House of Torment Part 37

The other made an impatient movement of his hands. "Senor," he said, "I marked that you did not seem to trust me. I am here to adventure my life, in recompense for that you did so for me. I am here also to get away from Spain with the aid of thy money--to get away to Rome, where the Holy Office will reach none of us. In doing this, I am risking my life, as I have said. And for me I am risking far more than life. I, that have done so many grievous things to others, am a great coward, and go in horrid fear of pain. I could not stand the least of the tortures, and if I am caught in this enterprise, I shall endure the worst of all.

In any case, thou hast nothing to lose, for if I am indeed endeavouring to entrap you, you will gain nothing. The worst is reserved for you--as we have previous orders--for it is whispered that yours is not so much a matter of heresy, but that you did things against King Philip's Majesty in England."

Johnnie nodded. "'Tis true," he said; "but still, tell me for a further sign and token of thy fidelity how thou camest to be in communication with John Hull."

"Did I not tell thee?" the man answered, in amazement. "Why, 'twas through the second captain of the _St. Iago_, I cannot say his name, who hath been with Juan these many days, and speakest Spanish near as well as you."

Johnnie realised the truth at once, surprised that it had not come to him before. It was Mr. Mew, whom he had tackled for his friendship with Alonso! "Then what am I to do?" he said.

Alonso began to speak slowly and with some hesitation.

"The work to do to-night," he said, "is to put a Carthusian monk, Luis Mercader, to the torture of the _trampezo_. After that, the Senorita will be brought in, interrogated, and is to be scourged as the first of her tortures."

The man started away--Johnnie had growled in his throat like a dog....

"It will not be, it will not be, Senor," Alonso said. "When Luis is finished with, he will be taken away by the surgeon and afterwards by the jailors. Then they will bring the Senorita and retire. There will be none in the room of the Question but thou, Juan, and myself, wearing our linen hoods, and Father Deza, that is the Grand Inquisitor newly come from England, his notary, and the physician. The doors leading to the prisons will be locked, for none must see the torture save only the officials concerned therein--as hath long been the law. It will be easy for us three to overpower the Inquisitor, the surgeon, and the notary.

Then we can escape through the private rooms of us torturers, which lead to the back entrance of the fortress. The _caballeros_ will not be discovered, if bound--or killed, indeed--for some hours, for none are allowed to approach the room of Question from the prisons until they are summoned by a bell. I shall have everything ready, and mules waiting, so that we may go straight to the _muelle_--the wharf to which the carrack is tied. The captain thereof is the Italian mariner Pozzi, who hath no love towards Spain, and we shall be upon the high seas before even our absence is discovered."

"Good," Johnnie answered, his voice unconsciously a.s.suming the note of command it was wont to use, the wine having reanimated him, his whole body and brain tense with excitement, ready for the daring deed that awaited him.

"My friend," he said, "I will not only take you away from all this wickedness and horror, but you shall have money enough to live like a gentleman in Italy. I have--now I understand it--plenty of money in the hands of my servant to bring us well to Rome. Once in Rome, I can send letters to my friends in England, and be rich in a few short months. I shall not forget you; I shall see to your guerdon."

The man spat upon his hands and rubbed them together--those large prehensile hands. "I knew it," he said, half to himself, "I pay a debt for my life, as is but right and just, and I win a fortune too! I knew it!"

"Tell me exactly what is to happen," Johnnie said.

In the flickering light of the torch, once more Alonso looked curiously at Commendone. He hesitated for a moment, and then he spoke.

"There is just the business of the heretic Luis," he said. "He must be tortured before ever the Senorita is brought in. And you and Juan must help in the torture to sustain your parts."

Johnnie started. Until this very moment he had not realised that hideous necessity. He understood Alonso's hesitation now.

There was a dead silence for a moment or two. Alonso broke it.

"I shall do the princ.i.p.al part, Senor," he said hurriedly. "It is nothing to me. I have done so much of it! But there are certain things that thou must do and thy servant also, or at least must seem to do.

There is no other way."

Johnnie put his poor soiled hands to his face. "I cannot do it," he said, in a low voice, from which hope, which had rung in it before, had now departed. "I cannot do it. I will not stain my honour thus."

"So said Juan to me at first," the other answered. "They have been hunting high and low for Juan, but he hath escaped the Familiars, in that I have hid him. For himself, Juan said he would do nothing of the sort, but for you he finally said he would do it. 'For, look you,' Juan said to me, 'I love the gentleman that is my master, and I love my little mistress better, so that I will even help to torture this Spaniard, and let no word escape me in the doing of it that may betray our design.' That was what thy servant said, Senor. And now, what sayest thou?"

"She would not wish it," Commendone half said, half sobbed. "If she knew, she would die a thousand deaths rather than that I should do it."

"That may be very sure, Senor, but she will never know it if we win to safety. And as for this Luis Mercader, he must die, anyhow. There is no hope for him. He _must_ be tortured, if not by you, Juan, and I, then by myself, my father, and my brother. It is remediless."

"I cannot do evil that good may come," Johnnie replied, in a whisper.

Alonso stamped upon the ground in his impatience. He could not understand the prisoner's att.i.tude, though he had realised some possibility of it from his conferences with John Hull. He had half known, when he came to Commendone, that there would be something of this sort. If the rough man of his own rank turned in horror and dislike from the only opportunity presented for saving the Senorita, how much more would the master do so?

For himself, he could not understand it. He did his hideous work with the regularity of a machine, and with as little pity. Outside in his private life, he was much as other men. He could be tender to a woman he loved, kindly and generous to his friends. But business was business, and he was hardly human at his work.

Habit makes slaves of us all, and this mental att.i.tude of the sworn torturer--horrible as it may seem at first glance--is very easily understood by the psychologist, though hardly by the sentimentalist, who is always a thoroughly illogical person. Alonso tortured human beings. In doing this he had the sanction and the order of his social superiors and his ecclesiastical directors. In 1910 one has not heard, for example, that a pretty and gentle girl refuses to marry a butcher because he plunges his knife into the neck of the sheep tied down upon the stool, twists his little cord around the snout of some shrieking pig and cuts its throat with his keen blade....

Alonso could not understand the man whom he hoped to save, but he recognised and was prepared for his point of view.

"Senor," he said, in a thick, hurried voice, "I will do it all myself.

You will have to help in the binding, and to stand by. That is all.

Think of the little Senorita whom you love. That French lady drove a table-knife into her heart, rather than endure the torments. Think of the Senorita! You will not let her die thus? For you, it is different; I well know that you would endure all that is in store, if it were but a question of saving your own life. But you must think of her, and you must remember always that the man Luis is most certainly doomed, and that no action of yours can stay that doom. You will have to look on, that is all--to _seem_ as if you approved and were helping."

He had said enough. His cause was won. Johnnie had seen Dr. Rowland Taylor die in pious agony, and had neither lifted voice nor drawn sword to prevent it.

"I thank you, I thank you, Alonso," he said. "I must endure it for the sake of the Senorita. And more than all I thank you that you will not require me to agonise this unhappy wretch myself."

"Good; that is understood," Alonso answered. "We have already been talking too long. Get you back, Senor, into your prison, for an hour or more. Then I will come to you. Indeed, more depends upon this than upon any other detail of what we purpose. We who are sworn to torture are distinct and separate from the prison jailors. We are paid a larger salary, but we have no jurisdiction or power within the prisons themselves, save only what we make by interest. But the man who bringeth you your food is a friend of my family, and hath cast an eye upon my sister, though she as yet has responded little to his overtures. I have made private cause with Isabella, and she hath given him a meeting this very night outside the church of Santa Ana. He could not meet with her this night, were it not for my intervention. He came to me in great perplexity, longing before anything to meet Isabella. I told him, though I was difficult to be approached on the point, that I would myself look after the prisoners in this ward, and that he must give me his keys.

This he hath done, and I am free of this part of the prison. So that, Senor, in an hour or two I shall come to you again with your dress of a tormentor. I shall take you through devious ways out of the prison proper, and into our room on the other side of the Chamber, so all will be well."

Johnnie took the huge splay hand in his, and stumbled back into the stone box. There was a clang as the door closed upon him, and he sank down upon the floor.

He sank down upon the floor no longer in absolute despair. The darkness was as thick and horrible as ever, but Hope was there.

Then he knelt, placed his hands together, recited a Paternoster, and began to pray. He prayed first of all for the soul of the man--the unknown man--whose semi-final torture he was to witness, and perchance help in. Then he prayed to Our Lord that there might be a happy issue out of these present afflictions, that if it pleased Jesus he, Elizabeth, the stout John Hull might yet sail away over the tossing seas towards safety.

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 G.o.d, 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"