thin 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 th