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 assistants,
"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 Assistant 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 sanctity 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
associates.
"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 God as best you can; for I have constituted myself the
avenger of all the accumulated 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
associates 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 constituted 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 passed
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 Basset, who
was still doing what he could to alleviate the sufferings of the latest
victim to the Inquisition's merciless methods of conversion.
"Well, Basset," 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 Basset. "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 hell 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 compassion, "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 God. Are there any more of you in this place?"
"He doesn't know, poor soul," answered Basset, 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 Basset, "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 Basset, "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 passed 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 passage 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 institution 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 massive 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, impassioned 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 class,
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 documents 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
sturdy 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 passed, 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 shore-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, nobody
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 God, 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 assure 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 poop 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--"
"Mr Dyer," interrupted George crisply, "let our cable be buoyed, ready
for slipping, and call all hands, if you please, to fighting stations.
Also, let the sail-trimmers be sent aloft to loose the canvas. We will
get under way at once. It is too dark for me to see anything just now,
coming directly from the lighted cabin, but I'll take your word for it
that things are as you say. Evidently, there is treachery afoot again,
somewhere; and it will never do to allow any of those plate ships to
escape. Rather than permit that to happen, I'll sink them!"
Thereupon there ensued on board the _Nonsuch_ a brief period of intense
but almost silent activity, during which the severely strict discipline
which Saint Leger had imposed upon his crew amply justified itself, for
every man exactly knew his station and the duty which the exigencies of
the moment demanded of him, and did it without the need of a single
superfluous order. A few cries there were, of course, demanding that
this or that rope should be let go, or intimating that such and such a
sail was ready for setting, for the darkness was so intense that it was
impossible to see exactly everything that was happening even aboard
their own ship, nor was the work executed with quite that automatic
precision and astonishing speed that is characteristic of the Navy of
the present day, yet the work went forward so smoothly and rapidly that
within ten minutes of the delivery of George's first order the _Nonsuch_
was under way and turning to windward in pursuit of the plate ships that
were cumbrously attempting to effect their escape from the harbour.