“Don Fernan,” said an officer to the Jew, who re-entered
with them, after respectfully opening the door, “why were we not
admitted sooner?”--“Holy Father,” said the trembling Jew, “my only
domestic, Maria, is old and deaf, the youth my son is in his bed, and I
was myself engaged in my devotions.”--“It seems you can perform them in
the dark,” said another, pointing to the candles, which the Jew was
re-lighting.--“When the eye of God is on me, most reverend fathers, I am
never in darkness.”--“The eye of God _is_ on you,” said the officer,
sternly seating himself; “and so is another eye, to which he has deputed
the sleepless vigilance and resistless penetration of his own,--the eye
of the holy office. Don Fernan di Nunez,” the name by which the Jew
went, “you are not ignorant of the indulgence extended by the church, to
those who have renounced the errors of that accursed and misbelieving
race from which you are descended, but you must be also aware of its
incessant vigilance being directed towards such individuals, from the
suspicion necessarily attached to their doubtful conversion, and
possible relapse. We know that the black blood of Grenada flowed in the
tainted veins of your ancestry, and that not more than four centuries
have elapsed, since your forefathers trampled on that cross before which
you are now prostrate. You are an old man, Don Fernan, but not an _old
Christian_; and, under these circumstances, it behoves the holy office
to have a watchful scrutiny over your conduct.”

“The unfortunate Jew, invoking all the saints, protested he would feel
the strictest scrutiny with which the holy office might honour him, as a
ground of obligation and a matter of thanksgiving,--renouncing at the
same time the creed of his race in terms of such exaggeration and
vehemence, as made me tremble for his probable sincerity in any creed,
and his fidelity to me. The officers of the Inquisition, taking little
notice of his protestations, went on to inform him of the object of
their visit. They stated that a wild and incredible tale of the spectre
of a deceased prisoner of the Inquisition having been seen hovering in
the air near his house, had suggested to the wisdom of the holy office,
that the living individual might be concealed within its walls. “I could not see the trepidation of the Jew, but I could feel the
vibration of the boards on which he stood communicated to the steps that
supported me. In a choaked and tremulous voice, he implored the officers
to search every apartment of his house, and to raze it to the ground,
and inter him under its dust, if aught were found in it which a faithful
and orthodox son of the church might not harbour. “That shall doubtless
be done,” said the officer, taking him at his word with the utmost _sang
froid_; “but, in the mean time, suffer me to apprize you, Don Fernan, of
the peril you incur, if at any future time, however remote, it shall be
discovered that you harboured or aided in concealing a prisoner of the
Inquisition, and an enemy of the holy church,--the very first and
lightest part of that penalty will be your dwelling being razed to the
ground.” The Inquisitor raised his voice, and paused with emphatic
deliberation between every clause of the following sentences, measuring
as it were the effect of his blows on the increasing terror of his
auditor. “You will be conveyed to our prison, under the suspected
character of a relapsed Jew. Your son will be committed to a convent, to
remove him from the pestilential influence of your presence;--and your
whole property shall be confiscated, to the last stone in your walls,
the last garment on your person, and the last denier in your purse.”

“The poor Jew, who had marked the gradations of his fear by groans more
audible and prolonged at the end of every tremendous denunciatory
clause, at the mention of confiscation so total and desolating, lost all
self-possession, and, ejaculating--“Oh Father Abraham, and all the holy
prophets!”--fell, as I conjectured from the sound, prostrate on the
floor. I gave myself up for lost. Exclusive of his pusillanimity, the
words he had uttered were enough to betray him to the officers of the
Inquisition; and, without a moment’s hesitation between the danger of
falling into their hands, and plunging into the darkness of the recess
into which I had descended, I staggered down a few remaining steps, and
attempted to feel my way along a passage, in which they seemed to
terminate. CHAPTER XIII. There sat a spirit in the vault,
    In shape, in hue, in lineaments, like life. SOUTHEY’S THALABA. “I am convinced, that, had the passage been as long and intricate as any
that ever an antiquarian pursued to discover the tomb of Cheops in the
Pyramids, I would have rushed on in the blindness of my desperation,
till famine or exhaustion had compelled me to pause. But I had no such
peril to encounter,--the floor of the passage was smooth, and the walls
were matted, and though I proceeded in darkness, I proceeded in safety;
and provided my progress removed me far enough from the pursuit or
discovery of the Inquisition, I scarcely cared how it might terminate. “Amid this temporary magnanimity of despair, this state of mind which
unites the extremes of courage and pusillanimity, I saw a faint light. Faint it was, but it was distinct,--I saw clearly it was light. Great
God! what a revulsion in my blood and heart, in all my physical and
mental feelings, did this sun of my world of darkness create! I venture
to say, that my speed in approaching it was in the proportion of one
hundred steps to one, compared to my crawling progress in the preceding
darkness. As I approached, I could discover that the light gleamed
through the broad crevices of a door, which, disjointed by subterranean
damps, gave me as full a view of the apartment within, as if it were
opened to me by the inmate. Through one of these crevices, before which
I knelt in a mixture of exhaustion and curiosity, I could reconnoitre
the whole of the interior. “It was a large apartment, hung with dark-coloured baize within four
feet of the floor, and this intermediate part was thickly matted,
probably to intercept the subterranean damps. In the centre of the room
stood a table covered with black cloth; it supported an iron lamp of an
antique and singular form, by whose light I had been directed, and was
now enabled to descry furniture that appeared sufficiently
extraordinary.