"Money in Spain!" said Mariana calmly, putting his hand on the arm of his coadjutor. "Well, there is not much—but this is the Street of the Money—and I judge we shall find enough for that!"
CHAPTER XXX.
JEAN-AUX-CHOUX TAKES HIS WAGES
No sooner had Jean-aux-Choux departed from the terrible house in the Street of the Money at Perpignan, in which he had found the three inquisitors seated, than Mariana, with a sigh of relief, drew from his breast a document on cream-coloured vellum.
Before reading it he looked at the other two, and especially at Frey Tullio the Neapolitan.
"We are all good Spaniards," he was about to begin. But remembering in time the birthplace of the junior inquisitor, he altered his sentence into, "We are all good subjects of King Philip?"
Surintendant Teruel and Frey Tullio bowed their heads. They wondered what was coming, and Tullio was growing not a little sleepy. Even inquisitors must sleep. A pulley-wheel creaked overhead uneasily. Down in the Place of Pain the familiars were trying the ropes for the morrow. There was one that had not acted satisfactorily in the case of that Valencian Jew in the afternoon. They had been ordered to mend it. King Philip did not approve of paying for new ropes too often. Besides, the old were better. They did not stretch so much. Blood and tears had dropped upon them.
So ever and anon the pulley creaked complainingly between two rafters, in the pauses of the Jesuit's soft voice, as he read the Pope's condemnation of King Henry III. of France (called of Valois)—excommunicated, outcasted, delivered to Satan that he might learn not to offend—for the sin of alliance with the heretic, for the sin of schism and witchcraft—"ordered to be read from the chair of our cathedral-church of Meaux, and of all others occupied by faithful bishops——"
The face of the peasant-ecclesiastic Teruel lighted with a fierce joy as he listened.