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CHAPTER III.

ONE month, dark and dreary, passed over him in that horrible place. The Reformer was praying for death to end his misery. During that whole time he had been shut up in close darkness, had heard no pleasant word, or even seen the face of mankind. One day, however, as he was turning over the loathsome food just laid on the bottom of the cell, his hand came in contact with flint and steel. Near it was a box of tinder and a short candle. He eagerly struck a light.

A small piece of paper was lying in the midst of his food. Upon it was scrawled in a rude, unpractised hand:

"When I took my oath as a menial in the Holy Office, I swore to put aside my feelings as a man whenever they clashed with my duty. Hitherto I have kept that terrible oath, but now I am too weak to resist. I have gone to my home, and heard my wife's voice, and my own heart responded to her words. More than this, I have seen my only boy, playing happily in all the health and life which you renewed within him. This is too much. I will save a heretic! I will forswear my soul--and yet God will forgive that holy perjury.

"To-morrow you will be examined before the Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquenada himself, who has just come from Madrid to preside on that day. Be bold and collected. Watch my movements well, and strive for your life when the time comes. I shall be compelled to apply the torture to your limbs; but think, in your pain, that it is not the real agony which they intend for you. I have so arranged them all-even the rack itself that they will be nothing more than mockeries."

"Again, be bold and cool, and yet patient!" Need we say that the Reformer spent the

rest of that night on his knees in thanksgiving and prayer?

Time passed swiftly thus, and just as Father Francis was about to seek a little repose to nerve himself for the duties of the next day, an official entered his dungeon and summoned him into the presence of the Grand Inquisitor. The day had already come.

The room which he now entered was long and crowded with dark-robed forms, whose very silence might well strike terror into the nerves of an ordinary mortal. Nor were the figures more fearful than the horrid instruments of torture, each placed by the side of an official, who stood ready to perform the duties of his cffice. Among them, at their head indeed, the prisoner noticed one, whom he imagined to possess the form and air of Bartolemé.

The only person not disguised was the most terrible of all, Tomas de Torquenada, the Grand Inquisitor of Spain. This man, who has so thoroughly interwoven himself with the history of the Inquisition, was small, slender, and possessing more of the physical peculiarities commonly attributed to men of his stamp. Yet his eye, set, chill, even glowing in its fixed coldness, and his firmly bound mouth, made it impossible to mistake any other in his presence for the man whose name was whispered throughout Spain in terror, and has even descended to our own times, as another word for cruel bigotry.

By his side sat other Inquisitors of less note, all muffled in their customary robes. The only uncovered faces were those of the prisoner and Torquanada himself. He had no fear of betraying his feelings by his features.

The examination was opened by one of the associates. Every query was upon points of faith, and to all these Father Francis gave such answers from the first, as sealed his fate without farther question. He held the doctrines

which are now received in substance among all Protestants. Sentence of death was unhesitatingly pronounced-death by fire at the next Auto de Fé.

Torquenada then spoke for the first time : "Heretic and unholy priest! You have said enough for your own doom, but you must now say more. For a long time you have escaped the wrath of the Holy Office: you have been sheltered and protected by the influence of some one high in power, infected equally with yourself. What is his name?"

Hitherto, I have been protected by the hand of God, and he will not desert me now."

"Tell this Holy Office," continued Torquenada, slowly and steadily, "the name of the man who has upheld you against the Church."

"That there has been such a person," replied Father Francis, with equal energy, “it is useless for me to deny, and I thank God that He has so disposed the heart of at least one Christian noble in this land. But I will never

betray him into your power."

A slight smile came over Torquenada's face, but he only nodded to the nearest official. This man, whom Father Francis had rightly imagined to be Bartolemé, approached the condemned with his instrument of torture. It was that which history has recorded for its fiendish cruelty, as the torture of the boot. The foot of the sufferer is placed in an iron boot, and then heavy wedges of metal are driven down between the boot and limb. The torture is most exquisite, as flesh, sinew and bone are of course crushed together in a very few blows.

From the tenderness with which his foot was fastened into the boot, Father Francis knew that he was in the hands of Bartoleme, but as the end of the large black wedges were inserted, and an arm raised for the blow, he closed his eyes in anticipated torment, wholly unable to understand how the torture could be evaded. The blow came; it was only a sharp, quick pain, instead of the crushing agony he had feared. Another and another. The prisoner hardly flinched.

Bartolemé had substituted, for the iron wedges commonly used, a set of hollow instruments made of thin, elastic slips of wood, so skillfully painted and joined together that they could not well be distinguished from those they were intended to counterfeit. As they were driven in, instead of crushing the limb, they were of course compressed into the width of a

thin board, though the part above the iron boot retained its former size.

The Inquisitors could hardly believe their senses, when they saw their victim retaining his calmness under one of the severest of tortures. They attributed it to the interference of Satan himself, and consulted in evident perplexity. Torquenada suddenly called Bartolemé to his side and gave him a brief order, then turned to Father Francis:

"Confess that you have leagued with Satan, and we spare the next torture."

"God was my helper," replied the Reformer, solemnly.

"Away with him!" roared the Grand Inquisitor, losing self-command for the first time.

In an instant he was hurried from the room by Bartolemé and another. After many windings, they led him finally into perfect darkness, and there bound him hand and foot to the floor, so that he was unable to move a limb. While doing this, Bartolemé found an opportunity to whisper in his ear:

"The cord on your right arm is weak, but do not loose yourself until the last moment. Dash through the left door-then stop." They then left them.

CHAPTER IV.

The condemned man lay for some moments. in that posture without hearing any sound. The very silence became more painful than the darkness, for there was nothing upon which he could employ his mind in devising means to escape the danger.

Suddenly he heard a faint, regular noise, like the ticking of a large clock above his head. Then a light appeared in the top of the room, full thirty feet above him. Two heads were thrust out, eagerly watching something which then began to swing slowly down from the aperture. One of these men was Bartolemé.

The priest just noticed them and then fixed his attention upon the instrument they had set in motion. It swung regularly from side to side, like a pendulum, with a loud ticking sound. What it was, he could not at first see; but it was evident from the first that it was descending rapidly, and of course sweeping in longer arcs. The light from above flashed full upon it, and then Father Francis saw that it

was a heavy crescent of bright, keen steel, descending full upon him.

He now understood his danger, and quivered, as he recalled to memory the famous "pendulum" torture, rarely practiced in the Inquisition, and only in the most extreme cases. This crescent edge of steel would descend more and more slowly, but still descend right upon the helpless body beneath, and only stop its hideous sweep when it grounded upon the floor. The bare idea of being thus dissevered, so agitated him, that he was upon the point of bursting the cord on his right arm and attempting to escape forthwith, but he desisted, remembering the direction to wait until the last moment. Somewhat reassured, he watched the descending blade as coolly as he could command the strength.

By this time it was more than half way down. It was indeed a terrible sight-that broad, flashing edge, hovering in the air for a moment, then sweeping swiftly down to the middle of its arc, only to mount again and then descend still lower than before. He gazed upon it until a sudden insanity seized him, and he idly watched the coming death, then greeted it with a loud, silly laugh. It was now but a few feet above him, and he could plainly feel upon his cheek the wind of its rush. Yet he made no effort to free himself, but lay there, stupidly gazing upon it until a quick, astonished wave of Bartolemé's hand from above recalled him to his senses. The time had come. He easily burst the rotten cord upon his right arm, then seized a knife, which Bartolemé had secretly left at his side, and in an instant freed himself. Not a moment too soon, for the keen edge just grazed his side as he arose, and inflicted a very slight wound.

The light above was suddenly extinguished. As the priest threw himself through the left door, he distinctly heard his preserver slide down by the framework of the engine still in motion; then his quick, skillful leap to the ground. In another moment Bartolemé grasped his hand, and drew him swiftly forward in the darkness.

They had gone but a few steps before the rescued man heard the dull, grinding crush of the steel upon the floor.

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"Thank the saints that your are not there!" whispered Bartolemé.

"I thank God, and you too," replied Father Francis, fervently. "Hush!"

Even Bartolemé, accustomed as he was to the place, found it difficult to thread his way in the darkness. At length, however, they stood in the court where the priest's eyes had been bandaged. The noise of footsteps was behind them, but Bartolemé coolly locked the door and threw away the key. In a few moments more, they had left the city behind, and were standing in the open field. Here Bartolemé slackened his pace.

"I thought you would never break that cord. Do you know that a madness had seized you— such as almost always falls into the frightened souls of men under that horrible engine? Some rave and shout; some are stupid as you were. However, that is over now. When I saw you handling the knife, I extinguished the light, and before my companion could seize me, slid down the sweeping frame. 'Twas a singular sensation I assure you, that came over me, when I balanced myself to strike the ground. No matter about that now; we are safe for the present. I have no fear of being taken before reaching home, for every arrangement has been already made, but we must cross the mountains into France this very night. Now, sir, I have more than paid my debt. You saved the life of of my child without increasing your own danger; I have saved yours at the hazard of my head and the certain persecution of the Holy Office hereafter. I must leave my country-I have lost all means of support-I depend now only upon my hands, and a helpless woman with her child are hanging heavily upon them! Is not your debt paid?"

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'You speak too bitterly, my friend," calmly replied Francis. "A good deed is never unrewarded, nor shall you suffer for this. They said truly, that I have been upheld by one high in power: we will now go to him. Under his protection, you and your family will be screened from the Inquisition. I cannot share in your security. The faith which I have preached for years, and for the sake of which God has delivered me from this peril, is yet unknown and despised in the world. That faith I must preach until I die."

THE secretary lived with his young wife still in the spring-time of the honeymoon. Neither worldly considerations nor transient affection had united them; an ardent and longtried love was the bond of their union. They had known each other in early youth, but the delay which Sellner had experienced in obtaining an appointment had hitherto compelled him to postpone the accomplishment of his wishes. On the very Sunday, however, after he found himself securely fixed in his office, he led the beloved girl, as his wife, into their new home.

After the customary days of constraint, devoted to visits of congratulation, and to family festivities, Sellner and Josephine were enabled to enjoy their evenings in solitude, undisturbed by the presence of any intruder. These hours, which flew but too swiftly for the lovers, were passed in forming plans for their life, with Sellner's flute and Josephine's harp; and the deep unison of their tones was a sweet presage to them of the harmony and union of their future days.

One evening, after they had long been beguiling themselves with music, Josephine began to complain of headache. She had concealed from her anxious husband an indisposition, accompanied by a slight fever, with which she had been attacked that morning, and the fever was increased by the excitement of the music, which from her youth was somewhat apt to exhaust a frame naturally delicate. She now no longer concealed her feelings from her husband, and Sellner, being uneasy, sent for a physician, who treated the matter as a trifle, and promised perfect recovery on the

morrow.

After a most restless night, however, during the whole of which she had been delirious, the physician found his patient in a state which bore all the symptoms of a violent nervous fever. He applied every remedy, but in vain. Josephine grew daily worse; Sellner was in despair.

On the ninth day, Josephine herself felt that she could no longer sustain this illness: the

physician had already told Sellner so. Josephine felt that her last hour was come, and with calm resignation she awaited] her fate. "Dear Edward," said she' to her husband, pressing him for the last time to her bosom, "with deep regret do I leave this beautiful earth, where I have found thee and the blessedness of thy love; but though I may no longer be happy with thee, yet shall thy Josephine's love hover over thee like a faithful genius, till we meet again above." Having said this she sank back, and gently breathed her last. It was evening, and the ninth hour.

Sellner's sufferings were beyond all expression. Grief destroyed his health; he was confined many weeks to a sick bed, and, even when he arose from it, the strength of youth had forsaken him deep melancholy succeeded to despair, and silent sorrow hallowed every remembrance of the beloved one. He had left Josephine's room exactly as it was before her death. Upon the work-table still lay her work, and her harp stood silent and neglected in a corner. Every evening Sellner wandered into this sanctuary of his love, and, taking his flute with him, he would lean, as in the days of his happiness, against the window, whilst in the saddest tones he breathed forth his longing for his beloved one.

Once, while standing thus in Josephine's room, lost in phantasies, a bright moon pouring in upon him her soft light through the open window, and the watchman from a neighboring tower calling the ninth hour, suddenly the harp, as if touched by the light breath of a spirit, responded to the tones of his flute. Deeply moved, he ceased to play upon his flute; but, with the silence of his own instrument, the sounds of the harp were instantly hushed. Trembling violently, he now began to play Josephine's favorite air, and then, ever louder and more powerfully resounded the chords of the harp to his own melody, the tones mingling in the softest, sweetest harmony. At length, sinking upon the ground in joyful emotion, and stretching out his arms to embrace the beloved spirit, he felt as if