"Poor Dellon went barefoot, like the rest, through the streets of Goa,
rough with little flint stones scattered about, and sorely were his feet
wounded during an hour's march up and down the principal streets. Weary,
covered with shame and confusion, the long train of culprits entered
the church of St. Francis, where preparation was made for the auto, the
climate of India not permitting a celebration of that solemnity
under the burning sky. They sat with their sponsors, in the galleries
prepared, sambenitos, grey zamarras with painted flames and devils,
corozas, tapers, and all the other paraphernalia of an auto, made up a
woeful spectacle. The inquisitor and other personages having taken their
seats of state, the provincial of the Augustinians mounted the pulpit
and delivered the sermon. Dellon preserved but one note of it. The
preacher compared the Inquisition to Noah's ark, which received all
sorts of beasts WILD, but sent them out TAME. The appearance of hundreds
who had been inmates of that ark certainly justified the figure.
"After the sermon, two readers went up, one after the other, into the
same pulpit, and, between them, they read the processes and pronounced
the sentences, the person standing before them, with the alcayde, and
holding a lighted taper in his hand. Dellon, in turn, heard the cause
of his long-suffering. He had maintained the invalidity of baptismus
flaminis, or desire to be baptised, when there is no one to administer
the rite of baptism by water. He had said that images ought not to be
adored, and that an ivory crucifix was a piece of ivory. He had spoken
contemptuously of the Inquisition. And, above all, he had an ill
intention. His punishment was to be confiscation of his property,
banishment from India, and five years' service in the galleys in
Portugal, with penance, as the inquisitors might enjoin. As all the
prisoners were excommunicate, the inquisitor, after the sentence had
been pronounced, put on his alb and stole, walked into the middle of the
church, and absolved them all at once. Dellon's sponsor, who would not
even answer him before, when he spoke, now embraced him, called him
brother, and gave him a pinch of snuff, in token of reconciliation.
"But there were two persons, a man and a woman, for whom the church had
no more that they could do; and these, with four dead bodies, and the
effigies of the dead, were taken to be burnt on the Campo Santo Lazaro,
on the river side, the place appointed for that purpose, that the
viceroy might see justice done on the heretics, as he surveyed the
execution from his palace-windows."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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