execution, and two of them
who carried boards on their breasts, painted with dogs and serpents,
were to die by fire for having professed doctrines contrary to the
Faith; the third, who carried no board, was a "Relapsed," and might
look forward to the privilege of being strangled before being cast to
the flame. To each of these three was assigned, in addition to the
Familiar, a couple of Jesuit priests, to walk beside him and exhort
him.

The man who was to be strangled came through the gateway of the
Inquisition Office with his gaze bent to the ground, apparently
insensible to the mob of sightseers gathered in the Square.
The doomed man who followed--a mere youth, and, by his face,
a Jew--stared about him fiercely and eagerly. The third was an old
man, with ragged hair and beard, and a complexion bleached by long
imprisonment in the dark. He halted, blinking, uncertain how to
plant his steps. Then, feeling rather than seeing the sun, he
stretched up both arms to it, dropping his taper, calling aloud as
might a preacher, "How is it possible for people, beholding that
glorious Body, to worship any Being but Him who created it!"

A Jesuit at his side flung an arm across the old man's mouth; and as
quickly the Familiar whipped out a cloth, pulled his head back, and
gagged him. The young Jew had turned and was staring, still with his
fierce, eager look. He was wheeled about and plucked forward.

Next through the gateway issued a troupe of Familiars on horseback,
some of them nobles of the first families in Portugal; after them the
Inquisitors and other Officers of the Court upon mules; last of all,
amid a train of nobles, the Inquisitor-General himself on a white
horse led by two grooms: his delicate hands resting on the reins, his
face a pale green by reason of the sunlight falling on it through a
silken scarf of that colour pendant over the brim of his immense
black hat.

All this passed before Ruth's eyes, and close, as she sat in the
mule-chaise beside Sir Oliver. She would have drawn the leathern
curtains, but he had put out a hand forbidding this.

She could not at any rate have escaped hearing the old man's
exclamation; for their chaise was jammed in the crowd beside the
gateway. Her ears still kept the echo of his vibrant voice; almost
she was persuaded that his eyes had singled her out from the crowd.

--And why not? Had not she, also, cause to know what cruelties men
will commit in the name of re