‘I am no babbler, father, so the caution is not needed.
One word more.
This visit should be well feed, the medicine is costly.’
‘Fear not, physician,’ the monk answered with a note of scorn in his voice; ‘name your sum, it shall be paid to you.’
‘I ask no money, father.
Indeed I would pay much to be far away to-night.
I ask only that I may be allowed to speak with this girl before she dies.’
‘What!’ he said, starting, ‘surely you are not that wicked man?
If so, you are bold indeed to risk the sharing of her fate.’
‘No, father, I am not that man.
I never saw Isabella de Siguenza except once, and I have never spoken to her.
I am not the man who tricked her but I know him; he is named Juan de Garcia.’
‘Ah!’ he said quickly, ‘she would never tell his real name, even under threat of torture.
Poor erring soul, she could be faithful in her unfaith.
Of what would you speak to her?’
‘I wish to ask her whither this man has gone.
He is my enemy, and I would follow him as I have already followed him far.
He has done worse by me and mine than by this poor girl even.
Grant my request, father, that I may be able to work my vengeance on him, and with mine the Church’s also.’
‘“Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord; “I will repay.”
Yet it may be, son, that the Lord will choose you as the instrument of his wrath.
An opportunity shall be given you to speak with her.
Now put on this dress’—and he handed me a white Dominican hood and robe—‘and follow me.’
‘First,’ I said, ‘let me give this medicine to the abbess, for I will have no hand in its administering.
Take it, mother, and when the time comes, pour the contents of the phial into a cup of water.
Then, having touched the mouth and tongue of the babe with the fluid, give it to the mother to drink and be sure that she does drink it.
Before the bricks are built up about them both will sleep sound, never to wake again.’
‘I will do it,’ murmured the abbess; ‘having absolution I will be bold, and do it for love and mercy’s sake!’
‘Your heart is too soft, sister. Justice is mercy,’ said the monk with a sigh.
‘Alas for the frailty of the flesh that wars against the spirit!’
Then I clothed myself in the ghastly looking dress, and they took lamps and motioned to me to follow them.
CHAPTER X
THE PASSING OF ISABELLA DE SIGUENZA
Silently we went down the long passage, and as we went I saw the eyes of the dwellers in this living tomb watch us pass through the gratings of their cell doors.
Little wonder that the woman about to die had striven to escape from such a home back to the world of life and love!
Yet for that crime she must perish.
Surely God will remember the doings of such men as these priests, and the nation that fosters them.
And, in deed, He does remember, for where is the splendour of Spain to-day, and where are the cruel rites she gloried in?
Here in England their fetters are broken for ever, and in striving to bind them fast upon us free Englishmen she is broken also—never to be whole again.
At the far end of the passage we found a stair down which we passed.
At its foot was an iron-bound door that the monk unlocked and locked again upon the further side.
Then came another passage hollowed in the thickness of the wall, and a second door, and we were in the place of death.
It was a vault low and damp, and the waters of the river washed its outer wall, for I could hear their murmuring in the silence.
Perhaps the place may have measured ten paces in length by eight broad.
For the rest its roof was supported by massive columns, and on one side there was a second door that led to a prison cell.
At the further end of this gloomy den, that was dimly lighted by torches and lamps, two men with hooded heads, and draped in coarse black gowns, were at work, silently mixing lime that sent up a hot steam upon the stagnant air.
By their sides were squares of dressed stone ranged neatly against the end of the vault, and before them was a niche cut in the thickness of the wall itself, shaped like a large coffin set upon its smaller end.
In front of this niche was placed a massive chair of chestnut wood.
I noticed also that two other such coffin-shaped niches had been cut in this same wall, and filled in with similar blocks of whitish stone.
On the face of each was a date graved in deep letters.