Martin Conisby

"Have ye suffered so much then?"

"Suffered!" cried he with a snarl. "I've done little else. Aha, when I think o' what I've endured, I do love my little blowpipe--"

"Blowpipe?" I questioned.

"Aye--this!" And speaking, from somewhere among the pitiful rags that covered his lank carcase he drew forth a small wooden pipe scarce two foot long and having a bulbous mouthpiece at one end. "The Indians use 'em longer than this--aye, six foot I've seen 'em, but then, Lord! they'll blow ye a dart from eighty to a hundred paces sometimes, whereas I never risk shot farther away than ten or twenty at most; the nearer the surer, aha!" Hereupon he nodded, white teeth agleam through tangled beard, and with a swift, stealthy gesture hid the deadly tube in his rags again.

"What of the two Spaniards I struck down last night?" I questioned, looking vainly for them.

"In the bushes yonder," said he and with jerk of thumb. "I hid 'em, master, they being a little unsightly--black and swol--as is the natur' o' this poison!" Hereupon I rose and going whither he pointed, parted the undergrowth and saw this was indeed so, insomuch that my stomach turned and I had no more desire for food.

"You murdered those men!"

"Aye, that I did, master, an you call it murder. Howbeit, there's more shall go the same road yet, notably Alexo Valdez, a curse on him!"

"And you are an Englishman?"

"I was, but since then I've been slave to be whipped, dog to be kicked, Lutheran dog to be spat upon, and lastly Indian--"

"And what now?"

"A poor soul to be tormented, shot, hanged, or burned as they will, once I'm taken."

"And yet you will adventure yourself to Nombre de Dios?"

"Why, Alexo Valdez is lately come there and Alexo Valdez burned my friend Dick Burbage, as was 'prentice wi' me at Johnson's, the cutler's, in Friday Street nigh St. Paul's, twenty odd years agone."

And in a while, being ready to start, I proffered this wild fellow one of the Spaniard's guns, but he would have none of it, nor sword, nor even cloak to cover his rags, so in the end we left all things behind, and there they be yet, for aught I know.

Now as we journeyed on together, in answer to my questioning I learned from this man John something of the illimitable pride and power of the Church of Rome; more especially he told me of the Spanish Inquisition, its cold mercilessness and passionless ferocity, its unsleeping watchfulness, its undying animosity, its constant menace and the hopelessness of escape therefrom. He gave me particulars of burnings and rackings, he described to me the torments of the water, the wheel and the fire until my soul sickened. He told me how it menaced alike the untrained savage, the peasant in his hut and the noble in his hall. I heard of parents who, by reason of this corroding fear, had denounced their children to the torment and children their parents.