There were, amid maps and globes, several instruments, of
which my ignorance did not permit me then to know the use,--some, I have
since learned, were anatomical; there was an electrifying machine, and a
curious _model of a rack_ in ivory; there were few books, but several
scrolls of parchment, inscribed with large characters in red and
ochre-coloured ink; and around the room were placed _four_ skeletons,
not in cases, but in a kind of upright coffin, that gave their bony
emptiness a kind of ghastly and imperative prominence, as if they were
the real and rightful tenants of that singular apartment. Interspersed
between them were the stuffed figures of animals I knew not then the
names of,--an alligator,--some gigantic bones, which I took for those of
Sampson, but which turned out to be fragments of those of the
Mammoth,--and antlers, which in my terror I believed to be those of the
devil, but afterwards learned to be those of an Elk. Then I saw figures
smaller, but not less horrible,--human and brute abortions, in all their
states of anomalous and deformed construction, not preserved in spirits,
but standing in the ghastly nakedness of their white diminutive bones;
these I conceived to be the attendant imps of some infernal ceremony,
which the grand wizard, who now burst on my sight, was to preside over. “At the end of the table sat an old man, wrapped in a long robe; his
head was covered with a black velvet cap, with a broad border of furs,
his spectacles were of such a size as almost to hide his face, and he
turned over some scrolls of parchment with an anxious and trembling
hand; then seizing a scull that lay on the table, and grasping it in
fingers hardly less bony, and not less yellow, seemed to apostrophize it
in the most earnest manner. All my personal fears were lost in the
thought of my being the involuntary witness of some infernal orgie. I
was still kneeling at the door, when my long suspended respiration burst
forth in a groan, which reached the figure seated at the table in a
moment. Habitual vigilance supplied all the defects of age on the part
of the listener. It was but the sensation of a moment to feel the door
thrown open, my arm seized by an arm powerful though withered by age,
and myself, as I thought, in the talons of a demon. “The door was closed and bolted. An awful figure stood over me, (for I
had fallen on the floor), and thundered out, “Who art thou, and why art
thou here?” I knew not what to answer, and gazed with a fixed and
speechless look on the skeletons and the other furniture of this
terrible vault. “Hold,” said the voice, “if thou art indeed exhausted,
and needest refreshment, drink of this cup, and thou shalt be refreshed
as with wine; verily, it shall come into thy bowels as water, and as oil
into thy bones,”--and as he spoke he offered to me a cup with some
liquid in it. I repelled him and his drink, which I had not a doubt was
some magical drug, with horror unutterable; and losing all other fears
in the overwhelming one of becoming a slave of Satan, and a victim of
one of his agents, as I believed this extraordinary figure, I called on
the name of the Saviour and the saints, and, crossing myself at every
sentence, exclaimed, “No, tempter, keep your infernal potions for the
leprous lips of your imps, or swallow them yourself. I have but this
moment escaped from the hands of the Inquisition, and a million times
rather would I return and yield myself their victim, than consent to
become yours,--your tender-mercies are the only cruelties I dread. Even
in the prison of the holy office, where the faggots appeared to be lit
before my eyes, and the chain already fastened round my body to bind it
to the stake, I was sustained by a power that enabled me to embrace
objects so terrible to nature, sooner than escape them at the price of
my salvation. The choice was offered me, and I made my election,--and so
would I do were it to be offered a thousand times, though the last were
at the stake, and the fire already kindling.”

Here the Spaniard paused in some agitation. In the enthusiasm of his
narration, he had in some degree disclosed that secret which he had
declared was incommunicable, except in confessing to a priest. Melmoth,
who, from the narrative of Stanton, had been prepared to suspect
something of this, did not think prudent to press him for a farther
disclosure, and waited in silence till his emotion had subsided, without
remark or question. Monçada at length resumed his narrative. “While I was speaking, the old man viewed me with a look of calm
surprise, that made me ashamed of my fears, even before I had ceased to
utter them. “What!” said he at length, fixing apparently on some
expressions that struck him, “art thou escaped from the arm that dealeth
its blow in darkness, even the arm of the Inquisition? Art thou that
Nazarene youth who sought refuge in the house of our brother Solomon,
the son of Hilkiah, who is called Fernan Nunez by the idolaters in this
land of his captivity? Verily I trusted thou shouldst this night have
eat of my bread, and drank of my cup, and been unto me as a scribe, for
our brother Solomon testified concerning thee, saying, His pen is even
as the pen of a ready writer.”

“I gazed at him in astonishment. Some vague recollections of Solomon’s
being about to disclose some safe and secret retreat wandered over my
mind; and, while trembling at the singular apartment in which we were
seated, and the employment in which he seemed engaged, I yet felt a hope
hover about my heart, which his knowledge of my situation appeared to
justify. “Sit down,” said he, observing with compassion that I was
sinking alike under the exhaustion of fatigue and the distraction of
terror; “sit down, and eat a morsel of bread, and drink a cup of wine,
and comfort thine heart, for thou seemest to be as one who hath escaped
from the snare of the fowler, and from the dart of the hunter.” I obeyed
him involuntarily. I needed the refreshment he offered, and was about to
partake of it, when an irresistible feeling of repugnance and horror
overcame me; and, as I thrust away the food he offered me, I pointed to
the objects around me as the cause of my reluctance. He looked round for
a moment, as doubting whether objects so familiar to him, could be
repulsive to a stranger, and then shaking his head, “Thou art a fool,”
said he, “but thou art a Nazarene, and I pity thee; verily, those who
had the teaching of thy youth, not only have shut the book of knowledge
to thee, but have forgot to open it for themselves. Were not thy
masters, the Jesuits, masters also of the healing art, and art thou not
acquainted with the sight of its ordinary implements? Eat, I pray thee,
and be satisfied that none of these will hurt thee. Yonder dead bones
cannot weigh out or withhold thy food; nor can they bind thy joints, or
strain them with iron, or rend them with steel, as would the living arms
that were stretched forth to seize thee as their prey.