“Who preserves it with faith?”
“Joseph!”
The door opened and Ramon entered the chapel room of the Morada. It was lighted by a single candle, which revealed dimly the rough earthen walls, the low roof raftered with round pine logs, the wooden benches and the altar, covered with black cloth. This was decorated with figures of the skull and cross-bones cut from white cloth. A human skull stood on either side of it, and a small wooden crucifix hung on the wall above it. The solitary candle—an ordinary tallow one in a tin holder—stood before this.
The men were merely dark human shapes. The light did not reveal their faces. They said nothing to Ramon. He could scarcely believe [pg 167] that these were the same good-natured pelados he had known by day. Indeed they were not the same, but were now merely units of this organization which held them in bondage of fear and awe.
One of them took Ramon silently by the arm and led him through a low door into the other room which was the Morada proper. This room was supposed never to be entered except by a member of the order or by a candidate. It was small and low as the other, furnished only with a few benches about the wall, and lighted by a couple of candles on a small table. A very old and tarnished oil painting of Mary with the Babe hung at one end of it. All the way around the room, hanging from pegs driven into the wall, was a row of the broad heavy braided lashes of amole weed, called disciplinas, used in Holy Week, and of the blood-stained drawers worn on that occasion by the flagellants.
Still in complete silence Ramon was forced to his knees by two of the men, who quickly stripped him to the waist. Beside him stood a tall powerfully-built Mexican with his right arm bared. In his hand he held a triangular bit of white quartz, cleverly chipped to a cutting edge. This man was the sangredor, whose duty it was to place the seal of the order upon the penitent’s back. His office required no little skill, for he had to make three cuts the whole length of the back and three [pg 168] the width, tearing through the skin so as to leave a permanent scar, but not deep enough to injure the muscle. Ramon, glancing up, saw the gleam of the candle light on the white quartz, and also in the eyes of the man, which were bright with eagerness.
Now came the supreme struggle with himself. How could he go through with this ugly agony? He longed to leap to his feet and fight these ignorant louts, who were going to mangle him and beat him for their own amusement. He held himself down with all his will, striving to think of the girl, to hold his purpose before his mind, to endure.…
He felt the hand of the sangredor upon his neck, and gritted his teeth. The man’s grip was heavy, hot and firm. A flash of pain shot up and down his back with lightning speed, as though a red hot poker had been laid upon it. Again and again and again! Six times in twice as many seconds the deft flint ripped his skin, and he fell forward upon his hands, faint and sick, as he felt his own blood welling upon his back and trickling in warm rivulets between his ribs.
But this was not all. To qualify, he knew, he must call for the lash of his own free will.
“For the love of God,” he uttered painfully, as he had been taught, “the three meditations of the passion of our Lord.”