—he pointed to a hanging cord. "That summons the jailors. They are waiting to bring the Señorita for judgment. Don Luis, there, who was to undergo the trampezo, would not have been taken back into the prison at once, but into our room, where the surgeon would have attended him. Therefore, we will ring for the Señorita. She will be pushed into this place very gently. The door will not be opened wide. Doors are never widely opened in the Holy Office. The jailors will see us taking charge of her, and all will be well. If not, get your poignard ready, Señor, and you, too, Juan, for 'twill be better to die a fighting death in this cellar than to wait for what would come hereafter."
He stretched out his hand and pulled down the bell-cord.
They stood waiting in absolute silence, Alonso and John Hull, in their dreadful disguise, standing close to the door.
There was not a sound in the brilliantly lit room. The victim that was to be had fainted away, and lay as dead as the three corpses upon the daïs. There was a smell of hot coal, of burning wood, and still there came a little sizzling noise from the half-quenched glowing iron upon the platform.
Thud!
A quiet answering knock from Alonso. Another thud—the heave of the lever, the slither of the bolts, the door opening a little, murmured voices, and a low, shuddering cry of horror, as a tall girl, in a long woollen garment, a coarse garment of wool dyed yellow, was pushed into the embrace of the black-hooded figures who stood waiting for her.