That such a being could enter cells
impervious to human power, and hold conversation with the prisoners at
his pleasure--appear and disappear--insult, ridicule, and
blaspheme--propose escape, and point out the means with a precision and
facility, that must be the result of calm and profound calculation--and
this within the walls of the Inquisition, almost in the hearing of the
judges--actually in the hearing of the guards, who night and day paced
the passages with sleepless and inquisitorial vigilance?--ridiculous,
monstrous, impossible! it was all a plot to betray me to
self-condemnation. My visitor was an agent and accomplice of the
Inquisition, and I was my own betrayer and executioner. Such was my
conclusion; and, hopeless as it was, it certainly seemed probable. “I had now nothing to await but the most dreadful of all destinations,
amid the darkness and silence of my cell, where the total suspension of
the stranger’s visits confirmed me every hour in my conviction of their
nature and purport, when an event occurred, whose consequences alike
defeated fear, hope, and calculation. This was the great fire that broke
out within the walls of the Inquisition, about the close of the last
century. “It was on the night of the 29th November 17--, that this extraordinary
circumstance took place--extraordinary from the well-known precautions
adopted by the vigilance of the holy office against such an accident,
and also from the very small quantity of fuel consumed within its walls. On the first intimation that the fire was spreading rapidly, and
threatened danger, the prisoners were ordered to be brought from their
cells, and guarded in a court of the prison. I must acknowledge we were
treated with great humanity and consideration. We were conducted
deliberately from our cells, placed each of us between two guards, who
did us no violence, nor used harsh language, but assured us, from time
to time, that if the danger became imminent, we would be permitted every
fair opportunity to effect our escape. It was a subject worthy of the
pencil of Salvator Rosa, or of Murillo, to sketch us as we stood. Our
dismal garbs and squalid looks, contrasted with the equally dark, but
imposing and authoritative looks of the guards and officials, all
displayed by the light of torches, which burned, or appeared to burn,
fainter and fainter, as the flames rose and roared in triumph above the
towers of the Inquisition. The heavens were all on fire--and the
torches, held no longer in firm hands, gave a tremulous and pallid
light. It seemed to me like a wildly painted picture of the last day. God appeared descending in the light that enveloped the skies--and we
stood pale and shuddering in the light below. “Among the groupe of prisoners, there were fathers and sons, who perhaps
had been inmates of adjacent cells for years, without being conscious of
each others vicinity or existence--but they did not dare to recognize
each other. Was not this like the day of judgement, where similar mortal
relations may meet under different classes of the sheep and goats,
without presuming to acknowledge the strayed one amid the flock of a
different shepherd? There were also parents and children who _did_
recognize and stretch out their wasted arms to each other, though
feeling they must never meet,--some of them condemned to the flames,
some to imprisonment, and some to the official duties of the
Inquisition, as a mitigation of their sentence,--and was not this like
the day of judgement, where parent and child may be allotted different
destinations, and the arms that would attest the last proof of mortal
affection, are expanded in vain over the gulph of eternity. Behind and
around us stood the officials and guards of the Inquisition, all
watching and intent on the progress of the flames, but fearless of the
result with regard to themselves. Such may be the feeling of those
spirits who watch the doom of the Almighty, and know the destination of
those they are appointed to watch. And is not this like the day of
judgement? Far, far, above us, the flames burst out in volumes, in solid
masses of fire, spiring up to the burning heavens. The towers of the
Inquisition shrunk into cinders--that tremendous monument of the power,
and crime, and gloom of the human mind, was wasting like a scroll in the
fire. Will it not be thus also at the day of judgement? Assistance was
slowly brought--Spaniards are very indolent--the engines played
imperfectly--the danger increased--the fire blazed higher and
higher--the persons employed to work the engines, paralyzed by terror,
fell to the ground, and called on every saint they could think of, to
arrest the progress of the flames. Their exclamations were so loud and
earnest, that really the saints must have been deaf, or must have felt a
particular predilection for a conflagration, not to attend to them. However it was, the fire went on. Every bell in Madrid rang out.--Orders
were issued to every Alcalde to be had.--The king of Spain himself,
((12)after a hard day’s shooting), attended in person. The churches were
all lit up, and thousands of the devout supplicated on their knees by
torchlight, or whatever light they could get, that the reprobate souls
confined in the Inquisition might feel the fires that were consuming its
walls, as merely a slight foretaste of the fires that glowed for them
for ever and ever. The fire went on, doing its dreadful work, and
heeding kings and priests no more than if they were firemen. I am
convinced twenty able men, accustomed to such business, could have
quenched the fire; but when our workmen should have played their
engines, they were all on their knees. (12) The passion of the late king of Spain for field sports was well
  known. “The flames at last began to descend into the court. Then commenced a
scene of horror indescribable. The wretches who had been doomed to the
flames, imagined their hour was come. Idiots from long confinement, and
submissive as the holy office could require, they became delirious as
they saw the flames approaching, and shrieked audibly, “Spare me--spare
me--put me to as little torture as you can.” Others, kneeling to the
approaching flames, invoked them as saints. They dreamt they saw the
visions they had worshipped,--the holy angels, and even the blessed
virgin, descending in flames to receive their souls as parting from the
stake; and they howled out their allelujahs half in horror, half in
hope. Amid this scene of distraction, the Inquisitors stood their
ground. It was admirable to see their firm and solemn array. As the
flames prevailed, they never faultered with foot, or gave a sign with
hand, or winked with eye;--their duty, their stern and heartless duty,
seemed to be the only principle and motive of their existence. They
seemed a phalanx clad in iron impenetrable.