Garcia Rodrigo has devoted a couple of pages of his “Historia Verdadera” to an elaborate piece of fiction in which he asserts that these men were persistent in their error in spite of the strenuous efforts made to save them. He invests the fanatical Ojeda with the character of an angel of mercy, and represents him hovering round the condemned, exhorting them, almost with tears, to abjure their error, and he assures us that although the Dominican persevered in his charitable efforts up to the last moment, all was vain. There is not a grain of evidence to support the statement, nor does Garcia Rodrigo pretend to advance any. As a matter of fact, Bernaldez, the only available authority who mentions Susan’s end, tells us specifically that he died a Christian. And when it is considered that Bernaldez is an ardent admirer and champion of the Inquisition, such a pronouncement from his pen is sufficient to convict the inquisitors Morillo and San Martin of having proceeded in a manner that was vindictive and _ultra vires_. For at this epoch it was not yet decreed that those who had relapsed (_relapsos_) should suffer capital punishment unless they persisted in their apostasy--as Rodrigo, obviously for the purpose of justifying the inquisitors, unwarrantably asserts did Susan and his confederates. Llorente considers the blood-lust of the inquisitors established by these merciless convictions, urging that it is incredible that all the prisoners should have refused to recant and to submit themselves to penance--even assuming that they were actually guilty of apostasy as alleged. For when all is considered it must remain extremely doubtful whether they had Judaized at all, and it is not improbable--from what we see of the spirit that actuated the inquisitors--that Morillo and San Martin may have construed the action of those men into an offence against the Faith for the purpose of bringing them within the jurisdiction of the Holy Office. They were condemned to be the chief actors in the first Auto de Fé that was held in Seville. This took place on February 6.[66] There was about this Auto comparatively little of that pomp and ceremonial, that ghastly theatricality that was presently to distinguish these proceedings. But the essentials were already present.