Fray Henriques sank back in his chair. Now he understood whom Inez meant by the noble relative of Morella, understood also that he had been trapped. “On Sunday morning,” he began in a hollow whisper, “the procession will be formed, and wind through the streets of the city to the theatre, where the sermon will be preached before those who are relaxed proceed to the Quemadero. About eight o’clock it turns on to the quay for a little way only, and here will be but few spectators, since the view of the pageant is bad, nor is the road guarded there. Now, if a dozen determined men were waiting disguised as peasants with a boat at hand, perhaps they might——” and he paused. Then Peter, who had been watching and listening to all this play, spoke for the first time, asking: “In such an event, reverend Sir, how would those determined men know which was the victim that they sought?” “The heretic John Castell,” he answered, “will be seated on an ass, clad in a zamarra of sheepskin painted with fiends and a likeness of his own head burning—very well done, for I, who can draw, had a hand in it. Also, he alone will have a rope round his neck, by which he may be known.” “Why will he be seated on an ass?” asked Peter savagely. “Because you have tortured him so that he cannot walk?” “Not so—not so,” said the Dominican, shrinking from those fierce eyes. “He has never been questioned at all, not a single turn of the mancuerda, I swear to you, Sir Knight. What was the use, since he openly avows himself an accursed Jew?” “Be more gentle in your talk, friend,” broke in Inez, with her familiar tap upon the shoulder. “There are those here who do not think so ill of Jews as you do in your Holy House, but who understand how to apply the mancuerda, and can make a very serviceable rack out of a plank and a pulley or two such as lie in the next room. Cultivate courtesy, most learned priest, lest before you leave this place you should add a cubit to your stature.” “Go on,” growled Peter. “Moreover,” added Fray Henriques shakily, “orders came that it was not to be done. The Inquisitors thought otherwise, as they believed —doubtless in error—that he might have accomplices whose names he would give up; but the orders said that as he had lived so long in England, and only recently travelled to Spain, he could have none. Therefore he is sound—sound as a bell; never before, I am told, has an impenitent Jew gone to the stake in such good case, however worthy and worshipful he might be.” “So much the better for you, if you do not lie,” answered Peter. “Continue!” “There is nothing more to say, except that I shall be walking near to him with the two guards, and, of course, if he were snatched away from us, and there were no boats handy in which to pursue, we could not help it, could we? Indeed, we priests, who are men of peace, might even fly at the sight of cruel violence.”