ative.

"Very good," commented George. "Now, I have but one other question to
ask. Is it you, as a body, who condemn certain of your victims to the
hideous fate of being burnt alive in the _auto-da-fe_?"

Even the Grand Inquisitor, hitherto in a great measure blinded by his
bigotry, and his absolute faith in the sanctity of his office and the
complete protection which it afforded him, blanched at the directness
and significance of this last question; but still, unable even now to
fully realise the awful danger in which he stood, he gave a somewhat
rambling and excusatory reply which, however, was a full admission of
responsibility for the deed with which George charged him and his
associates.

"Good!" said George; "you have now afforded me all the information which
I desired to obtain. All that remains for you, senors, is to make your
peace with God as best you can; for I have constituted myself the
avenger of all the accumulated agony that the walls of this chamber and
the stones of the Grand Plaza have witnessed; and within the next half-
hour _you die_!"

CHAPTER TEN.

HOW THE PLATE SHIPS SOUGHT TO ESCAPE FROM SAN JUAN.

"We die?" reiterated the Grand Inquisitor, now at last fully awakened to
the tremendous gravity of the situation. "And pray, senor, at whose
behest do we die?"

"At mine, most reverend senor," answered George, simply. "Have I not
yet succeeded in making that clear to you?"

"That means, then, that you intend to murder us?" demanded the Grand
Inquisitor, with pale, tremulous lips.

"Senores," replied George, in a tone of finality, "it matters not to me
how you choose to designate your impending execution. Call it murder,
if the expression affords you any satisfaction. _I_ call it an act of
stern justice, the richly merited punishment due to a long series of
atrociously inhuman crimes committed by you, if not actually with your
own hands, at least by your orders. Such crimes as you and your
associates have most callously and cold-bloodedly committed under the
cloak of religion deserve a far more severe punishment than the mere
deprivation of life, and if I were constituted like yourselves I should
make that deprivation of life a long, lingering agony, a slow death of
exquisite torment, such as you have inflicted upon countless victims;
but torture is indescribably repugnant to the mind of an Englishman,
therefore I intend to carry out the death-sentence which I have passed
upon