"Thou hypocrite!" he cried involuntarily.
"Ha!" said the secretary, his eye beaming triumph.
"This persistent denial will avail thee naught," said the judge, "'twill only bring thee torture."
"Torture an innocent man! 'Tis monstrous!" the physician protested. "Any tyro in the logics will tell thee that the onus of proving lies with the accuser."
"Tush! tush! This is no University. Executioner, do thy work."
The other masked man seized the old physician and stripped him to the skin.
"Confess!" said the judge warningly.
"If I confessed I was a Jew, I should be doubly a bad Christian, inasmuch as I should be lying."
"None of thy metaphysical quibbles. If thou expirest under the torture (let the secretary take note), thy death shall not be laid at the door of the Holy Office, but of thine own obstinacy."
"Christ will avenge His martyrs," said Dom Diego, with so sublime a mien that Gabriel doubted whether, after all, instinct had not misled him.