‘_El medico_,’ whispered one of my conductors. He had no cause to tell me of the profession of the doctor’s companion. Close behind me came the alcaide, his clerk, and the ruffianly captain. The naval gentleman was not there, and on the ferret-eyed man asking for him, an attendant said that senor, the lieutenant, had been sent for in haste from the harbour. Our group was now ranged in a circle, I being opposite to the alcaide, the executioner standing on one side of me, and the doctor on the other. The clerk carried an open book for writing in, and a turnkey beside him held the ink-bottle. ‘Accused,’ said the alcaide, ‘do you still refuse to reply to the questions put to you in open court, and which shall now be rehearsed by the clerk?’ I said I would not put him to the trouble of reading them—I would tell nothing. ‘Take off his handcuffs,’ said the magistrate. They were removed. The executioner looked inquiringly at his patron. ‘I am not a cruel man,’ said the latter, drawling out his words, as though longer to enjoy my suspense and horror. ‘I would not wrench thy handsome limbs so as to spoil their symmetry. No, no; gentle means at first, Mr. Provost-Marshal—a squeeze or so on the nerve of the thumb, no stout-hearted Buccaneer can complain of.’ Instantly the provost-marshal, as though he had anticipated this commencement, whipped from his pocket a little instrument of iron. It was a thumb-screw, a ‘thumbikin,’ as my countrymen called it, and long was it remembered with curses in many a strath, and on many a hill side, in my native land. For the dragoons of James Graham, of Claverhouse, were wont to carry them in their pouches or haversacks; and, many a long year after I had left the Spanish Indies, when I talked to old Scotchmen about my adventures there, and told them of the alcaide and the provost-marshal of Carthagena, they would reply, ‘Ay, ay, we know somewhat of such torments. Even here, in Scotland, many a joint was wrenched, and many a bone splintered, of the men who in the old troublous days stood staunchly up under the blue banner, and bore faithful testimony for a broken covenant and a persecuted kirk.’ But I must hasten with the tale of my own trials. ‘Do your duty, provost-marshal,’ said the alcaide, gloating on the accursed iron machine; ‘but let us have all things in moderation—one thumb at a time; the prisoner cannot say that we have no bowels.’ Fortunately for me, as it turned out afterwards, the executioner stood upon my left. He laid hold of the hand nearest to him with cold, clammy-feeling fingers, which touched my flesh, to my thinking, like small twining snakes or worms, and with great dexterity slipped the iron apparatus upon my thumb, turning at the same time a screw, so as to make it press tight. The next twist I knew would produce torture.