The contradictions on this score appear to be flagrant, and it is impossible to reconcile the date of the crucifixion with that of Benito Garcia’s arrest in Astorga. It seems to be established by Yucé that the crucifixion took place at the end of Lent 1488; and he and others tell us that about six months later they all assembled again to dispatch the Host to Zamora by the hand of Benito. Yet Benito is arrested in Astorga in May or June of 1490—more than eighteen months after setting out for Zamora—and the wafer is still in his possession, undelivered. That is what seems to be established. But it is possible that a very simple explanation may dispose of this discrepancy. We are not justified by our present knowledge in saying that the inquisitors were unable to dispose of it. We may not assume that there is not, in the records of the trials of the other accused, matter that will clear up this question.
The date supplied by the sacristan, for instance, does not seem to be so very inconsistent with that of the event in the inn at Astorga. He said, it will be remembered, that he had delivered the wafer to Benito some five months before the arrest of the Francos. This tends strongly to confirm the impression we have already formed that the wafer discovered upon Benito at the time of his arrest was not the one that he had set out to take to Zamora some two years earlier. The Host, together with the letter for Abenamias, may very well have reached its destination. If this is admitted—and there is nothing in the evidence to forbid its admittance—much that is irreconcilable in the depositions at once disappears.
M. Loeb, of course, has proceeded upon the assumption that it is pretended that the Host dispatched from La Guardia in 1488 and the Host found upon Benito at Astorga in 1490 are one and the same. It may appear to be the obvious thing to assume. Yet it is a hasty assumption, which nothing in the evidence before us will justify.
As for the other discrepancies which M. Loeb points out, when all is said, they refer to matters of detail, upon which mistakes are not impossible.
Benito states that the child’s hands and feet were nailed to the cross in addition to being tied, whilst Yucé makes no mention of nails.
According to the statements of Yucé and of Juan Franco, it is the latter’s brother who opened the veins in the boy’s arms, whereas Ocaña said that this was done by Yucé. We have already drawn attention to the circumstances under which Ocaña so accused Yucé, and we have suggested the vindictiveness that may have inspired him.
Juan Franco confessed that he himself cut open the boy’s side and drew out the heart, whilst Yucé’s statement was to the effect that Juan had opened the wound and Garcia Franco had torn out the heart.
Mainly the evidence seems to say that the child bled to death. Yet Benito states that he was strangled(?), and Yucé in one of his statements says that they gagged him because he was crying. We have already suggested that by the expression “lo ahogaron” so much as “strangling” may not necessarily have been meant.
These are, after all, the principal discrepancies; and it is to be remembered that these men were referring to things done at least two years before; that confusion on the score of particulars is not only possible but more or less inevitable; and that, despite contradictions in these details, the main facts stated are always the same in the depositions of each. M. Loeb more than suggests that this unanimity was contrived by the inquisitors. He puts it forward as more than probable that the prisoners were left alone together on the occasions of the confrontations, to the end that they might agree upon the same tale.