Meanwhile Torquemada’s successor, Deza, surpassed the great Inquisitor in ferocity and energy. One of his confederates, called Lucero, was nicknamed even by his own associates Tenebrero, on account of the darkness and cruelty of his temper, which drove the people of Cordova to revolt. ♦1506♦ Immediately after Cardinal Ximenes became Grand Inquisitor, and, with his predecessor’s fate before his eyes, proved less savage. But what the Inquisition lost in height of iniquity was amply compensated by the extension of its activity over a new field--the vanquished Mohammedans--who were also permitted to choose between baptism and banishment; while the Morescoes, or Moorish converts, were treated in the same manner as the Jewish Marranos. There were no fewer than thirty-four tracks by which the “foxes” could be run to earth. One of these was the eating of bitter herbs and lettuces at the time of the Passover. Every Christian was virtually a spy and an informer, sometimes unintentionally, more often with deliberate eagerness. Pedigrees were strictly examined, and those found tainted with Jewish blood were cruelly persecuted, or at least treated as social outcasts. Neither moral excellence nor even high position in the Church, accompanied by sincere devotion, was accepted as an expiation for the sin of birth. Detected heretics were punished by imprisonment, by exile, by ruinous fines, and by fire. And yet the pestilent sect, too clever to be convinced by theological reasoning or to betray its want of conviction, survived and flourished in secret--a vast freemasonry of passive unbelievers spreading its crooked subterranean passages in every direction under the very foundations of the Holy Office. Neither the penalties inflicted by the State, nor the tortures, even more terrible, of the Church availed against the treacherous tenacity of the eternal people. Persecution, which goads the brave to heroism, makes hypocrites of the timid; and these Marranos, compelled to pit their cunning against that of the Holy Office, developed all the unlovely qualities of those who lead a double life; who live a daily lie. They were forced to be false either to their God or to themselves. They chose the latter course. They aped their Christian neighbours in demeanour and dialect, participated in religious rites and sacraments which they abhorred, ate food which nauseated them, kissed relics which inspired them with repugnance, and sprinkled themselves with holy water which made them inwardly feel polluted. But the sad and sordid comedy could not always be maintained. The voice of conscience occasionally proved too strong even for the instinct of self-preservation, and many a Marrano ended a miserable life by a noble martyrdom. Again, the power of the blood, sometimes in the second or third generation, asserted itself, and the child or the grandchild of a convert, though he might be a priest or a monk, reverted to the faith of his fathers.