The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion
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CHAPTER XXXV.
THE PLACE OF EYES
Two systems were in force in the Street of the Money to convince, toconvert, and to change the stubborn will.
One, the A B C of all inquisitors, consisted of the indispensable rack,the attractive pulley with the weights for the feet, the useful hooks,the thumbkins, the red-hot pincers, the oil-bath, and the water-torture.Dom Teruel and Frey Tullio, with the aid of Serra the Murcian, usedthese as a carpenter uses his tools, coldly, and with method.
But the finer mind of Mariana, working for political ends rather thancontroverting heresy by mere physical methods, had evolved a more purelymoral torture. A chamber had been set apart, to which no least noise,either from the street or from the other guests of the Holy Office,could possibly penetrate. The walls had been specially doubled. Irondoor after iron door had to be unlocked before even a familiar couldenter. In the space between the walls in every side were spy-holes.Painted eyes looked down from the ceiling, up from the floor. The wholechamber was flooded day and night with the light of lamps set deep inniches, so that the prisoner could not reach them. All that he couldever see was the placing of another light as often as the old burnedlow.
"There is," Mariana explained the matter to his associates, "acompulsion working in the minds of the well-bred and well-born, of thosewho have always experienced only pleasantness and happy society,breathed the airs of wood and mountain, known the comradeship of streetand class-room and _salle-d'armes_. Such cannot long be without someoneto whom to tell their thoughts. For this unclipped gallant, two or threeweeks will suffice. He has the gloss still on his wings. Wait a little.I have my own way with such. He will speak. He will tell us both who heis and all he knows! I will turn him inside out like a glove."
"I am not sure," said Teruel, shaking his head; "after the thirdfainting on the rack, when they see Serra oiling the great wheel--thatis what few of them can stand. There is virtue in it. It has apersuasive force--yes, that is the word, a blessed persuasive force, tomake the most stubborn abjure heresy and receive the truth!"
The Jesuit smiled, and waved a plump, womanish hand.
"I have a better means, and a surer!" he said, in gentle reproof.
They looked him in the face. But as often as it came to the tug ofwills, this smooth, soft-spoken, smiling priest, with his caressingvoice, was master. And well they knew it. He also.
"I have a niece," Mariana murmured, "one altogether devoted to theservice of the Church and the society. I am, for the present, hernearest parent as well as her spiritual director----"
"Valentine la Nina?" questioned Teruel. And Frey Tullio said nothing,only Mariana, ever on the watch, caught the oily southern glitter of hiseyes, wicked little black pools, with scum on each, like cooling gravy.
"Ay, indeed, Valentine la Nina, even as you say," responded the Jesuitof Toledo calmly; "it is not fair that only men should labour for thegood of Holy Church. Did not Mary, the wife of Herod's steward, and thatother Mary, minister to the Son of the Holy Virgin? It is so written.If, then, sainted women followed Him in life, watched by His cross, andprepared His body for burial, surely in these evil times, when theChurch of Peter trembles on its rock, we, who fight for the faith, havenot the right to refuse the ministry of Valentine la Nina or another?"
And so, since Mariana was of Toledo and high in favour with Philip theKing, and with the Archbishop Primate of all Spain, besides being morepowerful than the General of his own Order, Dom Teruel and Frey Tulliobowed their heads and did as they were commanded.
"Give you the order," said Teruel to Mariana, with a faint, hatefulsmile, for he would have preferred Serra, a newly-wetted rope, and aslow fire.
But this was by no means Mariana's way.
"I but advise," he said. "How can I do otherwise, a poor Jesuitwanderer, dependent on your bounty for hospitality--I and my niece. Ifear I must claim also a place for her here, when she leaves the houseand protection of the Countess of Livia."
So into the chamber of light and silence went the Abbe John, after hisfirst examination. He saw around him and above walls and ceilingspainted all over with gigantic human eyes--the pupil of each beinghollow--and watchers were set continually without, or, at least, theAbbe John thought they were. Within twelve hours he was raging madlyabout his cell, striving to reach and shiver those watching eyeseverywhere about him. He kicked at the inlaid pavements. He tried totear away from his bed-head and from the foot, those huge, open eyeswith the dark, watchful pupils. But his riding-boots had been removed,and with his hempen _alpargatas_ he could do nothing. No one took theleast notice of his cries. Even the walls seemed echoless and dead, savefor the watching eyes, which, after the first day, followed him aboutthe room as he paced from end to end, restless as a wild creature newlycaged.
He saw them in his sleep. He dreamed of eyes. They chased him acrossgreat smoking cities, over plains without mark or bound, save the browncircle of the horizon, through the thick coverts of virgin forests. Hecould not shut them out. He could not escape them. He covered his facewith his hand, and they looked in between his fingers, parting them thatthey might look. He drew his cloak's hood about his brow, he heapedcoverings on his head. It was all in vain. He began to babble to thewalls, till he realised that these had ears as well as eyes. On thefourth day he wept aloud. He had long refused to eat, though he drankmuch. He began to go mad, and kept repeating the words to himself, "I amgoing mad! I am going mad!"
On the fifth night he tried to dash his head against the wall. Hefainted, and lay a long time motionless on the cold floor, tillsuddenly, becoming aware that there was a painted eye underneath hesprang to his feet in that terrible place beset with eyes behind andbefore.
There came to him a noise of unbarring doors, the yellow lamp-light wentout in niche after niche.
"Oh, the blessed dark!" cried the Abbe John, "they are going to leave mein the dark. I shall escape from the eyes."
But no; his tormentors had other purposes with him. A yet greater noiseof rollers and the clang of iron machinery, and lo! on high the wholeroof of the Place of Eyes fell into two parts (like huge eyelids,thought the Abbe John with a shudder). The sunshine flooded all theupper part of his cell, midway down the walls. The sweet morning air ofSpain breathed about him. He felt a cool moisture on his lips, the scentof early flowers. A bee blundered in, boomed round, and went out againas he had come.
The Abbe John clutched his throat as if at the point of death. Hethought he saw a vision, and prayed for deliverance, but no moreeyes--for judgment, but no more eyes--for damnation even, but no moreeyes!
Then he turned about, and close by the great iron door a woman wasstanding, the fairest he had ever seen--yes, fairer even than ClaireAgnew, as fair as they make the pictured angels above the churchaltars--Valentine la Nina!