Unable to persist in denial in the face of so much obvious knowledge on the part of his questioners, Yucé admits having witnessed the actual crucifixion in the cave some three or four years ago. He says (as his father had said) that it was the Christians who crucified the child, and that they whipped him, struck him, spat upon him, and crowned him with thorns.
So far he merely confirms what is already known. But now he adds to the sum of that knowledge. He states that Alonso Franco opened the veins of the boy’s arms and left him to bleed for over half an hour, gathering the blood in a cauldron and a jar; that Juan Franco drew a Bohemian knife (i.e. a curved knife) and thrust it into the boy’s side, and that Garcia Franco took out the heart and sprinkled it with salt.
He admits that all who were present took part in what was done, and he is able to indicate the precise part played by each, with the exception of his father: he doesn’t remember having seen his father do anything beyond just standing there while all this was going on; and Yucé reminds the inquisitors that his father is a very old man of over eighty years of age, whose sight is so feeble that he couldn’t so much as see clearly what was being done.
When the child was dead, he continues, they took him down from the cross. (They untied him, he says.) Juan Franco seized his arms, and Garcia Franco his legs, and thus they bore him out of the cave. Yucé didn’t see where they took him, but he heard Juan Franco and Garcia Franco informing Tazarte that they had buried him in a ravine by the river Escorchon.
The heart remained in the possession of Alonso until their next meeting in the cave, when he gave it, together with the consecrated wafer, to Tazarte.
“Did this,” they ask him, “take place by day or by night?”
“By night,” he answers, “by the light of candles of white wax; and a cloak was hung over the mouth of the cave that the light might not be seen outside.”
He is desired to say when precisely was this; but all that he can answer is that he thinks it was in Lent, just before Easter, three or four years ago.
They ask whether he had heard any rumours of the loss of a child at about that time in that district, and he says that he heard rumours of a child lost in Lillo and another in La Guardia; the latter had gone to a vineyard with his uncle, and had never been seen again. But he adds that, in any case, the Francos came and went between La Guardia and Murcia, and that on one of their journeys they might easily have found a child and carried it off, because they had sardine barrels in their carts, and some of those would be empty—by which he means that they could have concealed the child in one of these barrels.
Urged to give still further details, he protests that he can remember no more at present, but promises to inform the court if he does succeed in recalling anything else.