CHAPTER VIII. THE THIRD DEGREE
I was haled from my dungeon by my gaoler accompanied by two figuresthat looked immensely tall in their black monkish gowns, their headsand faces covered by vizored cowls in which two holes were cut for theireyes. Seen by the ruddy glare of the torch which the gaoler carried tothat subterranean place of darkness, those black, silent figures, theirvery hands tucked away into the wide-mouthed sleeves of their habits,looked spectral and lurid--horrific messengers of death.
By chill, dark passages of stone, through which our steps reverberated,they brought me to a pillared, vaulted underground chamber, lighted bytorches in iron brackets on the walls.
On a dais stood an oaken writing-table bearing two massive wax tapersand a Crucifix. At this table sat a portly, swarthy-visaged man in theblack robes of the order of St. Dominic. Immediately below and flankinghim on either hand sat two mute cowled figures to do the office ofamanuenses.
Away on the right, where the shadows were but faintly penetrated by therays of the torches, stood an engine of wood somewhat of the size andappearance of the framework of a couch, but with stout straps of leatherto pinion the patient, and enormous wooden screws upon which the framecould be made to lengthen or contract. From the ceiling grey ropesdangled from pulleys, like the tentacles of some dread monster ofcruelty.
One glance into that gloomy part of the chamber was enough for me.
Repressing a shudder, I faced the inquisitor, and thereafter kept myeyes upon him to avoid the sight of those other horrors. And he washorror enough for any man in my circumstances to envisage.
He was very fat, with a shaven, swarthy face and the dewlap of an ox.In that round fleshliness his eyes were sunken like two black buttons,malicious through their very want of expression. His mouth wasloose-lipped and gluttonous and cruel.
When he spoke, the deep rumbling quality of his voice was increased bythe echoes of that vaulted place.
"What is your name?" he said.
"I am Agostino d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and..."
"Pass over your titles," he boomed. "The Holy Office takes no account ofworldly rank. What is your age?"
"I am in my twenty-first year."
"Benedicamus Dominum," he commented, though I could not grasp theappositeness of the comment. "You stand accused, Agostino d'Anguissola,of sacrilege and of defiling holy things. What have you to say? Do youconfess your guilt?"
"I am so far from confessing it," I answered, "that I have yet tolearn what is the nature of the sacrilege with which I am charged. I amconscious of no such sin. Far from it, indeed..."
"You shall be informed," he interrupted, imposing silence upon me by awave of his fat hand; and heaving his vast bulk sideways--"Read him theindictment," he bade one of the amanuenses.
From the depths of a vizored cowl came a thin, shrill voice:
"The Holy Office has knowledge that Agostino d'Anguissola did for aspace of some six months, during the winter of the year of Our BlessedLord 1544, and the spring of the year of Our Blessed Lord 1545, pursuea fraudulent and sacrilegious traffic, adulterating, for moneys whichhe extorted from the poor and the faithful, things which are holy, andadapting them to his own base purposes. It is charged against himthat in a hermitage on Monte Orsaro he did claim for an image of St.Sebastian that it was miraculous, that it had power to heal sufferingand that miraculously it bled from its wounds each year during PassionWeek, whence it resulted that pilgrimages were made to this false shrineand great store of alms was collected by the said Agostino d'Anguissola,which moneys he appropriated to his own purposes. It is further knownthat ultimately he fled the place, fearing discovery, and that after hisflight the image was discovered broken and the cunning engine by whichthis diabolical sacrilege was perpetrated was revealed."
Throughout the reading, the fleshy eyes of the inquisitor had beensteadily, inscrutably regarding me. He passed a hand over his pendulouschin, as the thin voice faded into silence.
"You have heard," said he.
"I have heard a tangle of falsehood," answered I. "Never was truth moreuntruly told than this."
The beady eyes vanished behind narrowing creases of fat; and yet I knewthat they were still regarding me. Presently they appeared again.
"Do you deny that the image contained this hideous engine of fraud?"
"I do not," I answered.
"Set it down," he eagerly bade one of the amanuenses. "He confesses thusmuch." And then to me--"Do you deny that you occupied that hermitageduring the season named?"
"I do not."
"Set it down," he said again. "What, then, remains?" he asked me.
"It remains that I knew nothing of the fraud. The trickster was apretended monk who dwelt there before me and at whose death I waspresent. I took his place thereafter, implicitly believing in themiraculous image, refusing, when its fraud was ultimately suggested tome, to credit that any man could have dared so vile and sacrilegiousa thing. In the end, when it was broken and its fraud discovered, Iquitted that ghastly shrine of Satan's in horror and disgust."
There was no emotion on the huge, yellow face. "That is the obviousdefence," he said slowly. "But it does not explain the appropriation ofthe moneys."
"I appropriated none," I cried angrily. That is the foulest lie of all."
"Do you deny that alms were made?"
"Certainly they were made; though to what extent I am unaware. Avessel of baked earth stood at the door to receive the offerings of thefaithful. It had been my predecessor's practice to distribute a partof these alms among the poor; a part, it was said, he kept to build abridge over the Bagnanza torrent, which was greatly needed."
"Well, well?" quoth he. "And when you left you took with you the moneysthat had been collected?"
"I did not," I answered. "I gave the matter no thought. When I leftI took nothing with me--not so much as the habit I had worn in thathermitage."
There was a pause. Then he spoke slowly. "Such is not the evidencebefore the Holy Office."
"What evidence?" I cried, breaking in upon his speech. "Where is myaccuser? Set me face to face with him."
Slowly he shook his huge head with its absurd fringe of greasy locksabout the tonsured scalp--that symbol of the Crown of Thorns.
"You must surely know that such is not the way of the Holy Office. Inits wisdom this tribunal holds that to produce delators would be tosubject them perhaps to molestation, and thus dry up the springs ofknowledge and information which it now enjoys. So that your requestis idle as idle as is the attempt at defence that you have made, thefalsehoods with which you have sought to clog the wheels of justice."
"Falsehood, sir monk?" quoth I, so fiercely that one of my attendantsset a restraining hand upon my arm.
The beady eyes vanished and reappeared, and they considered meimpassively.
"Your sin, Agostino d'Anguissola," said he in his booming, level voice,"is the most hideous that the wickedness of man could conceive ordiabolical greed put into execution. It is the sin that more than anyother closes the door to mercy. It is the offence of Simon Mage, andit is to be expiated only through the gates of death. You shall returnhence to your cell, and when the door closes upon you, it closes uponyou for all time in life, nor shall you ever see your fellow-man again.There hunger and thirst shall be your executioners, slowly to depriveyou of a life of which you have not known how to make better use.Without light or food or drink shall you remain there until you die.This is the punishment for such sacrilege as yours."
I could not believe it. I stood before him what time he mouthed outthose horrible and emotionless words. He paused a moment, and again camethat broad gesture of his that stroked mouth and chin. Then he resumed:
"So much for your body. There remains your soul. In its infinite mercy,the Holy Office desires that your expiation be fulfilled in thislife, and that you may be rescued from the fires of everlasting Hell.Therefore it urges you to cleanse yourself by a full and contrite avowalere you go hence. Confess, then, my son, and save your
soul."
"Confess?" I echoed. "Confess to a falsehood? I have told you the truthof this matter. I tell you that in all the world there is none lessprone to sacrilege than I that I am by nature and rearing devout andfaithful. These are lies which have been uttered to my hurt. In doomingme you doom an innocent man. Be it so. I do not know that I have foundthe world so delectable a place as to quit it with any great regret.My blood be upon your own heads and upon this iniquitous and monstroustribunal. But spare yourselves at least the greater offence of asking myconfession of a falsehood."
The little eyes had vanished. The face grew very evil, stirred at lastinto animosity by my denunciation of that court. Then the inscrutablemask slipped once more over that odious countenance.
He took up a little mallet, and struck a gong that stood beside him.
I heard a creaking of hinges, and saw an opening in the wall to myright, where I had perceived no door. Two men came forth--brawny,muscular, bearded men in coarse, black hose and leathern waistcoatscut deep at the neck and leaving their great arms entirely naked. Theforemost carried a thong of leather in his hands.
"The hoist," said the inquisitor shortly.
The men advanced towards me and came to replace the familiars betweenwhom I had been standing. Each seized an arm, and they held me so. Imade no resistance.
"Will you confess?" the inquisitor demanded. "There is still time to saveyourself from torture."
But already the torture had commenced, for the very threat of it isknown as the first degree. I was in despair. Death I could suffer. Butunder torments I feared that my strength might fail. I felt my fleshcreeping and tightening upon my body, which had grown very cold withthe awful chill of fear; my hair seemed to bristle and stiffen until Ithought that I could feel each separate thread of it.
"I swear to you that I have spoken the truth," I cried desperately. "Iswear it by the sacred image of Our Redeemer standing there before you."
"Shall we believe the oath of an unbeliever attainted of sacrilege?" hegrumbled, and he almost seemed to sneer.
"Believe or not," I answered. "But believe this--that one day you shallstand face to face with a Judge Whom there is no deceiving, to answerfor the abomination that you make of justice in His Holy Name. Let looseagainst me your worst cruelties, then; they shall be as caresses to thetorments that will be loosed against you when your turn for Judgmentcomes."
"To the hoist with him," he commanded, stretching an arm towards thegrey tentacle-like ropes. "We must soften his heart and break thediabolical pride that makes him persevere in blasphemy."
They led me aside into that place of torments, and one of them drew downthe ropes from the pulley overhead, until the ends fell on a levelwith my wrists. And this was torture of the second degree--to see itsimminence.
"Will you confess?" boomed the inquisitor's voice. I made him no answer.
"Strip and attach him," he commanded.
The executioners laid hold of me, and in the twinkling of an eye I stoodnaked to the waist. I caught my lips in my teeth as the ropes werebeing adjusted to my wrists, and as thus I suffered torture of the thirddegree.
"Will you confess?" came again the question.
And scarcely had it been put--for the last time, as I well knew--thanthe door was flung open, and a young man in black sprang into thechamber, and ran to thrust a parchment before the inquisitor.
The inquisitor made a sign to the executioners to await his pleasure.
I stood with throbbing pulses, and waited, instinctively warned thatthis concerned me. The inquisitor took the parchment, considered itsseals and then the writing upon it.
That done he set it down and turned to face us.
"Release him," he bade the executioners, whereat I felt as I would faintin the intensity of this reaction.
When they had done his bidding, the Dominican beckoned me forward. Iwent, still marvelling.
"See," he said, "how inscrutable are the Divine ways, and how truth mustin the end prevail. Your innocence is established, after all, since theHoly Father himself has seen cause to intervene to save you. You areat liberty. You are free to depart and to go wheresoever you will. Thisbull concerns you." And he held it out to me.
My mind moved through these happenings as a man moves through a densefog, faltering and hesitating at every step. I took the parchment andconsidered it. Satisfied as to its nature, however mystified as to howthe Pope had come to intervene, I folded the document and thrust it intomy belt.
Then the familiars of the Holy Office assisted me to resume my garments;and all was done now in utter silence, and for my own part in the samemental and dream-like confusion.
At length the inquisitor waved a huge hand doorwards. "Ite!" he said,and added, whilst his raised hand seemed to perform a benedictorygesture--"Pax Domini sit tecum."
"Et cum spiritu tuo," I replied mechanically, as, turning, I stumbledout of that dread place in the wake of the messenger who had brought thebull, and who went ahead to guide me.