"I mean to do so," he said, tersely. Then, addressing the nine, he said:
"Senors, I have somewhat to say to you. But, first of all, be good enough to remove your hoods, that I may see your faces. I like not to talk with men whose features are hidden from me."
For a moment there was silence in the room, broken only by the low murmurings of Ba.s.set, who was speaking to the unfortunate "subject" in the chair. Then the figure occupying the middle chair on the dais rose to his feet and, stretching forth a long bony arm which projected to beyond the wrist from the loose sleeve of his black robe, said:
"Depart, presumptuous youth! Go hence quickly, and take those misguided men, thy minions, with thee, lest I call down the wrath of Holy Mother Church upon thy sacrilegious head--and theirs. Who art thou, that thou should"st dare to--"
"Reverend senor," interrupted George, unceremoniously, "a fig for you and your sacrilege"--and he snapped his fingers contemptuously. "The wrath of thy Holy Mother Church has no terrors for me, though-- understand me--I can respect any man"s religion, so long as he is sincere, and so long as he is willing to respect that of others and permit them to worship G.o.d in their own way. But, enough of this; I am not here to discuss theological questions, but to right a great wrong and to avenge fiendish crime and cruelty perpetrated in the sacred name of Him whose effigy hangs upon yonder cross behind you. Therefore I say once more, uncover, and let me see your faces--unless indeed you prefer that we should lay our sacrilegious hands upon you and remove your head- coverings ourselves!"
"The Saints forbid!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Grand Inquisitor in horror.
"Anything rather than that!"
Then, turning to his companions, right and left, he added--"Uncover, my Brothers, since this heretical Englishman will have it so. It is not meet that we, the pillars of the Holy Catholic Church, unworthy though we be, should submit to insult and indignity at the hands of a pack of G.o.dless Lutheran dogs." And, so saying, he seated himself and proceeded to remove his own head-covering, disclosing lean, ascetic features, cold, cruel, and domineering, crowned by the monk"s tonsure. At the same time the others did the same, and with very similar result, the dominant expression of the faces thus disclosed being that of cold, stern ruthlessness, tempered, it must be confessed, in some cases, with very evident signs of fear.
"So! that is better," commented George. "Now, senors," he continued, "I am not going to make a long business of my talk with you, for we have already wasted far too much time in this accursed building. I have but a few questions to ask; and you will do well to answer them briefly and to the point. This chamber, I perceive, is what is usually termed in the outside world, "the torture chamber"; and I gather that it is here you subject those whom you stigmatise as heretics to unspeakable torments for the purpose of compelling them to forswear themselves and embrace your religion against their will. Now, which of you is responsible for the h.e.l.lish suffering that goes on from time to time within these four walls?"
"Since you insist upon our replying to your insolent questions,"
answered the Grand Inquisitor, contemptuously, "know, young man, that none is more responsible than another. We whom you see seated here are appointed by our Order to promote the honour and interest of the Church of which we are most humble and unworthy members, by winning souls to her, and converting the heathen and heretics generally to the true faith. We have various methods of doing this. In the first instance we use teaching, persuasion, exhortation; and sometimes these methods suffice. But when they fail--as they do sometimes, in the case of the contumacious, there is a blessed power in bodily suffering which, loath as we are to employ it, we force ourselves to resort to, convinced that, by saving the soul at the cost of the body, we are doing a righteous and merciful thing. But even in inflicting suffering we are merciful, for we regulate the amount and quality of the suffering by the extent of the contumacy of the subject, making it light and transient at the first, and only increasing it in sharpness and duration when we find the other insufficient. And in all cases the character of the punishment is the subject of long and anxious deliberation, in which we all join, and no punishment of any kind is ever inflicted until we all--I and my eight Brothers here--are agreed as to its expediency, character, and amount.
Also we are always present upon such occasions, in order that the punishment may be stopped upon the instant that conversion takes place."
"I see," said George. "Are you all agreed"--addressing the a.s.sistants, "that what your Grand Inquisitor has stated is the exact truth?"
"_Si, si_; yes, we are all agreed," came first from one and then another, until all had spoken.
"Then," continued George, "I am to take it that you are all alike equally responsible for what is done in this chamber?"
It was evident that a large proportion of the a.s.sistant Inquisitors were inclined to jib at the word "responsible"; but the young Captain insisted upon each man giving a categorical reply to the question; and in the end, stimulated further by the stern looks of the Grand Inquisitor, they all replied in the affirmative.
"Very good," commented George. "Now, I have but one other question to ask. Is it you, as a body, who condemn certain of your victims to the hideous fate of being burnt alive in the _auto-da-fe_?"
Even the Grand Inquisitor, hitherto in a great measure blinded by his bigotry, and his absolute faith in the sanct.i.ty of his office and the complete protection which it afforded him, blanched at the directness and significance of this last question; but still, unable even now to fully realise the awful danger in which he stood, he gave a somewhat rambling and excusatory reply which, however, was a full admission of responsibility for the deed with which George charged him and his a.s.sociates.
"Good!" said George; "you have now afforded me all the information which I desired to obtain. All that remains for you, senors, is to make your peace with G.o.d as best you can; for I have const.i.tuted myself the avenger of all the acc.u.mulated agony that the walls of this chamber and the stones of the Grand Plaza have witnessed; and within the next half- hour _you die_!"
CHAPTER TEN.
HOW THE PLATE SHIPS SOUGHT TO ESCAPE FROM SAN JUAN.
"We die?" reiterated the Grand Inquisitor, now at last fully awakened to the tremendous gravity of the situation. "And pray, senor, at whose behest do we die?"
"At mine, most reverend senor," answered George, simply. "Have I not yet succeeded in making that clear to you?"
"That means, then, that you intend to murder us?" demanded the Grand Inquisitor, with pale, tremulous lips.
"Senores," replied George, in a tone of finality, "it matters not to me how you choose to designate your impending execution. Call it murder, if the expression affords you any satisfaction. _I_ call it an act of stern justice, the richly merited punishment due to a long series of atrociously inhuman crimes committed by you, if not actually with your own hands, at least by your orders. Such crimes as you and your a.s.sociates have most callously and cold-bloodedly committed under the cloak of religion deserve a far more severe punishment than the mere deprivation of life, and if I were const.i.tuted like yourselves I should make that deprivation of life a long, lingering agony, a slow death of exquisite torment, such as you have inflicted upon countless victims; but torture is indescribably repugnant to the mind of an Englishman, therefore I intend to carry out the death-sentence which I have pa.s.sed upon you, as mercifully as possible, by causing you to be shot--with one exception, that exception being in the case of the Grand Inquisitor, whom I purpose to hang, as an example to others. And I have taken upon myself the terrible task and responsibility of execution, for the simple reason that there is no other who will do so; and justice _must_ be satisfied. And now, having said all that there is to be said, I leave you all to prepare for death as best you may." Whereupon, the young man, with stern, set face, turned away and walked over to Ba.s.set, who was still doing what he could to alleviate the sufferings of the latest victim to the Inquisition"s merciless methods of conversion.
"Well, Ba.s.set," he said, indicating the unfortunate individual in the chair, "whom have we here? He looks to me something like an Englishman."
"So he be," answered Ba.s.set. "He says his name be Job Winter, and that he was one of the crew of Admiral Hawkins" ship, the _Minion_. He"ve been in this h.e.l.l upon earth since last August, and all that time they fiends in human form up there," indicating the occupants of the dais, "have been trying their hardest to make a good Catholic of him. And this is how they"ve been doing it. Look to mun." And very gently and tenderly the soldier disclosed certain horrible and blood-curdling injuries very recently inflicted, together with a number of healed and half-healed scars which bore eloquent testimony to a long period of dreadful torment. So frightful was the sight that both the beholders fairly reeled under the horrible qualm of sickness and repulsion induced by it, and if anything further was needed to confirm the young Captain in his full determination to make an example of the Inquisitors, he found it in the revolting spectacle before him.
"My poor dear man," he said, his voice quivering with compa.s.sion, "what you must have suffered! But, cheer up; we are Englishmen and Devon men, like yourself, and one of our purposes in coming here was to deliver you out of the hands of these Spanish devils, and we"ll do it, too. We"ve a good surgeon aboard our ship, and you shall be in his hands this very day, please G.o.d. Are there any more of you in this place?"
"He doesn"t know, poor soul," answered Ba.s.set, interposing, "but I do; there be two more Englishmen that we"ve found in the cells; and they"m almost so bad as this man. We found "em safely locked up; but they"m out now and being taken care of by our men."
"Can they walk?" demanded George.
"A few yards, perhaps," surmised Ba.s.set, "but not so far as the wharf."
"Then they must be carried," decided George. "And these men,"
indicating the scarlet-garbed individuals, whose business it evidently was to actually carry out the fiendish commands of the Inquisitors--"shall help to do it. I dare say we can find all the additional help we need somewhere in this building. I will go out and see to it; and, meanwhile, you will remain here and see that none of these persons escape."
"Ay, ay," responded Ba.s.set, "I"ll take care of that, trust me. I don"t think there"ll be any trouble, after the example I made of that fellow,"
pointing to the prostrate figure on the paved floor. "The rascal presumed to dispute my authority when I came in here and told everybody that they were prisoners, and--there a be! No, I don"t think there"ll be any more trouble."
Whereupon George pa.s.sed from the terrible chamber with its fearful evidences of the dreadful lengths to which misguided fanaticism will occasionally carry men, even in the cause of religion, and proceeded to busy himself in making all the arrangements necessary for the comfortable conveyance of the three unfortunate victims of Inquisitional cruelty down to the ship.
The thing was done! Righteously, or unrighteously, it was done at last, and the little party of stern, inflexible-visaged Englishmen emerged from the Inquisition building of San Juan de Ulua grouped protectively round the three litters in which lay the quivering, emaciated, anguished bodies of their fellow-countrymen, delivered, against all hope, from a fate a thousand times worse than any ordinary kind of death, while within the gloomy, forbidding walls of the building they left behind them nine corpses as a warning and example that, even in that far-off land, Englishmen might not be tortured to death with impunity. It was a terrible demonstration of crude, primitive justice; and whether or not it was as effective in inculcating a lesson as it was intended to be, it is now impossible to say; but one thing at least is certain, that from that time forward there is no record of any Englishman having ever been received into the Inquisition at San Juan.
The party reached the ship unmolested, although they naturally attracted a great deal of attention during their pa.s.sage through the streets. How it would have been with them during that short march if the inhabitants of the city had been aware of the terrible tragedy which had just been enacted within the walls of the Inquisition can never be known, possibly it might have resulted in a still more terrible tragedy in the streets, with far-reaching results upon the city itself, but Saint Leger believed that he had taken every possible precaution against such an occurrence.
As events proved, however, there was one precaution which he had omitted to take; he should have insisted upon the arrest by the alcalde of Don Manuel Rebiera, the acting Commandant, upon that individual"s display of hostility at the termination of their interview with him; and this George had not done. Now, Don Manuel was both a bigoted Catholic and a Government official. He was one of those who held that the Church--and in his case the term included every individual belonging to the Church-- could do no wrong; even the atrocities of the Inquisition, which many devout Catholics secretly reprobated, were to him perfectly justifiable, and the inst.i.tution itself as sacred as the cathedral; and the suspicion aroused within him by George"s question as to the whereabouts of the building--that this little band of autocratic, domineering heretics meditated an invasion of its sacred precincts, possibly with the intention of perpetrating some act of violence therein, and in any case desecrating it by their intrusion--stirred his fanatical religious rancour to boiling point, while the fact that those same heretics held the town--a possession of his Most Catholic Majesty--at their mercy, was not only as great an offence from his patriotic point of view, but he also felt that it inflicted a deep stain upon his honour as a Spanish soldier, which he was resolved to wipe out, if possible.
These feelings he had wit enough to understand he must conceal from George and the alcalde, and he contrived to do so pretty successfully; but the effort only caused them to gall and rankle the more intolerably, and when, at the termination of his interview with them, he quitted their presence with a certain scarcely veiled hint of insolence in his manner, he was in the throes of a perfect frenzy of anger and humiliation; in the precise frame of mind, in fact, as that of the man who, forgetting everything but his own grievances, is ready to commit any crime, however atrocious, in order to avenge himself and salve his wounded feelings. Too often, unhappily, reflection does not come until it is too late, and the crime has been perpetrated, and Don Manuel"s first impulse was to muster his soldiers, follow after the Englishmen, and slay them, if possible, before they should reach the Inquisition building. But as he hurried toward the barracks with this fell intention, he realised that what he meditated was impossible; before he could muster his soldiers and put them upon the track, the Englishmen would have reached their goal; and once within the ma.s.sive walls of the building, they would be safe. But there was no reason, he told himself, why they should not be attacked as they came out--and here his meditations came to a sudden halt. There _was_ a very good reason, which was that, even if his meditated attack should prove successful, only a paltry dozen of Englishmen would fall, and their comrades would remain to wreak a terrible retribution, in the course of which he, among others, would have to pay the full penalty. No, that would not do at all; it was not that Don Manuel Rebiera was a coward; very far from it; but with the speed of thought he pictured to himself the happenings that must inevitably follow the perpetration of an act of such base treachery as he meditated; he saw in imagination the execution of the hostages-- among whom, he suddenly remembered, were one or two very dear friends of his own; the bombardment of the town, with the concomitant slaughter of women and children as well as men; the exasperation of the citizens at the author of the deed which had brought such a frightful calamity upon them, and his own arrest and summary execution. No; that would not do; he was not in the least afraid to face death in fair fight, but to be arrested by his own countrymen, handed over by them to the hated English, and publicly hanged by the latter from one of the yard-arms of their ship--No; he could not face that ignominy.
Then what was to be done--for something he was determined to do? He somehow found his way back to the private room in his quarters, and there, flinging himself into a chair, set himself to think. And gradually from out the chaos of his thoughts there emerged an idea, a plan, a mad, desperate plan that, if successful, would mean the destruction or capture of the _Nonsuch_ and every Englishman aboard her, which was what Rebiera wanted; while, if it failed--! But it must not, should not fail; no, he would see to that. So presently he took pen and paper, and proceeded to jot down his plan of campaign, altering its details here and there as he went on, until finally he had evolved a scheme that commended itself to him as eminently satisfactory. Then he proceeded to jot down a number of names of persons whose co-operation it was necessary to secure; and, this done, he called for an orderly, who forthwith proceeded to ride hither and thither about the city, calling at this house and that and leaving instructions that the persons whom he named were to present themselves without fail at the Commandant"s office at a certain hour, namely, four o"clock in the afternoon, which just gave the Commandant nice time to complete his plans before the arrival of the persons whom he had summoned to meet him.
And in due time, with very commendable punctuality, those persons turned up and were ushered into the Commandant"s private office. There were some thirty of them in all, and when the whole of them were present Don Manuel proceeded to address them, at first in quick, tense tones, which gradually changed to the fiery, impa.s.sioned language and gestures characteristic of an invocation. For a man of his parts he was rather an able orator, moreover he was more profoundly stirred than, probably, he had ever before been in the whole course of his life. It is not to be greatly wondered at, therefore, that before he ended he had wrought his audience up to almost as high a pitch of ferocity and enthusiasm as himself; and when at length he reached his peroration and concluded by making a certain demand, the men who had hitherto sat listening to him sprang to their feet with one accord and vowed, by all they held sacred, that they would obey him and perform his behest, or die in the attempt.
And they were all resolute, determined men, too, of the seafaring cla.s.s, who looked as though they might be safely counted upon to keep their word; wherefore, as soon as their excitement had subsided sufficiently to permit of a return to business, Don Manuel drew toward him a bundle of doc.u.ments which he had already prepared, and which were, in fact, temporary commissions, and distributed them, one to each man present.
Then, selecting a particular memorandum from a number which were lying upon his desk, and referring to it for guidance from time to time, he proceeded to give specified instructions to each person, who, having received them, at once rose and bowed himself out, by which arrangement the party gradually dissolved and left the building one man at a time, thus reducing to a minimum the chances of attracting undue attention.
The afternoon was well advanced when at length George Saint Leger and his party returned to the _Nonsuch_, and handed over to Jack Chichester, the surgeon, the three human wrecks whom they had rescued from the clutches of the Inquisition, with special instructions that no pains were to be spared, no trouble to be regarded as too great, nothing that the ship contained too precious for the mitigation of their suffering and, as all hoped, their ultimate restoration to something approaching as nearly as might be to perfect health. It was pitiful to witness the almost incredulous joy and transport manifested by the unfortunates at finding themselves once more in the midst of their fellow-countrymen, and especially of men who spoke in the accents of that beloved Devon whose scented orchards, winding lanes, swelling moors, and lonely tors they had utterly despaired of ever again beholding. But they were st.u.r.dy fellows, too, and even broken down as they were, with their strength sapped and their courage almost quelled by long months of protracted agony and privation, they quickly recovered spirit when once they found themselves outside the gloomy precincts of the Inquisition building; and though, despite the utmost precaution and the most tender care in getting them out of the boat and up the ship"s lofty side, the pain they suffered in the process must have been excruciating, they made light of it, declaring, with a laugh that moved those who heard it to tears--so hollow and pathetic was it--that such pain was less than nothing compared with the awful long-drawn-out torments to which they had almost grown accustomed!
And if the three rescued Englishmen were glad to find themselves once more, against all hope, delivered from the power of their tormentors, and comparatively safe under the shelter of the glorious Cross of Saint George, the hostages who had most unwillingly remained on board the English ship to insure the good faith of their countrymen--in which, if the truth must be told, they had no very profound belief--were scarcely less so when they saw the little party of adventurers return in safety from their desperate errand; for that return meant that one great danger at least had been safely pa.s.sed, and surely now they might rely upon the citizens of San Juan to do nothing foolish. So they plucked up heart of grace, and became quite cheery and affable with the Englishmen until Heard, the purser, rather maliciously reminded them that the matter of the indemnity still remained unsettled and that many things might happen before the citizens consented to part with such an enormous sum of money. And the hostages would have felt very much more disconcerted at his remark than they actually were, had they dreamed that the Englishman was speaking truer than he knew.
By the time that the excitement attendant upon the safe return of the Captain and his escort had begun to simmer down a little, night had fallen, and those who were not on duty began to think of retiring to rest, for the day had been a long and rather trying one to all hands, and especially so to those who had been of the sh.o.r.e-going party. But George did not forget, nor would he allow anyone else on board to forget, that the ship was in a hostile port, surrounded on all sides by enemies; and that although, for the moment, a truce prevailed, n.o.body could possibly say how long that truce might last, or at what moment it might be broken. He reminded his compatriots that the harbour of San Juan de Ulua, where they now lay, was the scene of that act of stupendous treachery which it was a part of their business to avenge; he pointed out that it was the very people who now surrounded them who had perpetrated that act of treachery and were therefore quite capable of perpetrating another if they believed that they saw the opportunity to do so successfully, and he drew their attention to the fact that although, thank G.o.d, they had a sound ship under them, they were very much fewer in numbers than those who were the victims of the tragedy of a year ago, and were consequently at least as tempting a mark as those others had been; and finally he issued his commands that the same watches should be maintained as though the ship were at sea, and that the utmost vigilance should be observed by the look-outs and especially by the officers, that the ordnance should be kept loaded, that no man should lay aside his arms, even to sleep; and that, lastly, if any craft or boat of any kind were seen to be approaching the ship during the hours of darkness, she was to be first challenged, and then fired upon if she did not immediately reply.
The night fell dark and overcast, with a brisk easterly breeze and occasional heavy rain squalls, taxing the vigilance of the look-outs to the utmost, and causing young Saint Leger to frequently quit his cabin to personally a.s.sure himself that his instructions were being carried out in their entirety. But nothing in the slightest degree suspicious was observed until shortly after three o"clock in the morning, when Dyer, the pilot, whose watch it then was, suddenly presented himself at the door of George"s cabin with the startling intimation that two of the plate ships, if not three, seemed to have slipped their cables and were getting under way. "There baint a light to be seed aboard any of "em,"
he reported, "and it"s so dark as Tophet, but I be certain sure that two of they ships is settin" their canvas, and there be another that, to my mind, be adrift."
"But how can that be, when we have the officers of the ships aboard here?" demanded George as he sprang from his cot and followed Dyer out on deck.
"Don"t know, I"m sure," answered Dyer; "but it"s a fact that some of "em be gettin" under way."
As the pair emerged from the p.o.o.p cabin, they were met by Drew, the boatswain, who reported:
"There be four of "em on the move now, Cap"n; and I baint at all sure but where there"s one or two more of "em makin" ready for a start, though the light be that bad--"