The régime was, to some extent, humane. Water for ablutions was provided and for drinking purposes, food was given sparingly in three daily meals, but was wholesome in quality. Physicians were at hand to attend the sick and confessors to wait on the dying, but they administered no unction, gave no viaticum, said no mass. If any died, as many did, his death was unknown to all without. He was buried within the walls with no sacred ceremony, and if it was decided that he had died in heresy, his bones were exhumed to be burnt at the next act of Faith. While alive he lived apart in all the strictness of the modern solitary cell. Alone and silent, for the prisoner was forbidden to speak, he was not allowed even to groan or sob or sigh aloud. The Holy Office in Goa was worked on the same lines as that of Spain as already described and by the same officers. There was the _Inquisidor Mor_ or grand-inquisitor, a secular priest, a second or assistant inquisitor, a Dominican monk, with many deputies; "qualifiers," to examine books and writings; a fiscal and a procurator; notaries and familiars. The authority of the tribunal was absolute in Goa except that the great officials, archbishop and his grand-vicar, the viceroy and the governor, could not be arrested without the sanction of the supreme council in Lisbon. The procedure, the examination and use of torture was exactly as in other places. M. Dellon was taxed with having spoken ill of the Inquisition, and was called upon to confess his sins, being constantly brought out and again relegated to his cell and continually harassed to make him accuse himself, until in a frenzy of despair he resolved to commit suicide by refusing food. The physician bled him and treated him for fever, but he tore off the bandages hoping to bleed to death. He was taken up insensible, restored by cordials, and carried before the inquisitor, where he lay on the floor and was assailed with bitter reproaches, heavily ironed and sent back to languish in his cell in a wild access of fury approaching madness. At last the great day of the Act of Faith approached, and Dellon heard on every side the agonised cries of both men and women. During the night the alcaide and warders came into his cell with lights bringing a suit of clothes, linen, best trousers, black striped with white. He was marched to join a couple of hundred other penitents squatted on the floor along the sides of a spacious gallery, all motionless but in an agony of apprehension, for none knew his doom. A large company of women were collected in a neighbouring chamber and a third lot in _sanbenitos_, among whom the priests moved seeking confessions and if made the boon of strangulation was conceded before "tasting the fire."