Juan Franco goes on to say that they next met in the cave some time after the crucifixion, and that his brother Alonso brought the heart and the Host in a box which he gave to Tazarte, who withdrew with them to a corner of the cave to carry out his enchantments. Later on they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia—at a place which, according to this witness, was called Sorrostros—and gave Benito a letter to take to Zamora, this letter being tied with a coloured thread.
So far he is completely in accord with the other deponents; but now there occurs a startling discrepancy. He says that at this last meeting (which, we are told, took place some six months after the crucifixion), in addition to the consecrated wafer and the letter for Abenamias, they also gave Benito the heart to take to Zamora.
Now all the other depositions lead us to suppose that the heart and the first wafer were employed—presumably consumed in some way—by Tazarte in the enchantment performed at the first meeting after the crucifixion, and that as doubts afterwards arose touching the efficacy of the spells performed by the physician, another Host was obtained some six months later, which they forwarded to Zamora.
Is the explanation the simple one that Juan Franco is mistaken on the subject of the heart? It seems possible, because he adds that he did not actually see the Host (on this particular occasion), but that he understood that it was given to Benito. Similarly he may have understood—erroneously taking it for granted—that the heart accompanied it.
And now you may see the confrontation bearing fruit, and yielding the results which we must suppose are sought by the inquisitors—the further incrimination of Yucé Franco.
Juan de Ocaña is examined again on October 20 and questioned as to Yucé’s participation in the crime. He now adds to his former confession that Yucé and the others used great vituperations to the child, which vituperations were really aimed at Jesus Christ; he cites the expressions, and in the main they are those we have already quoted from the Testimonio[201]; these, he says, were used by Ça Franco and his two sons. He says that they all whipped the boy, and that it was Yucé himself who drew blood from the arms of the victim with a knife.
“Whence was the child?” they ask him.
He replies that it was the dead Jew Mosé Franco who had brought the boy from Quintanar to Tenbleque on a donkey, and that, according to Mosé’s story, he was the son of Alonso Martin of Quintanar.[202] From Tenbleque several of them, amongst whom were Yucé and his father, brought him on the donkey to the cave where he was crucified, and it was Yucé who went to summon the brothers Franco of La Guardia, Benito Garcia, and the witness himself.
So that from having been a more or less passive spectator of the scene, Yucé is suddenly—by what we are justified in accounting the vindictiveness of Ocaña—thrust into the position of one of the chief actors, indeed, almost one of the instigators of the crime.