CHAPTER VII.
THE TRIBUNAL AND THE MIRACLE
It was the dead of night--the army was hushed in sleep--when four
soldiers belonging to the Holy Brotherhood, bearing with them one whose
manacles proclaimed him a prisoner, passed in steady silence to a huge
tent in the neighbourhood of the royal pavilion. A deep dyke, formidable
barricadoes, and sentries stationed at frequent intervals, testified the
estimation in which the safety of this segment of the camp was held. The
tent to which the soldiers approached was, in extent, larger than even
the king's pavilion itself--a mansion of canvas, surrounded by a wide
wall of massive stones; and from its summit gloomed, in the clear and
shining starlight, a small black pennant, on which was wrought a white
broad-pointed cross. The soldiers halted at the gate in the wall,
resigned their charge, with a whispered watchword, to two gaunt sentries;
and then (relieving the sentries who proceeded on with the prisoner)
remained, mute and motionless, at the post: for stern silence and Spartan
discipline were the attributes of the brotherhood of St. Hermandad.
The prisoner, as he now neared the tent, halted a moment, looked round
steadily, as if to fix the spot in his remembrance, and then, with an
impatient though stately gesture, followed his guards. He passed two
divisions of the tent, dimly lighted, and apparently deserted. A man,
clad in long black robes, with a white cross on his breast, now appeared;
there was an interchange of signals in dumb-show-and in another moment
Almamen, the Hebrew, stood within a large chamber (if so that division of
the tent might be called) hung with black serge. At the upper part of
the space was an estrado, or platform, on which, by a long table, sat
three men; while at the head of the board was seen the calm and rigid
countenance of Tomas de Torquemada. The threshold of the tent was
guarded by two men, in garments similar in hue and fashion to those of
the figure who had ushered Almamen into the presence of the inquisitor,
each bearing a long lance, and with a long two-edged sword by his side.
This made all the inhabitants of that melancholy and ominous apartment.
The Israelite looked round with a pale brow, but a flashing and scornful
eye; and, when he met the gaze of the Dominican, it almost seemed as if
those two men, each so raised above his fellows, by the sternness of his
nature and the energy of his passions, sought by a look alone to assert
his own supremacy and crush his foe. Yet, in truth, neither did justice
to the other; and the indignant disdain of Almamen was retorted by the
cold and icy contempt of the Dominican.
"Prisoner," said Torquemada (the first to withdraw his gaze), "a less
haughty and stubborn demeanour might have better suited thy condition:
but no matter; our Church is meek and humble. We have sent for thee in a
charitable and paternal hope; for although, as spy and traitor, thy life
is already forfeited, yet would we fain redeem and spare it to
repentance. That hope mayst thou not forego, for the nature of all of us
is weak and clings to life--that straw of the drowning seaman."
"Priest, if such thou art," replied the Hebrew, "I have already, when
first brought to this camp, explained the causes of my detention amongst
the troops of the Moor. It was my zeal for the king of Spain that
brought me into that peril. Escaping from that peril, incurred in his
behalf, is the king of Spain to be my accuser and my judge? If, however,
my life now be sought as the grateful return for the proffer of
inestimable service, I stand here to yield it. Do thy worst; and tell
thy master, that he loses more by my death than he can win by the lives
of thirty thousand warriors."
"Cease this idle babble," said the monk-inquisitor, contemptuously, "nor
think thou couldst ever deceive, with thy empty words, the mighty
intellect of Ferdinand of Spain. Thou hast now to defend thyself against
still graver charges than those of treachery to the king whom thou didst
profess to serve. Yea, misbeliever as thou art, it is thine to vindicate
thyself from blasphemy against the God thou shouldst adore. Confess the
truth: thou art of the tribe and faith of Israel?"
The Hebrew frowned darkly. "Man," said he, solemnly, "is a judge of the
deeds of men, but not of their opinions. I will not answer thee."
"Pause! We have means at hand that the strongest nerves and the stoutest
hearts have failed to encounter. Pause--confess!"
"Thy threat awes me not," said the Hebrew; "but I am human; and since
thou wouldst know the truth, thou mayst learn it without the torture.
I am of the same race as the apostles of thy Church--I am a Jew."
"He confesses--write down the words. Prisoner, thou hast done wisely;
and we pray the Lord that, acting thus, thou mayst escape both the
torture and the death. And in that faith thy daughter was reared?
Answer."
"My daughter! there is no charge against her! By the God of Sinai and
Horeb, you dare not touch a hair of that innocent head!"
"Answer," repeated the inquisitor, coldly.
"I do answer. She was brought up no renegade to her father's faith."
"Write down the confession. Prisoner," resumed the Dominican, after a
pause, "but few more questions remain; answer them truly, and thy life is
saved. In thy conspiracy to raise thy brotherhood of Andalusia to power
and influence--or, as thou didst craftily term it, to equal laws with the
followers of our blessed Lord; in thy conspiracy (by what dark arts I
seek not now to know _protege nos, beate Domine_!) to entangle in wanton
affections to thy daughter the heart of the Infant of Spain-silence, I
say--be still! in this conspiracy, thou wert aided, abetted, or
instigated by certain Jews of Andalusia--"
"Hold, priest!" cried Almamen, impetuously, "thou didst name my child.
Do I hear aright? Placed under the sacred charge of a king, and a belted
knight, has she--oh! answer me, I implore thee--been insulted by the
licentious addresses of one of that king's own lineage? Answer! I am a
Jew--but I am a father and a man."
"This pretended passion deceives us not," said the Dominican, who,
himself cut off from the ties of life, knew nothing of their power.
"Reply to the question put to thee: name thy accomplices."
"I have told thee all. Thou hast refused to answer one. I scorn and
defy thee: my lips are closed."
The Grand Inquisitor glanced to his brethren, and raised his hand. His
assistants whispered each other; one of them rose, and disappeared behind
the canvas at the back of the tent. Presently the hangings were
withdrawn; and the prisoner beheld an, interior chamber, hung with
various instruments the nature of which was betrayed by their very shape;
while by the rack, placed in the centre of that dreary chamber, stood a
tall and grisly figure, his arms bare, his eyes bent, as by an instinct,
on the prisoner.
Almamen gazed at these dread preparations with an unflinching aspect.
The guards at the entrance of the tent approached: they struck off the
fetters from his feet and hands; they led him towards the appointed place
of torture.
Suddenly the Israelite paused.
"Priest," said he, in a more humble accent than he had yet assumed, "the
tidings that thou didst communicate to me respecting the sole daughter of
my house and love bewildered and confused me for the moment. Suffer me
but for a single moment to recollect my senses, and I will answer without
compulsion all thou mayst ask. Permit thy questions to be repeated."
The Dominican, whose cruelty to others seemed to himself sanctioned by
his own insensibility to fear, and contempt for bodily pain, smiled with
bitter scorn at the apparent vacillation and weakness of the prisoner:
but, as he delighted not in torture merely for torture's sake, he
motioned to the guards to release the Israelite; and replied in a voice
unnaturally mild and kindly, considering the circumstances of the scene,
"Prisoner, could we save thee from pain, even by the anguish of our own
flesh and sinews, Heaven is our judge that we would willingly undergo the
torture which, with grief and sorrow, we ordained to thee. Pause--take
breath--collect thyself. Three minutes shalt thou have to consider what
course to adopt ere we repeat the question. But then beware how thou
triflest with our indulgence."
"It suffices--I thank thee," said the Hebrew, with a touch of gratitude
in his voice. As he spoke he bent his face within his bosom, which he
covered, as in profound meditation, with the folds of his long robe.
Scarcely half the brief time allowed him had expired, when he again
lifted his countenance and, as he did so, flung back his garment. The
Dominican uttered a loud cry; the guards started back in awe. A
wonderful change had come over the intended victim; he seemed to stand
amongst them literally--wrapt in fire; flames burst from his lip, and
played with his long locks, as, catching the glowing hue, they curled
over his shoulders like serpents of burning light: blood-red were his
breast and limbs, his haughty crest, and his outstretched arm; and as for
a single moment, he met the shuddering eyes of his judges, he seemed,
indeed, to verify all the superstitions of the time--no longer the
trembling captive but the mighty demon or the terrible magician.
The Dominican was the first to recover his self-possession. "Seize the
enchanter!" he exclaimed; but no man stirred. Ere yet the exclamation
had died on his lip, Almamen took from his breast a phial, and dashed it
on the ground--it broke into a thousand shivers: a mist rose over the
apartment--it spread, thickened, darkened, as a sudden night; the lamps
could not pierce it. The luminous form of the Hebrew grew dull and dim,
until it vanished in the shade. On every eye blindness seemed to fall.
There was a dead silence, broken by a cry and a groan; and when, after
some minutes, the darkness gradually dispersed, Almamen was gone. One,
of the guards lay bathed in blood upon the ground; they raised him: he
had attempted to seize the prisoner, and had been stricken with a mortal
wound. He died as he faltered forth the explanation. In the confusion
and dismay of the scene none noticed, till long afterwards, that the
prisoner had paused long enough to strip the dying guard of his long
mantle; a proof that he feared his more secret arts might not suffice to
bear him safe through the camp, without the aid of worldly stratagem.
"The fiend hath been amongst us!" said the Dominican, solemnly falling on
his knees,--"let us pray!"
