Having quitted the house, he went straight to the Prior of the Dominicans to relate what he had overheard and to denounce the blasphemers.
This young Castilian is so very interesting a type that a slight digression to consider him more closely may be permitted. It is of assistance to understand the mental attitude, the crass complacency of the bigot. He knew that the highest virtue that a Christian could practise was the virtue of chastity, and, conversely, that the worst offence against God into which he could fall was that of unchastity. Or at least he had been taught these things, and he accepted them in a sub-conscious, automatic sort of way. Yet since the sin was his own, it gave his consciousness no uneasiness that he should perpetrate it, that he should slink like a thief into the house of this New-Christian to debauch his daughter. But let him hear this New-Christian or his friends express opinions of disbelief in this God whom he believed in and—by his own lights—insulted, and behold him outraged in all his feelings against those unspeakable fellows. Behold him running hot-foot to Prior Ojeda to relate with horror the tale of this vileness that he had overheard, so little concerned about the vileness through which he himself had acquired his knowledge that he makes no effort to conceal it. And, apparently, the Dominican, in a like horror at the New-Christians’ offence against a God in whom they do not believe, accounts of little moment the Castilian’s offence against the God in whom he does believe.
It is a nice illumination of the contrast between the theory and the practice of Christianity.
Upon the young man’s information Ojeda instituted an inquiry, and six Judaizers were arrested. They confessed their guilt, and begged to be reconciled to the Church. As the Inquisition had not yet been established, with its terrible decree against “relapsos,”[55] their prayer was granted, after the fulfilment of the penance imposed.[56]
With the tale of this “execrable wickedness” Ojeda repaired at once to Cordova, whither the Sovereigns had by now withdrawn. The story would lose nothing in its repetition by this pious and saintly man, and he was in a position to add to it that the good folk of Seville were almost in revolt from indignation at that happening in their midst.
Having shown thus how urgently it was required, he once more implored the Sovereigns to establish the Inquisition. And it is not to be doubted that his petition would be backed by that of the legate Franco, who was at the Court.
Yet Isabella still showed repugnance, still hesitated to consent to the extreme course advocated.
But at this moment, according to Llorente,[57] another advocate appears upon the scene to plead the cause of the Faith—a figure in the white habit and black cloak of the Dominican Brotherhood, a man in his fifty-eighth year, tall and gaunt and stooping slightly at the shoulders, mild-eyed, of a cast of countenance that is gentle, noble, and benign.
This is Frey Tomás de Torquemada, Prior of the Dominican Convent of Holy Cross of Segovia, the nephew of the late illustrious Juan de Torquemada, Cardinal of San Sisto.
His influence with the Queen is vast; his eloquence fiery; his mental energy compelling. Ojeda looks on, and his hopes grow confident at last.