in, but not in any way
injured. Lollius has introduced a torture which never injures anyone
subjected to it, but which causes extreme agony while in use. Only stretch
a hard-yarn Spanish blanket over a thigh, draw it tight and hold the thigh
at just the right distance from just the right size of brazier with its
coals properly tended, and the subject can be made to tell the truth; but
not broiled alive, for the blanket will singe before the flesh under it
cooks. You had best tell the truth, not such an ingenious string of lies
as you told before Lollius."

Then he had all my fellow-slaves brought up and ranged before him.

"Your master," he said, "has been foully done to death. If the guilt of
this hideous crime can be indubitably fastened upon one of you or two or
any few, the rest of you shall be held innocent and shall suffer no
penalties. If no facts can be ascertained limiting the guilt to some of
you, all of you, according to the ancient law concerning such cases, shall
be put to death by crucifixion or exposure to the beasts in the arena, as
our Prince may prefer. I have no desire to send to death any guiltless
man. I enjoin you all to tell the truth and to assist the law. The truth-
tellers will suffer less of the torture."

He then, beginning with the scullions, had every boy and man tortured over
the brazier, asking no question of any till he had felt the heat of the
fire and had begun to yell for mercy. Then he would interrupt the torture,
question the victim, bid the torturers again hold their subject close to
the fire; and again suspend the torture and ask questions. Naturally the
victims, frantic with pain and terror, said whatever they thought would
get them off.

Also, to my horror, I realized for the first time, what I had only vaguely
suspected before, how venomously they had envied me, how violently
embittered most of them were against me, how they had hated their master's
favorite. They were glad to slander me, they enjoyed assisting at my ruin,
they relished the prospect of my being tortured and executed. Moreover it
appeared that they had been carefully coached in what they were to say or
had agreed among themselves, without any outside hints, or after such
hints.

The whole household made it appear that they had always suspected me of
desiring Falco's death in order that I might gain my freedom and enjoy his
promised legacies; that I had enticed and wheedled him into leaving me in
his will an