As Don José disappeared, I felt that it was all over with me. His advocacy failing, I stood in a position much worse than before. I was the cause that a friendship, or at least an intimacy, had turned to a bitter enmity, and that the alcaide had been publicly insulted on the judgment-seat. Therefore, I tried to compose my mind, so as to withdraw it from things of the world, which already began to seem like matters in which others might have an interest, but which possessed none for me—like things, indeed, which were but dreamings, wherein, to him who stands upon the last step of life, is nought, save only deceitfulness and vanity. I was roused from this fit of musing by the harsh voice of the alcaide, who, having now recovered his composure, thought proper, perhaps, to smooth down somewhat of his last oration. ‘Despite,’ quoth he, ‘despite the ill-advised attempt of a noble person, now gone forth, to bar the proceedings of this court, the prisoner may depend upon it he shall receive just judgment at our hands.’ The clerk grinned to himself, and bowed to his master, who called upon him to read a decree of the court which it seems had just been written. It was to this effect:— ‘The accused, a Scots mariner, by name Leonard Lindsay, a buccaneer, or pirate of the sort called Brethren of the Coast, unlawfully in arms against his Most Christian Majesty, having refused to answer certain interrogatories put to him in open court, it is decreed that his examination be continued in private.’ By the hum which arose, and the broken words I could catch uttered around me, when this decree was read, I was presently aware of its real meaning. It signified interrogatory by torture. I clenched my teeth, and made a great effort to show no sign—not even by the tremor of a finger—of flinching. The turnkeys touched me on the shoulder, and I walked mechanically out between them. We passed through divers corridors, I taking but little notice, however, where we went, until we arrived in a bare chamber; here there was a heavy table of plain wood and one or two benches, but most part of the room was occupied with some machines or apparatus, the nature of which I guessed, but the forms whereof were concealed by a coarse linen cloth flung over them. This cloth was stained with patches of blood. Beside the table stood two men; one of them, a thin, mean-looking personage, poorly dressed in a worn doublet, with a cold passionless face and stony eyes. The other was portly and pleasant-looking, and seeing me advance, eyed me from head to foot, saying at the same time, ‘Hum! a goodly patient.’