of another tribunal;
and then Torquemada, in pursuance of the latest pontifical decision,
created Friar Caspar Inglar, a preacher of the Dominican community, and
Pedro Arbues de Epila, a canon of the metropolitan church, inquisitors.
The King gave a mandate to the civil authorities--a firman, it might
be called--compelling them to lend aid to the new officers; and, on
September 13th following, the Grand Justice of Aragon, with his five
lieutenants of the long robe and various other magistrates, swore upon
the holy Gospels that they would give men and arms to defend and to
enforce the authority of the Holy Inquisition. And as they swore
thus, the King's chief secretary for Aragon, the prothonotary, the
vice-chancellor, the royal treasurer--whose own father and grandfather
were Jews, and persecuted by the old inquisitors--together with a
multitude of persons of high rank and office, in whose veins flowed
Jewish blood, and whose descendants are now among the first families in
Spain, looked on with dismay, and sent a deputation to Rome, bearing
remonstrance against the newly created Inquisition; and deputed others
to present their appeal to the same effect at the court of Ferdinand
and Isabella. All these deputies were afterward proceeded against as
hinderers of the Holy Office; and meanwhile the inquisitors, in contempt
of opposition, set themselves to work without delay.

In the months of May and June, 1485, two acts of faith were celebrated in
Saragossa, capital of Aragon, and a large number of New Christians burned
alive. The public was enraged, certainly, but helpless; yet not so
helpless but that many awoke to a conviction that, since the inquisitors
had resorted to terror for the conservation of the faith, they ought to
be restrained by terror in their turn.

In the night of September 14, 1485, one of the inquisitors, Pedro Arbues,
covered as usual with a coat of mail under his robes, and wearing a steel
skull-cap under his hat--for he was every moment conscious of guilt and
apprehensive of retribution--took a lantern in one hand and a bludgeon in
the other; and, like a sturdy soldier of his peculiar Church, walked from
his house to the cathedral of that same Saragossa, to join in matins. He
knelt down by one of the pillars, setting his lantern on the pavement.
His right hand held the weapon of defence, yet stealthily half covered
with the cloak. The canons, in their places, were chanting hymns. Two men
came and kne