en of straw. Two Spaniards, Del Rio and Vargas, were
the only members who could vote; while their decisions, as already
stated, were subject to reversal by Alva. Del Rio was a man without
character or talent, a mere tool in the hands of his superiors, but Juan
de Vargas was a terrible reality.

No better man could have been found in Europe for the post to which he
was thus elevated. To shed human blood was, in his opinion, the only
important business and the only exhilarating pastime of life. His youth
had been stained with other crimes. He had been obliged to retire from
Spain, because of his violation of an orphan child to whom he was
guardian, but, in his manhood, he found no pleasure but in murder. He
executed Alva's bloody work with an industry which was almost superhuman,
and with a merriment which would have shamed a demon. His execrable jests
ring through the blood and smoke and death-cries of those days of
perpetual sacrifice. He was proud to be the double of the iron-hearted
Duke, and acted so uniformly in accordance with his views, that the right
of revision remained but nominal. There could be no possibility of
collision where the subaltern was only anxious to surpass an incomparable
superior. The figure of Vargas rises upon us through the mist of three
centuries with terrible distinctness. Even his barbarous grammar has not
been forgotten, and his crimes against syntax and against humanity have
acquired the same immortality. "Heretici fraxerunt templa, boni nihili
faxerunt contra, ergo debent omnes patibulare," was the comprehensive but
barbarous formula of a man who murdered the Latin language as ruthlessly
as he slaughtered his contemporaries.

Among the ciphers who composed the rest of the board, the Flemish
Councillor Hessels was the one whom the Duke most respected. He was not
without talent or learning, but the Duke only valued him for his cruelty.
Being allowed to take but little share in the deliberations, Hessels was
accustomed to doze away his afternoon hours at the council table, and
when awakened from his nap in order that he might express an opinion on
the case then before the court, was wont to rub his eyes and to call out
"Ad patibulum, ad patibulum," ("to the gallows with him, to the gallows
with him,") with great fervor, but in entire ignorance of the culprit's
name or the merits of the case. His wife, naturally disturbed that her
husband's waking and sleeping hours were alike absorbed with