House of Torment

by Guy Thorne

  CHAPTER X

  THE SILENT MEN IN BLACK

  "Sing to us, Johnnie."

  "_Mais oui, chantez, Monsieur_," said Madame La Motte.

  Johnnie took up a chitarrone, the archlute, a large, double-neckedSpanish instrument, which lay upon a marble table by his side in thecourtyard.

  He looked up into the sky, the painted sunset sky of Spain, as if tofind some inspiration there.

  The hum of Seville came to them in an almost organ-like harmony. Bellswere tolling from the cathedral and the innumerable churches; pigeonswere wheeling round the domes and spires; occasionally a faint burst ofmusic reached them where they sat.

  The young man looked gravely at the two women. His face at this momentwas singularly tranquil and refined. He was dressed with scrupulouscare--the long journey over, his natural habits resumed. He had all theair and grace of a gallant in a Court.

  He bowed to Madame La Motte and to his sweetheart, smiling gently atthem.

  "By your patience, ladies," he said, "I will make endeavour to improvisefor you upon a theme. We have spent this day in seeing beauties such assure I never thought to see with my mortal eyes. We are in the land ofcolour, of sweet odours; the balmy smells of nard and cassia are flungabout the cedarn alleys where we walk. We have sucked the liquid air ina veritable garden of the Hesperides, and, indeed, I looked to see thethree fair daughters of Hesperus along those crisped shades and bowers.And we have seen also"--his voice was almost dreaming as he spoke--"thegreatest church e'er built to God's glory by the hand of man. 'Tisindeed a mountain scooped out, a valley turned upsides. The towers ofthe Abbey Church at Westminster might walk erect in the middle nave;there are pillars with the girth of towers, and which appear so slenderthat they make one shudder as they rise from out the ground or dependthem from the gloomy roof like stalactites in the cave of a giant."

  Madame La Motte nodded, purred, and murmured to herself. The whimsicaland studied Court language did not now fall upon her ears for the firsttime. In the fashion of that age all men of culture and position learntto talk in this fashion upon occasion, with classic allusion and ingraceful prose.

  But to sweet Elizabeth it was all new and beautiful, and as she gazed ather lover her eyes were liquid with caressing wonder, her lips curvedinto a bow of pride at such dear eloquence.

  Johnnie plucked the strings of the chitarrone once or twice, and then,his eyes half closed, began a simple improvisation in a minor key, thewhile he lifted his voice and began to sing his ballad of eveningcolours:

  See! limner Phoebus paints the sky Vermilion and gold And doth with purple tapestry The waning day enfold. --The royal, lucent, Tyrian dye King Philip wore in Thessaly.

  The Lord of Morning now doth keep Herald for Lady Night, Whose robes of black and silver sweep Before his tabard bright. --All silver-soft and sable-deep, As when she brought Endymion sleep!

  Now honey-coloured Luna she Hath lit her lamp on high; And paleth in her Majestie The twin Dioscuri. --Set in gold-powdered samite, she-- Queen of the Night! Queen of the Sea!

  His voice faded away into silence; the mellow tenor ceasing in animperceptible diminuendo of sound.

  There was a silence, and then Lizzie's hand stole out and touched herlover's. "Oh, Johnnie," she said, "how gracious! And did those lovelywords come into thy head as thou sangst them?"

  "In truth they did, fairest lady of evening," he answered, bending lowover her hand. "And sure 'twas thy dear presence that sent them to me,the musick of thy voice hath breathed a soul into this lute."

  ... They had arrived safely in Seville the night before, spending threedays upon the journey from Cadiz, but travelling in very pleasant andeasy fashion.

  Mr. Mew, the mate of the _St. Iago_, had business in the city, and whilethe vessel was discharging its cargo at Cadiz he went up to Seville andtook the four travellers with him on board an _alijador_--a long bargewith quarters for passengers, and a hold for cargo, which was propelledpartly by oars in the narrower reaches of the river, but principally bya large lug sail.

  Don Perez had remained in Cadiz, but the tall and sinister young fellowwhom Hull and Johnnie had rescued from the Atlantic came in the bargealso. The fugitives from England had little to say to him, knowing whathe was. Alonso--which was the man's name--had been profuse in hisgratitude. His profuseness, however, had been mingled with a continuousastonishment, a brutish wonder which was quite inexplicable toElizabeth.

  "He seemeth," she said once to her esquire, "to think as if such a deedof daring as thou didst in thy kindness for a fellow-creature in perilhath never been known in the world before!"

  Madame La Motte and Commendone, however, had said nothing. They knewvery well why this poor wretch, who gained his food by such a hideouscalling, was amazed at his rescue. They said nothing to the girl,however, dreading that she should ever have an inkling of what the manwas.

  On the voyage to Seville, a happy, lazy time under the bright sun,Johnnie could not quite understand an obvious friendship and likingwhich seemed to have sprung up between Alonso and Mr. Mew, who spokeSpanish very adequately.

  "I cannot understand," he said upon one occasion to the sturdy man fromthe Isle of Wight, "I cannot understand, sir, how you that are anEnglish mariner can talk and consort with this tool of hell."

  Mr. Mew looked at him with a dry smile. "And yet, master," he said inthe true Hampshire idiom and drawl, "bless your heart, you jumpedoverboard for this same man!"

  "The case is different," Johnnie said; "'twas a fellow-creature, and Idid as behoved me. But that is no reason to be friendly with such awretch."

  "Look you, Master Commendone," said Mr. Mew, "every man to his trade. Iwould burn both hands, myself, before I'd live by sworn torturing. But,then, 'tis not my trade. This man's father and his brother have beendoing of it almost since birth, and they do it--and sure, a goodCatholic like yourself," here he smiled dryly, "cannot but remember that'tis done under the shield and order of Holy Church! The damned old Popehath ordered it."

  Johnnie crossed himself. "The sovereign Pontiff," he said, "hathestablished the Holy Office for punishment of heretics. But thepunishment is light and without harshness in the states of HisHoliness. In Spain 'tis a matter very different. It was under the HolyFather Innocent IV that this tribunal was created, and the Holy Officein Spain differed in no wise from the comparatively innocuous----"

  "What is that, master? That word?"

  "It meaneth 'harmless,' Master Mew. What was I saying? Oh, that itdiffered nothing at all in Spain from the harmless Council which was todetect heresy and reprove it. But during the reign of our good KingEdward IV the Holy Office was changed in Spain. The Ebrews wereplotting, or said to be plotting, against the realm, and they had cometo much wealth and power. Pope Sixtus made many protests, but the rightof appointing inquisitors and directing the operation of the Holy Officein Spain was reserved to the Spanish Crown. And from this date, MasterMew, Holy Church at any rate hath disclaimed to be responsible for it.That was then and is now the true feeling of Rome. 'Tis true that inSpain the Church tolerates the Inquisition, but its blood-stained actsare from the Crown and such priests as are ministers of the Crown."

  Father Chilches had taught Johnnie his history, truly enough. But itseemed to make very little impression upon the mate.

  "Art a gentleman," he said, "and know doubtless more than I, but suchpeddling with words and splicing of facts are not to my mind. Thedamned old Pope say I, and always shall, when it's safe to speak! Butthe pith of our talk, Master Commendone, was that you would not have megive comradeship with this Alonso. I see not your point of view. He isof his time and must do his duty."

  The mate snapped a tarry thumb and finger with a tolerant smile. "You'vesaved him, so that he may go on with his torturin'," he said, "and Ilike to talk with him because I find him a good fellow, and that is allabout it, Master Commendone."

  Johnnie had not got much small change from his conferen
ce with the mate,but when they arrived at Seville, he saw him and the man called Alonsono more, and his mind was directed upon very other things.

  They arrived at the city late at night, and their mails were taken tothe great inn of Seville known as the Posada de las Munecas, or house ofpuppets, so called from the fact that in days gone by, at the greatannual Seville fair, a famous performance of marionettes had taken placein front of it.

  The Posada was an old Moorish palace, as beautiful under the sunlight asan Oriental song, and when they rose in the morning and Johnnie haddespatched a serving-man to find if Don Jose Senebria was in residence,he and his companions wakened to the realisation of a loveliness ofwhich they had never dreamed.

  The sky was like a great hollow turquoise; the sun beat down upon thePearl of Andalusia with limpid glory, and played perpetually upon thewhite and painted walls. The orange trees, only introduced into Spainsome five-and-twenty years before from Asia, were globed with theirgolden fruit among the dark, jade-like leaves of polished green;feathery palms with their mailed trunks rose up to cut the blue, and onevery side buildings which glowed like immense jewels were set to greetthe unaccustomed northern eye. The Posada was a blaze of colour, halfMoorish, half Gothic, fantastic and alluring as a rare dream.

  Johnnie heard early in the morning that Don Jose would be away for twodays, having travelled to his vineyards beyond the old Roman village ofSancios. The day therefore, and the morrow also, was left to them forsight-seeing. Both he and Elizabeth had in part forgotten the cloud ofdistress under which they had left their native land. The child oftentalked to him of her father, making many half-shy confidences about herhappy life at Hadley, telling him constantly of that brave and stalwartgentleman. But she now accepted all that had happened with the perfectinnocence and trustfulness of youth. Upon her white and stainless mindwhat she had undergone had left but little trace. Even now she only halfrealised her ravishment to the house with the red door, and that MadameLa Motte was not a pattern of kindness, discretion, and fine feelingwould never have entered Lizzie's simple mind. She was going to bemarried to Johnnie!--it was to be arranged almost at once--and then sheknew that there need be no more trouble, no weariness, no furthersearchings of heart. She and Johnnie would be together for ever andever, and that was all that mattered!

  Indeed, under these bright skies, among the gay, good-humoured, andheedless people of Seville, it would have been very difficult for mucholder and more world-weary people than this young man and maid to be sador apprehensive.

  It had all been a feast, a never-ending feast for eye and ear. They hadstood before pictures which were world-famous--they had seen thatmarvellous allegory in pigment, where "a hand holds a pair of scales, inwhich the sins of the world--set forth by bats, peacocks, serpents, andother emblems--are weighed against the emblems of the Passion of Christour Lord; and eke in the same frame, which is thought to be the finercomposition, Death, with a coffin under one arm, is about to extinguisha taper, which lighteth a table besprent with crowns, jewels, and allthe gewgaws of this earthly pomp. 'In Ictu Oculi' are the words whichcircle the taper's gleaming light, while set upon the ground resteth acoffin open, the corpse within being dimly revealed."

  They had walked through the long colonnade in the palace of the Alcazar,to the baths of Maria de Padilla, the lovely mistress of Pedro theCruel, "at the Court of whom it was esteemed a mark of gallantry andloyalty to drink the waters of the bath after that Maria had performedher ablutions. Upon a day observing that one of his knights refrainedfrom this act of homage, the King questioned him, and elicited thereply, 'I dare not drink of the water, Sire, lest, having tasted thesauce, I should covet the partridge.'"

  All these things they had done together in their love and youth,forgetting all else but the incomparable beauties of art and naturewhich surrounded them, the music and splendour of Love within theirhearts.

  ... A serving-man came through the patio.

  "_Puedo cenar?_" Johnnie asked. "_A que hora es el cenar?_"

  The man told him that supper was ready then, and together with theladies Johnnie left the courtyard and entered the long _comedor_, ordining-hall, a narrow room with good tapestries upon the walls, and aceiling decorated with heads of warriors and ladies in carved andpainted stucco.

  It was lit by candle, and supper was spread for the three in the middleof one great table, an oasis of fruit, lights, and flowers.

  "_Este es un vino bueno_," said the waiter who stood there.

  "It is all good wine in Spain," Johnnie answered, with a smile, as theman poured out _borgona_, and another brought them a dish of grilledsalmon.

  They lifted their glasses to each other, and fell to with a goodappetite. Suddenly Johnnie stopped eating. "Where is John Hull?" hesaid. "God forgive me, I have not thought of him for hours."

  "He will be safe enough," Madame La Motte answered, her mouth full of_salmon asado_. "_Mon Dieu!_ but this fish is good! Fear not, Monsieur,thy serving-man can very well take care of himself."

  "I suppose so," Johnnie replied, though with a little uneasiness.

  "But, Johnnie," Elizabeth said, "Hull told me that he was to be withMaster Mew, the mate of our late ship, to see the town with him, so allwill be well."

  Johnnie lifted his goblet of wine; he had never felt more free,careless, and happy in his life.

  "Here," he said, "is to this sweet and hospitable land of Spain, whitherwe have come through long toils and dangers. 'Tis our Latium, for as thegrandest of all poets, Vergil yclept, hath it, '_Per varios casus, pertot discrimina rerum, tendimus in Latium, sedes ubi fata quietasostendunt_.'"

  "And what may that mean, Monsieur?" asked Madame La Motte, pulling the_botella_ towards her. "My Credo, my Paternoster, and my Ave are all myLatin."

  "It means, Madame," Johnnie answered, "that we have gone through manytroubles and trials, through all sorts of changes in affairs, but weapproach towards Latium, which the poet meaneth for Imperial Rome, wherethe fates will let us live in peace."

  "In peace!" Elizabeth whispered.

  "Aye, sweetheart mine," the young man answered; "we have won to peaceat last. Thou and I together!"

  For a moment or two they were all silent, and then the door of the_comedor_ was suddenly opened, not quietly, as for the entrance of aserving-man, but flung open widely and with noise.

  They all turned and looked towards the archway of the door.

  In a moment more six or seven people pressed into the room--peopledressed in black, people whose feet made no noise upon the floor.

  Ere ever any of them at the table realised what was happening, theyfound themselves gripped by strong, firm hands, though there was never aword spoken.

  Before he could reach the dagger in his belt--for he was not wearing hissword--Johnnie's arms were bound to his side, and he was held fast.

  It was all done with strange deftness and silence, Elizabeth and theFrenchwoman being held also, each by two men, though their arms were notbound.

  Johnnie burst out in indignant English, then, remembering where he was,changed to Spanish. "In God's name," he cried, "what means this outrageupon peaceable and quiet folk?"

  His voice was loud and angry, but there was fear in it as he cried out.The answer came from a tall figure which came noiselessly through thedoor, a figure in a cassock, with a large gold cross hung upon itsbreast, and followed by two others in the dress of priests.

  "Ah, Mr. Commendone, we meet again," came in excellent English, as theman removed his broad-brimmed felt hat.

  "You have come a long way from England, Mr. Commendone, you andyour--friends. But the arm of the King, the hand of the Church, whichare as the arm of God Himself, can stretch swiftly and very far."

  Johnnie's face grew dead white as he heard the well-remembered voice ofFather Diego Deza. In a flash he remembered that King Philip's confessorand confidential adviser had told him that he was to leave England forSpain on the morning of the very day when he had rescued Elizabeth fromshame.

  His v
oice rattled in his throat and came hoarsely through parched lips.He made one effort, though he felt that it was hopeless.

  "Don Diego," he said, "I am very glad to see you in Spain"--the othergave a nasty little laugh. "Don Diego," Johnnie continued, "I haveoffended nothing against the laws of England. What means this captureand durance of myself and my companions?"

  "You are not in England now, Mr. Commendone," the priest replied; "butyou are in the dominion of His Most Catholic Majesty; you are notaccused of any crime against the civil law of England or of thiscountry, but I, in my authority as Grand Inquisitor of the Holy Officein Seville--to do which duty I have now come to Spain--arrest you andyour companions on charges which will be afterwards disclosed to you.

  "Take them away," he said in Spanish to his officers.

  There was a horrid wail, echoing and re-echoing through the long roomand beating upon the ear-drums of all who were there....

  Madame La Motte had heard all that the priest had said in English. Sheshrieked and shrieked again.

  "Ah-h-h! _C'est vrai alors! L'inquisition! qui lance la mort!_"

  With extraordinary and sudden strength she twisted herself away from thetwo sombre figures which held her. She bent forward over the table,snatched up a long knife, gripped the handle firmly with two fat whitehands, and plunged it into her breast to the hilt.

  For quite three seconds she stood upright. Her face of horror changedinto a wonder, as if she was surprised at what she had done. Then shesmiled foolishly, like a child who realises that it has made a sillymistake, coughed loudly like a man, and fell in heavy death upon thefloor.