Collected works of j s f.., p.77
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 77
To the two shadows was suddenly added a third, a fourth, a fifth, then a sixth and seventh, and presently others until we counted twelve.
“All Indians except the monk,” said Pharaoh. “He is the huntsman and they are his dogs. See, they are separating again. Lad, get thy cudgel in readiness. ’Tis the best weapon we have.”
We started to our feet and gripped our staves firmly. And at the prospect of a fight my terror died away. There was no ghostly fear about things of flesh and blood. You can strike a man, but who can strike a shadow?
At that moment, over a rock to our left, appeared the face of an Indian, scarred and painted, a very devil’s face to look at. We were seen at last!
CHAPTER XI.
CAPTIVE.
AS SOON AS the Indian’s face appeared above the rock Pharaoh and I instinctively moved towards him, whereupon he disappeared again with a sudden sharp cry, which was immediately answered from above.
“Now, we shall have the whole pack upon us,” said my companion.
In this prediction he was right, for within a moment the whole body of twelve Indians had surrounded us, and stood gazing at us with faces in which I looked in vain for any sign of compassion at our forlorn state. Behind them came the monk, still clad in his shroud-like cowl, and moving with silent steps as if he were a ghost rather than a living man. But as he drew near to where we stood he threw back the hood from his head, and then we saw his face for the first time.
I will describe this man to you, because he was not only the most remarkable but also the most relentlessly cruel man that I have ever come across in my life. As for his name, which we learnt ere long, it was Bartolomeo de los Rios, and his one aim and passion was the hunting, torturing, and burning of heretics. He had the faculties of a sleuth-hound and the instincts of a serpent, and when he had once set his heart on hunting a man to his death, it was only by God’s mercy that that man escaped.
Nevertheless this man as he stood before us, looking steadily upon us from under his cowl, did not seem so fearful a monster of cruelty as we afterwards knew him to be. We saw simply a thin, dark-faced monk, whose face was pale as parchment, and whose eyes were extraordinarily bright and keen. The lines and furrows on his brow and cheeks seemed to tell of pain or thought, and his tightly-pursed, thin lips betokened firmness and resolution. I think he could have stood calmly by while his own father was being tortured and have changed no muscle of his face. Thus he was an object of much greater fear than the Indians, who were certainly horrible enough to frighten anybody that had never seen them before.
We stood gazing at the monk and his Indians for a moment ere either of us spoke. The Indians seemed to wait instructions from the monk, and looked toward him with eager eyes. As for Pharaoh and myself, we waited to see what would happen. I think we both realized that fortune had suddenly deserted us, but nevertheless we kept a firm grip on our cudgels, and were both resolved to use them if necessary.
The monk spoke. His voice was low, sweet and gentle — there was naught of cruelty in it.
“Greeting, my children,” said he, addressing us. “Be not afraid. There shall no harm come to you.”
“It will be ill for the man who threatens us with any,” answered Pharaoh in Spanish. “We are travelers, and have no mind to be disturbed.”
“You travel by strange paths,” said the monk. “To what part of the country are you going?”
“To Acapulco,” answered Pharaoh, adding to me, in English, “there is no harm in telling him that.”
“There is a good road from Oaxaca to Acapulco,” said the monk. “Why not follow it?”
“We are minded to take our own way,” said Pharaoh doggedly.
“You Englishmen are fond of that,” observed the monk with a strange smile.
“Who says we are English?” asked Pharaoh.
“Your Spanish is proof of that.”
“I am from Catalonia,” said Pharaoh. “We do not speak pure Castilian there.”
“And your companion? Is he, too, from Catalonia, or is he dumb?”
To that Pharaoh answered nothing. The monk turned his bright eyes on me.
“What is your business here?” he said, in very good English. “If you cannot speak to me in my tongue, I must talk with you in yours.”
“Answer him,” said Pharaoh. “There is no use in further concealment.”
“I see no reason why I should answer you, master,” said I, feeling somewhat nettled at the man’s peremptory tone. “What right have you to stop us in this fashion?”
He smiled again, if that could be called a smile which was simply a sudden flash of the eyes and a tightening of the thin lips, and looked round at his Indians.
“The right of force,” said he quietly. “You are two — we are many.”
“Two Englishmen are worth twenty Spanish devils,” said I sulkily.
“If it is to come to fighting,” said Pharaoh, gripping his cudgel.
The monk said a word in a low tone. The Indians on the instant raised their bows and drew their arrows to the full extent of the string. The tips pointed dead upon us.
“Englishmen,” said the monk, “look at those arrows. Every one of them is tipped with poison. If you move I give the word, and those arrows will find a resting place in you. Let them but touch your arms, your shoulders, inflicting but a scratch, in a few seconds you will be as one that is paralyzed, in a few minutes you will lie dead.”
The man’s words were gentle enough, but somehow his low, sweet voice made my blood run cold. Why did cruelty veil itself in such a honeyed tone?
“What is it you want of us, master?” asked Pharaoh presently.
“Your names and business.”
“That is easily answered. This gentleman is one Master Humphrey Salkeld, of Yorkshire in England, who hath many powerful friends at court; as for me, I am a sailor, and my name is Pharaoh Nanjulian, of Marazion in Cornwall. As for our business, we are shipwrecked mariners, or as good, and our hope is to find an English vessel at Acapulco and so return home. If you be a Christian you will help us.”
“Christians help only Christians. I fear ye are Lutherans, enemies of God.”
“That we are not,” answered Pharaoh stoutly. “I will say my Paternoster in English with anybody, and my Belief too, for that matter.”
The monk sighed. Perhaps he was disappointed to find that Pharaoh had so much knowledge.
“And you?” he said, turning to me.
“I am a Christian,” I answered, surlily enough, for I did not like this examination.
“We are both Christians, master,” said Pharaoh. “Maybe we think not as you do on some points, but ’tis naught. So help us of your charity, and assist us to get out of this country to our own, and we will say a Paternoster for you night and morning.”
“Verily,” answered the monk, “you speak fairly. I will help you. You shall go with me to Mexico, and there we will see what ships there are at Vera Cruz.”
“We would rather push forward to Acapulco,” answered Pharaoh. “There are more likely to be English ships there.”
“English ships have gone there little during recent years, and you will find none now,” said the monk.
“For all that we would rather take our chance there,” said Pharaoh.
“It will be better for you to accompany me to Mexico. Vera Cruz is close at hand. And now, as the day waxes late, we will proceed.”
Now, there was no use in further argument, for the monk had every advantage of us, and was clearly minded to have us accompany him at whatever cost. Therefore we had to yield ourselves to his will but never did men give in with worse grace or heavier hearts than we.
“God help us!” said Pharaoh. “We are going into the very jaws of death in going to Mexico. We shall meet Nunez there, and even if we do not, we shall be handed over to the Inquisitors. But God’s will be done. Moreover, while there is life there is hope. We may pull through yet.”
So we set out, the monk going first and taking no further notice of us for some time. He would walk for hours as if absorbed in his own thoughts, and again for a long stretch of time he would read his book or count his beads, but to us he said little. He walked in the midst of the Indians, who for their part were kind and considerate to us, and indulged in no cruelties. Indeed, during our journey to the City of Mexico we had no reason to complain of discomfort or poor fare, for we had all that men can require, and were well treated, save that at night they guarded us more closely than we liked. But as to food and drink, we were abundantly served, and so began to wax fat, in spite of our anxiety.
There was no restriction placed upon our tongues at this time, and therefore Pharaoh and I talked freely whenever we were out of hearing of the monk. As for our conversation, it was all of one thing — the prospect that awaited us in Mexico.
“What will come of this venture, Pharaoh?” I asked him one day as we drew near our destination. “Shall we come off with whole skins, or what?”
“It will be well if we come off with our lives, master. I have been thinking things over to-day, and I make no doubt that this monk will hand us over to the Inquisition. Put no trust in what he says about finding us a ship at Vera Cruz. The only ship he will find us will be a dungeon in some of their prisons. Well, now, what are our chances when we fall into the hands of these fellows?”
“Nay, very small I should say. I am well-nigh resigned to anything. Nevertheless, Pharaoh, I shall make a fight for it.”
“It may not come to fighting. Can you say the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Creed?”
“I can say two of them, and I can learn the third. But what difference does that make?”
“All the difference ‘twixt burning at the stake and wearing a San-benito in a monastery for a year or two. Now, if we are burnt there is an end of us, but if they put us into a monastery with a San-benito on our backs we shall still have a chance of life, and shall be poor Englishmen if we do not take it.”
Thus we talked, striving to comfort ourselves, until at the end of the fourth day we were brought by our captors to the City of Mexico.
CHAPTER XII.
MORE CRUEL THAN WILD BEASTS.
THERE ARE TIMES when, looking round these fair lands of Beechcot, and thinking on the quiet and prosperous life which I have spent in their midst these many years, I fall to wondering whether those dark days in Mexico were real or only a dream. It seems to me, sometimes, that all which then happened to me and to my companion, Pharaoh Nanjulian, must have been but a dream and naught else, so horrible were the cruelties and indignities practiced upon us. You could hardly bring yourselves to believe, you who have lived quiet, stay-at-home lives, how merciless were the men into whose hands we fell, and if I did but tell you one-tenth of the malignity which they displayed towards us, you would not wonder that I sometimes feel inclined to wonder if my memories of that most unhappy time are not dreams rather than realities. But I know well that there is nothing unreal about them, for I bear on my body certain marks which came there from the rack and the pincers, and there are moments when I seem to endure my agony over again, and the sweat drops from my brow as I think of it.
We were led into the City of Mexico through the gate of St. Catherine, and were thence marched forward to the Placa del Marquese, close by the market-place. There we were soon surrounded by a throng of folks, who seemed not unkindly disposed towards us. Some, indeed, brought us food from their houses, and others drink; one man handed Pharaoh Nanjulian a coat, a noble-looking lady, closely wrapped in her mantilla, gave me money, hurrying away ere I could refuse the gift. I suppose we looked so woe-begone and vagabondish in our rags and tatters, that the hearts of these people melted towards us. Nevertheless it was plain to see that we were prisoners, and that the monk had no notion of putting us in the way of getting a ship.
Now, as we stood there in the Placa, closely guarded by the Indians, the monk having disappeared for the moment, who should come up to us but that polite gentleman, Captain Manuel Nunez, arrayed in very brave fashion and smiling his cruel smile as usual. He pushed his way through the throng, folded his arms, and stood smiling upon us.
“So, Master Salkeld,” he said, “you have fallen into the tiger’s den after all. Certainly what was born to be burned will never be drowned. I looked to see you again, Senor.”
“We shall possibly meet yet once again,” said I. “And it may be where you and I are on level terms, Captain Nunez. If that time should ever come, ask God to have mercy upon you, for rest assured that I shall have none.”
“Brave words, Senor, brave words! I wish it were possible that you might have the chance to make them good. But that I am afraid you never will have. You are safely caged.”
Then he began to abuse us to the people, bidding them look upon us for English dogs, Lutherans, enemies of God, sweepings of the English sink of iniquity, for whom neither rack, thumb-screw, nor stake was sufficient reward. Me he denounced to the people as a runaway criminal, describing me in such terms as made my blood boil within me, and my hands itch to take him by the neck and crush the life out of his wicked heart.
“You are a liar and a knave,” said I and then for the moment forgetting my dignity as an English gentleman I spat full in his face. Bethink you — my hands were tied behind me, and not free to use. Otherwise I had not done it.
Now at this insult his face turned deathly white and then flushed a bright red, and there came into his eyes a gleam which meant murder, and plucking forth his rapier he would certainly have slain me there and then, had not the monk returned at that instant and prevented his fury from wreaking itself upon me. At this interference he grew still more furious, and well-nigh foamed at the mouth, swearing by all the saints in his calendar that he would slay me where I stood. But at a word from the monk he smiled a grim, meaning smile, and thrusting back his rapier into its sheath turned away from us with a face full of hate and malignity.
We were now taken away to a hospital, where we found other Englishmen — some sailors that had been captured by the Spaniards at sea, and others merchants who had been taken while prosecuting their trade in various ports in that part of the world. Some of these men had been in captivity for many months, and they explained to us that they were being kept for a new sitting of the Inquisition, at which, they said, we should all be examined and possibly tortured, with a view to extracting from us confessions that would doom us to the fire. So under this prospect we sat down to wait, and for several weeks remained in strict captivity, having enough to eat, but being terribly cast down by the knowledge of what awaited us.
It appeared from such information as we could obtain that the Inquisitors were at that time absent from the city, conducting examinations in another part of the country, and that when they returned our cases would be gone into. There had been no Auto-de-fe, or public burning of heretics for a year or two, and it seemed only too probable from what we now heard that one was meditated for the coming Good Friday. Positive information on this point, however, we could not then get; therefore we remained in our captivity, alternately hopeful and despondent, praying God either to release us from our desperate situation or to give us strength to endure whatever might be in store for us.
About the beginning of Lent, in the year 1579, the Inquisitors returned to the City of Mexico, and it immediately began to be whispered amongst us that the examinations were shortly to begin. We soon found that this was the truth, and the first intimation of it came to us in highly unpleasant form. On Ash Wednesday we were removed from the hospital in which we had been confined until then, and were taken through the city to certain cells or dungeons, in which we were separately placed, so that from that time forward we saw nothing of each other, and thus had no companion to turn to for sympathy when our need was sorest. But as God would have it, it befell to Pharaoh Nanjulian and to me, that as we were being led across the market-square by our guards, there came up to us the old gentleman whom we had saved from highwaymen on the road to Oaxaca. He seemed vastly surprised to find us in that unhappy condition, and insisted with some slight show of authority on our guards allowing him to speak with us.
“Surely,” said he, “ye are the two brave men who preserved me and my daughter from those cut-throat villains as we traveled to Oaxaca. How came ye in this company?”
“Sir,” said Pharaoh, “that is what we do not know ourselves. We are two inoffensive Englishmen, brought into this country against our wills, and wishing or intending no harm to any man, but only anxious to find a ship that will carry us back to our own land. Here we are treated like malefactors and criminals, and yet we have broken no law that we know of, nor are we brought before any judge to hear what our jailer hath against us. If you indeed are grateful for what we did for you help us to our liberty.”
“I am grateful, friend,” answered the old man, “and will do what I can for you. But tell me your story.”
So we told him all that had happened to us from the time of our leaving England, and mentioning more particularly the treacheries practiced upon us by Captain Nunez and Frey Bartolomeo, at the mention of whose names he shook his head.
“I am sorry indeed for you,” said he when we made an end, “and the more so because ye are in a very grievous plight. But now, keep up your hearts, for I have some influence with the Chief Inquisitor, and it shall be exerted on your behalf. ’Tis truly a pity that ye are Englishmen, but I hope ye are Christians.”
“Christians we are,” said Pharaoh, “and will say our Paternoster and Credo with any man.”
“’Tis well, and therefore keep up your hearts, I say. I will see to this matter at once.”
This meeting and the cheerful words spoken to us by the old man did somewhat revive our hopes, more especially when we heard from our guards that he was a person of some distinction in that city. So we parted, Pharaoh and I, and were prisoned in solitary dungeons.
