On the same day Benito Garcia is re-examined. His former depositions are read over to him, and he is asked if he has anything to add to them. He has to add, he finds, that Yucé—whom he has hardly mentioned hitherto—had whipped and struck the boy, and that he was an active participant in all that was done, his avowed aim being the destruction of Christianity, which he spoke of as buffoonery and idolatry.
On the morrow Ocaña is brought back to ratify his statements of yesterday. He is asked if he has anything to add that concerns the participation of Yucé, and his answer is so very much in the terms of the latest additions made by Benito that one is left wondering whether, departing from their usual custom, the inquisitors put their questions in a precise and definite form—founded upon what Benito has said—and obtained affirmative replies from Ocaña. For Ocaña, too, remembers that Yucé said that Christianity was all buffoonery and that Christians were idolaters.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE TRIAL OF YUCÉ FRANCO—(Concluded)
It might now be said that, thanks to the patient efforts which the inquisitors themselves have been exerting for close upon a year, the prosecutor is at last furnished with the evidence necessary to support his original charge against Yucé Franco.
To this end he appears before the court on that same October 21, 1491, to present in proof of his denunciation the entire dossier, as taken down by the notary of the tribunal. He begs that Yucé be brought into the audience-chamber to hear the additions which he has to make to the original charge. These additions are the matters lately extracted from Ocaña and Benito Garcia: that Yucé used vituperative words to the child when he was being crucified, and that these vituperations were really aimed at our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Faith; that he struck the boy many times, and that he drew blood from the boy’s arm with a penknife. Wherefore, he begs the inquisitors to abandon the prisoner to the secular arm, as is right and proper.[203]
He does not, however, add that Yucé’s brother had procured the child, and that Yucé was one of those who brought him to the cave and who summoned the Francos to attend—an omission which shows the credit attached to Ocaña’s statement and its lack of corroboration.
Yucé’s answer is a denial of all that is alleged and added by the Fiscal, the lad protesting that he never did or said anything beyond what he has, himself, confessed.
Guevára, thereupon, petitions the court to permit him to submit his proofs of the matters of which he accuses the prisoner, and the court having accorded him this petition, he puts in as evidence the entire dossier from which we have drawn these pages on the subject.[204]
Five days later both parties are again before the court, Guevára now petitioning their Reverend Paternities to pass to the publication of witnesses, that the trial may be brought to its conclusion. Dr. Villada announces his readiness to do so, but accords the defendants three days within which to lodge any objection to any of the matter contained in the depositions.
Yucé begs through his advocate that copies be given him of all the depositions of those who were present at the crucifixion, with the name of each hostile witness and a statement of the day, month, year, and place in which anything alleged against him is said to have taken place.