Cuthbert was told to place his thumbs together; resistance would have been useless and unseemly, therefore he quietly complied, and the horrid little instrument of torture was made to take them both at once; the turning of a screw brought a sharp little bar across the bones which compressed them until it seemed to burn the flesh like fire, causing exquisite agony; the screw was secured by a lock, and a chain attached to it might, if there were need, be used to attach the prisoner to a staple in the wall, where he might be left until the agony broke his spirit.[39] Huge drops of sweat stood on the sufferer’s brow. “Thou feelest a portion of what is due to thee if thou confessest not.” “In te Domine speravi,” breathed the poor prisoner. Minute after minute passed by, during which the struggle between bodily pain and will continued. At last, Sir John looked at the governor and whispered. “Another turn!” said the latter, reluctantly. Another turn was given to the screw, and the prisoner fainted, his sensitive frame could bear no more. They poured cold water over him, but it was long before he showed signs of consciousness, and when he did so, the governor said to Sir John-- “It is useless, we can go no further to-day.” “But you will succeed _to-morrow_, the dread will be greater now he knows what pain is, and he _will_ yield, I predict, when brought down once more; we shall not need a fresh application of the torture.” “God grant it, for it is a pitiful sight, and I would sooner stand on the field of battle; one feels a man there, and not a brute.” “Let the poor lad be taken to his cell and all kindness shewn him,” added the governor. So the pleasant party broke up. FOOTNOTES [36] Witness their Oubliettes, which the writer has seen, shaped like a bottle, the only opening the neck, wherein, when torture had done its worst and no more revelations were to be hoped of the criminal, he was dropped, to perish of his injuries in unseen agony, in cold, hunger, and filth. Witness, too, the recent discoveries at Baden Baden--the statue of the Virgin, which the victim was told to kiss, whereupon a concealed trap-door, on which he stood, fell, and dropped him upon wheels set with revolving knives. Such refinements appal the imagination, and constrain us to ask what manner of men invented such atrocities? [37] Unless the reader can comprehend the intense way in which obedience and loyalty to the King, right or wrong, swayed the people of England in that day, he cannot comprehend the history of Bloody Harry, and why he was permitted to work his will. The anarchy of the preceding century, when the Wars of the Roses had drenched the country in blood, and helped to foster the sentiment, and to make the throne the central pillar of the edifice, the supposed bulwark of the nation. [38] All things should first be tried, but an incurable wound Must with the sword be cut out, lest the sound part be affected.