"About midnight I was awoke by a noise occasioned by the guards in drawing back the bolts of my cell. I was surprised by the approach of persons bearing lights, to which I was unaccustomed, and the hour contributed to increase my alarm. The alcalde gave me a garment, which he ordered me to put on, and to be ready to follow him when he should call for me; and then retired, leaving me a lighted lamp. I had neither power to rise nor to reply; and when left alone, I was seized with so general and violent a trepidation, that, for more than a quarter of an hour, I could not summon resolution even to look upon the dress which had been brought. At last I arose, and prostrating myself before a cross which I had scrawled upon the wall, I recommended myself to God, and resigned my lot into his hands: I then put on the dress, which consisted of a jacket with sleeves down to the wrists, and trowsers hanging over the heels; both being of black stuff with white stripes. "I had not long to wait after I had dressed myself. The gentleman whose first visit was made a little before midnight, returned about two in the morning, and conducted me into a long gallery, where a great number of my companions in misery were already assembled, and arranged against the wall. I took my place in the rank, and many others arrived after me. Although there were nearly two hundred men in the gallery, every one preserved profound silence; as in this great number, there were only about a dozen whites, who were scarcely to be distinguished amongst the others; and as all were habited in black, these persons might have been mistaken for so many statues placed upon the wall, if the motion of their eyes, the use of which alone was allowed them, had not shown that they were alive. The place in which we were was lighted by a few lamps, whose gloomy rays displaying so many black, sad, and devoted objects, seemed an appropriate prelude to death. "The women, who were apparelled in the same stuff as the men, were in an adjoining gallery, where we could not see them; but I observed that, in a dormitory, at a little distance from that in which we stood, there were also several prisoners, and some persons clothed in black dresses, who occasionally walked about the apartment. I did not then know what this meant, but a few hours after I learnt that the persons in that apartment were condemned to be burnt, and that those who walked were their confessors. "Being unacquainted with the forms of the Holy Office, although I had before so anxiously wished to die, I imagined that I was amongst the number of the condemned; but was somewhat encouraged by the observation, that there was nothing in my habiliments different from the rest, and that it was improbable that so many persons as were dressed like myself would be put to death.