Then, turning to his companions, right and left, he added—“Uncover, my Brothers, since this heretical Englishman will have it so. It is not meet that we, the pillars of the Holy Catholic Church, unworthy though we be, should submit to insult and indignity at the hands of a pack of godless Lutheran dogs.” And, so saying, he seated himself and proceeded to remove his own head-covering, disclosing lean, ascetic features, cold, cruel, and domineering, crowned by the monk’s tonsure. At the same time the others did the same, and with very similar result, the dominant expression of the faces thus disclosed being that of cold, stern ruthlessness, tempered, it must be confessed, in some cases, with very evident signs of fear.
“So! that is better,” commented George. “Now, señors,” he continued, “I am not going to make a long business of my talk with you, for we have already wasted far too much time in this accursed building. I have but a few questions to ask; and you will do well to answer them briefly and to the point. This chamber, I perceive, is what is usually termed in the outside world, ‘the torture chamber’; and I gather that it is here you subject those whom you stigmatise as heretics to unspeakable torments for the purpose of compelling them to forswear themselves and embrace your religion against their will. Now, which of you is responsible for the hellish suffering that goes on from time to time within these four walls?”
“Since you insist upon our replying to your insolent questions,” answered the Grand Inquisitor, contemptuously, “know, young man, that none is more responsible than another. We whom you see seated here are appointed by our Order to promote the honour and interest of the Church of which we are most humble and unworthy members, by winning souls to her, and converting the heathen and heretics generally to the true faith. We have various methods of doing this. In the first instance we use teaching, persuasion, exhortation; and sometimes these methods suffice. But when they fail—as they do sometimes, in the case of the contumacious, there is a blessed power in bodily suffering which, loath as we are to employ it, we force ourselves to resort to, convinced that, by saving the soul at the cost of the body, we are doing a righteous and merciful thing. But even in inflicting suffering we are merciful, for we regulate the amount and quality of the suffering by the extent of the contumacy of the subject, making it light and transient at the first, and only increasing it in sharpness and duration when we find the other insufficient. And in all cases the character of the punishment is the subject of long and anxious deliberation, in which we all join, and no punishment of any kind is ever inflicted until we all—I and my eight Brothers here—are agreed as to its expediency, character, and amount. Also we are always present upon such occasions, in order that the punishment may be stopped upon the instant that conversion takes place.”
“I see,” said George. “Are you all agreed”—addressing the assistants, “that what your Grand Inquisitor has stated is the exact truth?”
“Si, si; yes, we are all agreed,” came first from one and then another, until all had spoken.
“Then,” continued George, “I am to take it that you are all alike equally responsible for what is done in this chamber?”
It was evident that a large proportion of the Assistant Inquisitors were inclined to jib at the word “responsible”; but the young Captain insisted upon each man giving a categorical reply to the question; and in the end, stimulated further by the stern looks of the Grand Inquisitor, they all replied in the affirmative.
“Very good,” commented George. “Now, I have but one other question to ask. Is it you, as a body, who condemn certain of your victims to the hideous fate of being burnt alive in the auto-da-fé?”
Even the Grand Inquisitor, hitherto in a great measure blinded by his bigotry, and his absolute faith in the sanctity of his office and the complete protection which it afforded him, blanched at the directness and significance of this last question; but still, unable even now to fully realise the awful danger in which he stood, he gave a somewhat rambling and excusatory reply which, however, was a full admission of responsibility for the deed with which George charged him and his associates.
“Good!” said George; “you have now afforded me all the information which I desired to obtain. All that remains for you, señors, is to make your peace with God as best you can; for I have constituted myself the avenger of all the accumulated agony that the walls of this chamber and the stones of the Grand Plaza have witnessed; and within the next half-hour you die!”