Across the Spanish Main Part 24

"What on earth is that, Harry?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Roger, looking at his friend, on whose forehead the cold perspiration was now standing in beads.

"What an awful sound!"

"I am afraid, my friend," replied Harry, "that it means that some poor mortal is undergoing torture almost greater than he can bear. What devils these inquisitors are! If I could but be at the head of a few hundred English seamen at this moment, would I not pull this place of torture about their ears; and would I not put a few of them to the torture themselves, just to teach them by experience what it feels like, and as a warning to the rest! G.o.d help that poor wretch, whoever he may be! What a fearful, awful sound it is! This is getting dreadful," he went on, as another shrill and blood-curdling scream broke on their ears, quavering as it was with the extremity of fearful agony, yet not quite so loud as before, as though the unfortunate individual were losing his strength.

"To be imprisoned here, and not to be able to do anything to help the poor fellow! Oh, they are fiends in human shape!" cried Roger, stamping his foot on the ground in impotent fury.

Then came a sound which made the lads start and look apprehensively at each other. It was the noise of footsteps approaching down the long pa.s.sage at the end of which their own cell was situated.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IN THE TORTURE-CHAMBER OF VERA CRUZ.

Both lads felt their hearts stop beating, and a cold chill seized their bodies as they heard the footsteps pa.s.s other cell doors without pausing, and continue down the pa.s.sage towards their own.

Those dreadful cries still rang in their ears, and they felt that if the approaching person was coming to conduct them also to the torture, they could not bear it. They were still, it must be remembered, only lads, and the sound of those cries of agony had racked their nerves--as they might those of much older men--more than they themselves knew.

They felt their very hair rising on their scalps, and a sensation of deadly sickness and faintness swept over them.

Harry was the first to recover his presence of mind, and he spoke to Roger.

"Come, come, Roger, lad," said he; "pull yourself together, my friend.

If they are indeed coming for us, we must make up our minds to endure it as best we can, even as we have done before. And perchance we are mistaken, and they do not intend to torture us at all."

Roger came out of his dismal reverie of foreboding, and his face became once more immobile. A few heartbeats and he was as well prepared as Harry for what might happen.

Once, for a moment, the footsteps paused, and their hearts gave a great bound of thankfulness. The messenger, then, was not coming for them after all!

Their sensation of relief, however, was of but brief duration.

After a pause, lasting but a few moments, those inexorable footsteps resumed their approach once more, and nearer and nearer they came toward the door of the last cell.

Roger and Harry glanced at one another, rose from their respective stools, and stood upright facing the door. They had just time to give each other a firm and rea.s.suring hand-clasp, when the key grated in the rusty lock outside, the bolts were slipped back with a grinding noise, and the door creaked open on its hinges, disclosing, against the semi-darkness of the long corridor, the form of a man, robed from head to foot in black. Even his head and face were invisible, covered by a kind of black cloth helmet terminating in a peak, and with two slits cut in it for the eyes. Through these slits they could discern a pair of fiery orbs, s.h.i.+ning like those of a cat in the darkness, looking full at them, as though to read their inmost thoughts.

If the mysterious visitor antic.i.p.ated seeing any signs of alarm on the lads' faces, he was disappointed, for the two stood up facing him, and gave him back glance for glance.

Just for a single instant the same thought leapt through both their brains: "Why not make a rush, knock the dark visitant down and stun him, and attempt to find our way out of the building before aught is discovered?" Indeed they both exchanged glances at that instant.

It seemed, however, as though the masked man read their thoughts; for, stepping to one side of the door, he pointed silently down the corridor, and there they saw what at first they had not observed, namely, a file of similarly masked figures on each side of the pa.s.sage, standing against the walls, with naked swords in their hands.

It was of no use. Escape that way was, on the face of it, hopeless.

The masked messenger read the expression on the boys' faces as they looked, and they could have sworn that a cruel smile lurked behind that black mask. Then came a voice from the figure, in pure English, without a trace of any foreign accent:

"You are both required to attend a scene of punishment. It is the order of the Grand Inquisitor, and you are required to witness it as earnest of what you yourselves will undergo here should you be foolish enough to disobey, or in any way attempt to thwart, the wishes or designs of the Holy Inquisition." Here he crossed himself. "A warning is but seldom given to heretics; so accept this one as it is meant; for your own good I tell you this. Now follow me, and be careful that you make no attempt at escape, for it is absolutely impossible for you to succeed, and you would but bring a heavy punishment on yourselves. And, above all, whatever you see or hear, keep a still tongue in your heads; do not presume to speak to anyone where you are going. If you obey implicitly it may be that you will be leniently dealt with."

The masked man turned, beckoning over his shoulder for them to follow, and then preceded them up the pa.s.sage.

They were a great deal relieved to find that they were not to be this time tortured; but they knew only too well what punishment it was that they were to witness, and they felt their hearts sicken within them.

They both knew that the advice they had just received was good, and resolved, if possible, to abide by it. They therefore followed their leader along the corridor in silence, while the masked men with swords fell in behind them as soon as they had pa.s.sed, effectually preventing any attempt on their part at escape.

Up the pa.s.sage they went, reached the end of it, and then turned to the right, afterwards climbing up a long flight of steps. This brought them to another long pa.s.sage, but much wider than the one leading to their own cell. It was also covered with some kind of matting, and several doors opened into the corridor.

Along this corridor they went, and came presently to another large door, through which they pa.s.sed, finding themselves in a large and lofty room.

This was somewhat dark, and, after the light through which they had just pa.s.sed, they could not for a few moments discern the objects contained therein. Then, as their eyes became more accustomed to the half-light, they perceived, hanging on the wall, strange instruments of iron and wood, and in different places in the apartment were standing curious-looking machines, the use of which they could only imagine with a shudder.

The door through which they had just entered was closed and locked, and, turning round, the two friends saw that the masked guards had vanished, as also had the guide who had conducted them thither. But the chamber was tenanted by several funereal figures in black, all with their faces hidden, and whose movements even seemed to suggest something horrible and repulsive.

In silence one of the masked figures took down an instrument from the wall, and walked to the opposite end of the room, where stood another group of men in black, with cowled heads.

The lads watched, as if fascinated, and with an inward feeling that something dreadful was about to occur. They could perceive a certain dim outline of something that looked like a framework of timber, but its complete shape was hidden from them by the figures of those who were standing in between.

All the masked men appeared to the boys to be waiting for something or someone before they proceeded with whatever they were preparing to do.

As they stood there, frozen into rigidity and silence by a dreadful and indefinable sensation of horror, they heard a fluttering sigh coming from the opposite end of the room, apparently from somewhere near the mysterious framework.

This sigh, faint at first, suddenly changed into a most fearful sound-- something between a moan and the noise a man makes when the breath is suddenly driven from his body. The sound was so full of horror that they felt their blood literally curdle within them. It was all the more terrifying because they could not tell who or what it was that produced it. In spite of themselves they moved a few steps nearer, and then a sight met their eyes which turned them sick.

What they had taken for a wooden framework was indeed a framework, but one for a terrible use.

It consisted of four pieces of timber merely, two long and two short.

These were fastened together in the form of a rectangle, thus producing an article somewhat resembling a bed-frame, only rather narrower; and the wood-work was much more ma.s.sive. Two iron rings were fixed in the centre of each of the short pieces, and to each of these were attached stout straps of raw hide.

And there, stretched upon this framework, and supported in position solely by his hands and ankles, around which were fastened the raw hide strips attached to the rings, lay the figure of a man!

The body was perfectly naked; and as the boys looked, unable to turn their eyes away through sheer horror at the sight, which held them as though fascinated, the groups of cowled men separated and, seizing the lads, pushed them forward until they stood close to the framework and had a full view of the whole dreadful scene. A voice behind them uttered the words:

"Look! Take warning!" But it is very doubtful whether either Harry or Roger heard the words; their brains seemed paralysed by the sight that met their eyes.

The figure was that of a man, evidently in the prime of life; the legs were stretched so far apart by the framework that it was extraordinary that flesh and blood could endure the strain and still hang together.

The arms were also stretched out above the man's head to such an extent that they seemed to be literally parting from the poor body at the shoulders. The muscles had started up, and seemed to be bursting through the skin, and the flesh was stretched so tightly over the bones that it seemed a skeleton rather than a human living body upon which they gazed.

But it was not this sight of a living, breathing, sentient human body strained and stretched to the point of being torn asunder that excited the lads' commiseration and horror, and caused them inwardly to register a solemn and awful vow of vengeance upon the human fiends around them should the opportunity ever arise. No, terrible as was that sight, there were others--horrors that only the most debased and cruel imagination could possibly invent, and to which no pen could possibly do justice, even were any good purpose to be achieved by the attempted recital of them--that caused the lads' souls to revolt at once and for ever against a people that could perpetrate such diabolical cruelties.

Another deep groan issued from the lips of the hapless sufferer, and he opened his eyes, which had until now been closed, and then they saw that a certain suspicion that for some moments had been growing in their minds was but too well founded. Yes, yes! Oh, horror! it was de Soto, that n.o.ble, brave, and chivalrous Spaniard whom they had last seen retiring with the rest of their prisoners into the depths of the jungle of Cuba!

Harry uttered a little cry, and, swaying for a moment, fell heavily into the arms of Roger, who laid him gently on the stone floor.

At this, one of the cowled inquisitors stepped forward; but at that moment a door opened and a man entered, clad in rich and costly vestments, his ident.i.ty unconcealed in any way by cowl or cloak.

Roger looked up, and could scarcely credit his senses.

Where--where had he seen that sinister and evil countenance before? As he looked, so did the man who had just entered look at Roger, a new light dawning in his evil eyes.

Then Roger recognised the man; he had seen him before. It was Alvarez!

The new-comer spoke in Spanish: "Has the man yet confessed?"