Thorne Guy
House of Torment

Then he made a prayer for the soul of Madame La Motte – she who had traded upon virtue, she who had taken her own life, but in whom was yet some germ of good, a well and fountain of kindliness and sympathy withal.

After that he pulled himself together, felt his muscle, stretched himself to see that his great and supple strength had not deserted him, and remained with a placid mind, waiting for the opening of his prison door again.

The anguish of his thoughts about Elizabeth was absolutely gone. A cool certainty came to him that he would save her.

He was waiting now, alert and aware. Every nerve was ready for the enterprise. With a scrutiny of his own consciousness – for he perfectly realised that death might still be very near – he asked himself if he had performed all his religious duties. If he were to die in the next hour or so, he would have no sacramental absolution. That he knew. Therefore, he was endeavouring to make his private peace with God, and as he looked upon his thoughts with the higher super-brain, it did not seem to him that there was anything lacking in his pious resignation to what should come.

He was going to make a bold and desperate bid for Lizzie's freedom, his own, and their mutual happiness.

As well as he was able, he had put his house in order, and was waiting.

But for Don Diego Deza he did not pray at all. He was but human. That he lacked power to do, and in so far fell away from the Example.

But as he thought of It, and the words so sacrosanct, he remembered that the torturers of Christ knew not what they did. They were even as this man Alonso.

But Don Diego, cultured, highly sensitive, a brilliant man, knew what he did very well.

Even the young man's wholly contrite and more than half-broken heart could send no message to the Throne for the Grand Inquisitor of Seville.

CHAPTER XII
"TENDIMUS IN LATIUM"

It was very hot.

Commendone stood in the ante-chamber of the torturers.

He wore the garment of black linen, the hood of the same, with the two circular orifices for his eyes.

John Hull kept touching him with an almost caressing movement – John Hull, a grotesque and terrible figure also in his torturer's dress.

Alonso moved about the place hurriedly, putting this and that to rights, looking after his instruments, but with a flitting, bird-like movement, showing how deeply he was excited.

The room was a long, low place. The ceiling but just above their heads. A glowing fire was at one end, and shelves all round the room. At one side of the fire was a portable brazier of iron, glowing with coals, and on the top of it a shape of white-hot metal was lying.

Alonso came up to Commendone, a dreadful black figure, a silently moving figure, with nothing humanly alive about him save only the two slits through which his eyes might be seen.

"Courage, Señor," he whispered, "it will not be long now."

Johnnie, unaware that he himself was an equally hideous and sinister figure, nodded, and swallowed something in his throat.

John Hull, short, broad, and dreadful in this black disguise, sidled up to him.

"Master," he whispered, "it will soon be over, and we shall win away. We have been in a very evil case before, and that went well. Now that we are dressed in these grave-clothes and must do bitter business, we must make up our minds to do it. 'Tis for the sake of Mistress Elizabeth, whom we love – Jesus! what is that hell-hound doing?"

The broad figure shuddered, and into the kindly English voice came a note of horror.

Johnnie turned also, and saw that the torturer was tumbling several long-handled pincers into a wooden tray. Then the torturer took one of them up, and turned the glowing something in the brazier, quietly, professionally, though the red glow that fell upon his horrible black costume gave him indeed the aspect of a devil from the pit – the bloody pantomime which was designed!

The two Englishmen stood shoulder to shoulder and shuddered, as they saw this figure moving about the glowing coals.

Johnnie took a half-step forward, when Hull pressed him back.

"God's death, master," Hull said. "We look like that; we are even as he is in aspect; we have to do our work – now!"

A door to the right suddenly swung open. Two steps led up to it, and a face peeped round. It was the face of a bearded man, with heavy eyebrows and very white cheeks. Upon the head was a biretta of black velvet.

The head nodded. "We are ready," came the voice from it. The door fell to again.

Then Alonso came up to Johnnie. "The work begins," he said, in a gruff voice, from which all respect had gone with design. "You and Juan will carry in that brazier of coals."

He went to the door, mounted the two stone steps, and held it open. Johnnie and Hull bore in the brazier up the steps, and into a large room lit, but not very brightly, with candles set in sconces upon the walls.

Following the directions of Alonso, they placed the brazier in a far corner, and stood by it, waiting in silence.

They were in a big, arched dungeon, far under ground, as it seemed. At one end of it there was an alcove, brilliantly lit. In the alcove was a daïs, or platform. On the platform was a long table draped with black, and set with silver candlesticks. On the wall behind was a great crucifix of white and black – the figure of the Christ made of plaster, or white painted wood, the cross of ebony. In the centre of the long table sat Don Diego Deza. On one side of him was a man in a robe of velvet and a flat cap. On the other, the person who had peeped through the door into the room of the torturers.

There came a beating, a heavy, muffled knock, upon a door to the left of the alcove.

Alonso left the others and hurried to the door. With some effort he pulled back a lever which controlled several massive bolts. The door swung open, there was a red glare of torches, and two dark figures, piloted by the torturer, half-led, half-carried the bound figure of a man into the room.

They placed this figure upon an oak stool with a high back, a yard or two away from the daïs, and then quietly retired.

As the door leading to the prison closed, Alonso shot the bolts into their place, and, returning, stood by the stool on which was the figure.

The notary came down from the platform, followed by the physician. In his hand was a parchment and a pen; while a long ink-horn depended from his belt. Father Deza was left alone at the table above.

"I have read thy depositions," the Inquisitor said, speaking down to the man, "wherein thou hast not refuted in detail the terrible blasphemies of Servetus, and therefore, Luis Mercader, I thank the Son of God, Who deputeth to me the power to sentence thee at the end of this thy struggle between Holy Church and thine own obstinate blasphemies. In accordance with justice of my brother inquisitors, I now sign thy warrant for death, which is indeed our right and duty to execute a blasphemous person after a regular examination. Thou art to be burnt anon at the forthcoming Act of Faith. Thou art to be delivered to the secular arm to suffer this last penalty. Thy blood shall not be upon our heads, for the Holy Office is ever merciful. But before thou goest, in our kindness we have ordained that thou shalt learn something of the sufferings to come. For so only, between this night and the day of thy death, shalt thou have opportunity to reason with thyself, perchance recant thy errors, and make thy peace with God."

He had said this in a rapid mutter, a monotone of vengeance. As he concluded he nodded to the black figure by the prisoner's chair.

Alonso turned round. With shaking footsteps, Hull and Johnnie came up to him, carrying ropes.

There was a quick whisper.

"Tie him up —thus—yes, the hands behind the back of the stool; the left leg bound fast – it is the right foot upon which we put the trampezo."

They did it deftly and quietly. Under the long linen garments which concealed them, their hearts were beating like drums, their throats were parched and dry, their eyes burnt as they looked out upon this dreadful scene.

The notary went back to the daïs, and sat beside Father Deza. The surgeon took Alonso aside. Johnnie heard what he said…

"It will be all right; he can bear it; he will not die; in any case the auto da fé will be in three days; he must endure it; have the water ready to bring him back if he fainteth."

The chirurgeon went back to the alcove and sat on the other side of the Inquisitor.

"Bring up the brazier," Alonso said to Commendone.

Together Johnnie and Hull carried it to the chair.

"Now send Juan for the pincers…"

There came a long, low wail of despair from the broken, motionless figure on the stool. The long pincers, like those with which a blacksmith pulls out a shoe from the charcoal, were produced…

The torturer took the glowing thing on the top of the brazier, and pulled it off, scattering the coals as he did so.

Close to the foot of the bound figure he placed the glowing shoe. Then he motioned to Hull to take up the other side of it with his pincers, and put it in place so that the foot of the victim should be clamped to it and burnt away.

John Hull took up the long pincers, and caught hold of one side of the shoe.

Johnnie turned his head away; he looked straight through his black hood at the three people on the daïs.

The notary was quietly writing. The surgeon was looking on with cool professional eye; but Don Deza was watching the imminent horror below him with a white face which dripped with sweat, with eyes dilated to two rims, gazing, gazing, drinking the sight in. Every now and again the Inquisitor licked his pallid lips with his tongue. And in that moment of watching, Johnnie knew that Cruelty, for the sake of Cruelty, the mad pleasure of watching suffering in its most hideous forms, was the hidden vice, the true nature, of this priest of Courts.

At the moment, and doubtless at many other moments in the past, Father Deza was compensating, and had compensated, for a life of abstinence from sensual indulgence. He was giving scope to the deadlier vices of the heart, pride, bigotry, intolerance, and horrid cruelty – those vices far more opposed to the hope of salvation, and far more extensively mischievous to society, than anything the sensualist can do.

The bitterness of it; the horror of it – this was the wine the brilliant priest was drinking, had drunk, and would ever drink. Into him had come a devil which had killed his soul, and looked out from his narrow twitching eyes, rejoicing that it saw these things with the symbol of God's pain high above it, with the cloak of God's Church upon his shoulders.

As Johnnie watched, fascinated with an unnameable horror, he heard a loud shout close to his ear. He saw a black-hooded, thick figure pass him and rush towards the daïs.

In the hands of this figure was a long pair of blacksmith's pincers, and at the end of the pincers was a shoe of white-hot metal.

There was another loud shout, a broad band of white light, as the mass of glowing metal shot through the air in a hissing arc, and then the face of the Inquisitor disappeared and was no more.

At that moment both Commendone and the sworn torturer realised what had happened. They leapt nimbly on to the daïs. From under his robe Alonso took a stiletto and plunged it into the throat of the notary; while Johnnie, in a mad fury, caught the physician by the neck, placed his open hand upon the man's chin, and bent his head back, slowly, steadily, and with terrible pressure, until there was a faint click, and the black-robed figure sank down.

The trampezo was burning into the wooden floor of the daïs. Alonso ran back into the room, caught up a pail of water, and poured it upon the gathering flames. There was a hiss, and a column of steam rose up into the alcove.

He turned his head and looked at the motionless form of the Inquisitor. The face was all black and red, and rising into white blisters.

He turned to Commendone. "He's dead, or dying," he said, "and now, thou hast indeed cast the die, and all is over. Thy man hath spoilt it all, and nothing remains for us but death."

"Silence!" Johnnie answered, captain of himself now, and of all of them there. "How is the next prisoner to be summoned?"

The torturer understood him. "Why," he said, "we may yet save ourselves! – that bell there" – he pointed to a hanging cord. "That summons the jailors. They are waiting to bring the Señorita for judgment. Don Luis, there, who was to undergo the trampezo, would not have been taken back into the prison at once, but into our room, where the surgeon would have attended him. Therefore, we will ring for the Señorita. She will be pushed into this place very gently. The door will not be opened wide. Doors are never widely opened in the Holy Office. The jailors will see us taking charge of her, and all will be well. If not, get your poignard ready, Señor, and you, too, Juan, for 'twill be better to die a fighting death in this cellar than to wait for what would come hereafter."

He stretched out his hand and pulled down the bell-cord.

They stood waiting in absolute silence, Alonso and John Hull, in their dreadful disguise, standing close to the door.

There was not a sound in the brilliantly lit room. The victim that was to be had fainted away, and lay as dead as the three corpses upon the daïs. There was a smell of hot coal, of burning wood, and still there came a little sizzling noise from the half-quenched glowing iron upon the platform.

Thud!

A quiet answering knock from Alonso. Another thud – the heave of the lever, the slither of the bolts, the door opening a little, murmured voices, and a low, shuddering cry of horror, as a tall girl, in a long woollen garment, a coarse garment of wool dyed yellow, was pushed into the embrace of the black-hooded figures who stood waiting for her.

Clang – the bolts were shot back.

Then a tearing, ripping noise, as Hull pulled the black hood from his face and shoulders.

"My dear, my dear," he cried, "Miss Lizzie. 'Tis over now. Fear nothing! I and thy true love have brought thee to safety."

The girl gave a great cry. "Johnnie! Johnnie!"

He rushed up to her, and held her in his arms. He was still clothed in the dreadful disguise of a torturer. It had not come into his mind to take it off. But she was not frightened. She knew his arms, she heard his voice, she sank fainting upon his shoulder.

Once more it was John Hull speaking in English who brought the lovers to realisation. His strong and anxious voice was seconded by the Spanish of Alonso.

"Quick! quick!" both the men said. "All hath gone well. We have a start of many hours, but we must be gone from here at once."

Johnnie released Elizabeth from his arms, and then he also doffed the terror-inspiring costume which he wore.

"Sweetheart," he said, "go you with John Hull and this Alonso into the room beyond, where they will give you robes to wear. I will join you in less than a minute."

They passed away with quick, frightened footsteps.

But as for Commendone, he went to the centre of the alcove, and knelt down just below the long black table.

The three bodies of the men they had slain he could not see. He could only see the black form of the tablecloth, and above it the great white Crucifix.

He prayed that nothing he had done upon this night should stain his soul, that Jesus – as indeed he believed – had been looking on him and all that he did, with help and favour.

And once more he renewed his vow to live for Jesus and for the girl he loved.

Crossing himself, he rose, and clapped his hands to his right side. Once more he found he was without a sword. He bowed again to the cross. "It will come back to me," he said, in a quiet voice.

He turned to go, he had no concern with those who lay dead above him; but as he went towards the door leading to the place of the torturers, his eye fell upon the oak stool in the middle of the room – the oak chair by which the brazier still glowed, and in which a silent, doll-like figure was bound.

He stepped up to the chair, and immediately he saw that Don Luis was dead.

The shock had killed him. He lay back there with patches of grey marked in his hair, as if fingers had been placed upon it – a young face, now prematurely old, and writhed into horror, but with a little quiet smile of satisfaction upon it after all…

And so they sailed away to the Court of Rome, to take a high part in what went forward in the palace of the Vatican. They were to be fused into that wonderful revival of Learning and the Arts known as the Renaissance.

God willing, and still seeing fit to give strength to the hand and mind of the present chronicler, what they did in Rome, all that befell them there, and of Johnnie's friendship and adventures with Messer Benvenuto Cellini will be duly set out in another volume during the year of Grace to come.

 
Et veniam pro laude peto: laudatus abunde
Non fastiditus si tibi, lector, ero.