sition, the surgeon, and another
masked man in an underground vault faintly lit by hanging lamps. On
one side were the massive doors studded with rusty knobs, of airless
cells; on the rough, spider-webbed wall opposite, against which leaned
an iron ladder, were fixed iron rings at varying heights. A thumbscrew
stood in the corner, and in the centre was a small writing-table, at
which the judge seated himself.

The secretary unlocked a dungeon door, and through the holes of his
mask Gabriel had a glimpse of the despondent figure of the burly
physician crouching in a cell nigh too narrow for turning room.

"Stand forth, Dom Abraham de Balthasar!" said the judge,
ostentatiously referring to a paper.

The physician blinked his eyes at the increased light, but did not
budge.

"My name is Dom Diego," he said.

"Thy baptismal name imports no more to us than to thee. Perchance I
should have said Dom Isaac. Stand forth!"

The physician straightened himself sullenly. "A pretty treatment for a
loyal son of Holy Church who hath served his Most Faithful and
Catholic Sovereign at the University," he grumbled. "Who accuses me of
Judaism? Confront me with the rogue!"

"'Tis against our law," said the secretary.

"Let me hear the specific charges. Read me the counts."

"In the audience-chamber. Anon."

"Confess! confess!" snapped the judge testily.

"To confess needs a sin. I have none but those I have told the priest.
But I know my accuser--'tis Gabriel da Costa, a sober and studious
young senhor with no ear for a jest, who did not understand that I was
rallying the market-woman upon the clearance of her stock by these
stinking heretics. I am no more a Jew than Da Costa himself." But even
as he spoke, Gabriel knew that they were brother-Jews--he and the
prisoner.

"Thou hypocrite!" he cried involuntarily.

"Ha!" said the secretary, his eye beaming triumph.

"This persistent denial will avail thee naught," said the judge,
"'twill only bring thee torture."

"Torture an innocent man! 'Tis monstrous!" the physician protested.
"Any tyro in the logics will tell thee that the onus of proving lies
with the accuser."

"Tush! tush! This is no University. Executioner, do thy work."

The other masked man seized the old physician and stripped him to the
skin.

"Confess!" said the judge warningly.

"If I confessed I was a Jew, I should be doubly a bad Christian,
inasmuch as I should be lying."

"None of thy metaphysical q