House of Torment Part 32

"Safe!" Johnnie answered. "This is my faithful servant, who would die for me and the lady who is sleeping below."

A freakish humour possessed him, a bitter, freakish humour, in this fantastic, brilliant moonlight, this ironic comedy upon the southern-growing seas.

"Take him by the hand, Senor," he said in Spanish, "take him by his great, strong right hand, for I'll wager you will not easily shake a hand so honest in the dominions of the King of Spain to which we sail."

The little man looked round him as if in fear. There was an obvious suggestion in his eyes and face that he was somehow trapped.

"Hold out thy hand, John Hull, and shake that of this honest gentleman,"

Johnnie said.

The big brown hand of the Englishman went out, the little yellow fingers of the Spaniard advanced tentatively towards it.

They shook hands.

Johnnie watched it with amus.e.m.e.nt. These dreadful stories of unthinkable cruelty had stirred up something within him. He was not cruel, but very tender-hearted, yet this little play upon the doubting Spaniard was welcome and fitted in with his mood.

Then he saw an astonis.h.i.+ng thing, and one which he could not explain.

The two men, the huge, squat John Hull of Suffolk, the little weazened gentleman from Lisbon, shook hands, looked at each other earnestly in the face, and then, wonder of wonders, linked arms, turned their backs upon Johnnie and the sleepy old Frenchwoman by the carronade, and spoke earnestly to each other for a moment.

Their forms were silhouetted against the silver sea. There was an inexplicable motion of arms, a word whispered and a word exchanged, and then Don Perez wheeled round.

In the moonlight and the glimmer from the lantern on the forecastle, Johnnie saw that his face, which had been twitching with anxiety, was now absolutely at rest. It was radiant even, excited, pleased--it wore the aspect of one alone among enemies who had found a friend.

"'Tis all right, Senor," Perez said. "I will go and fetch you the papers of which I spoke. You may command me in any way now. You are not yourself--by any chance...."

John Hull shook his head violently, and the little Spaniard skipped away with a chuckle.

"What is this?" John Commendone asked. "How have you made quick friends with the Don? What is't--art magic, or what?"

"'Tis nothing, sir," Hull answered, with some embarra.s.sment, "'tis but the Craft."

"The Craft?" Johnnie asked. "And what may that be?"

"We're brethren, this man and I," Hull answered; "we're of the Freemasons, and that is why, master."

Johnnie nodded. He said no more. The whole thing was inexplicable to him. He knew, of course, of the Freemasons, that such a society existed, but no evidence of it had ever come to his knowledge before this night.

The persecution of Freemasonry which was to ensue in Queen Elizabeth's reign was not yet, and the Brethren were a very hidden people in 1555.

There was a patter of feet upon the ladder leading up to the forecastle-deck. Perez appeared again with a bundle of papers in his hand.

"Now, then, Senor," he said, "you shall see if this of which I have told you is a _system_ or is not. These are doc.u.ments, forms, belonging to my brother's business as Notary of the Holy Office. Thus thou wilt see."

He handed a piece of parchment, printed parchment, to Commendone.

Johnnie held it up under the light of the lantern, and read it, with a chilling of the blood.

It was "The Proper Form of Torture for Women," and it was one of many forms left blank for convenience to record the various steps.

As he glanced through it, his lips grew dry, his eyes, straining in the half-sufficient light, seemed to burn.

There was something peculiarly terrible in the very omission of a special name, and the consequent thought of the number of wretches whose vain words and torments had been recorded upon forms like this--and were yet to be recorded--froze the young man into a still figure of horror and of silence.

And this is what he read:

"_She was told to tell the truth, or orders would be given to strip her. She said, etc. She was commanded to be stripped naked._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or orders would be given to cut off her hair. She said, etc._

"_Orders were given to cut of her hair; and when it was taken off she was examined by the doctor and surgeon, who said there was not any objection to her being put to the torture._

"_She was told to tell the truth or she would be commanded to mount the rack. She said, etc._

"_She was commanded to mount, and she said, etc._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or her body would be bound.

She said, etc. She was ordered to be bound._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or, if not, they would order her right foot to be made fast for the trampazo. She said, etc.

They commanded it to be made fast._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would command her left foot to be made fast for the trampazo. She said, etc. They commanded it to be made fast. She said, etc. It was ordered to be done._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the binding of the right arm to be stretched. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done. And the same with the left arm. It was ordered to be executed._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the fleshy part of her right arm to be made fast for the garrote.

She said, etc. It was ordered to be made fast._

"_And by the said lord inquisitor, it was repeated to her many times, that she should tell the truth, and not let herself be brought into so great torment; and the physician and surgeon were called in, who said, etc. And the criminal, etc. And orders were given to make it fast._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the first turn of mancuerda. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would command the garrote to be applied again to the right arm. She said, etc. It was ordered to be done._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the second turn of mancuerda. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the garrote to be applied again to the left arm. She said, etc. It was ordered to be done._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the third turn of mancuerda. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done._

"_She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the trampazo to be laid on the right foot. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done._

"_For women you do not go beyond this._"

Johnnie finished his reading. Then he tore it up into four pieces and flung it out upon the starboard bow.

The yellow parchment fluttered over Madame La Motte's head like great moonlit moths.