At first glance this statement appears untrue. But it is obvious that Benito means that he has never mentioned Yucé’s name in connection with the Host or in any other way that could incriminate him. And in this he is truthful enough as far as he knows, for he could not suppose that what he had said about his own offences against the Faith committed in Yucé’s house at Tenbleque could in any way be construed against the lad or his father.

Passing on to other matters, they refer to a certain widow of La Guardia, of whom Benito says that he knows her to be a Judaizer, because she never ate anything containing lard or ham, and he has frequently seen her eat adafinas (the Jewish food prepared on the Friday for the Sabbath) and drink Caser wine.185

In the dossier of Yucé Franco there are no depositions of the spy set to overhear his conversations with Benito. But it is probable that some such depositions will be found in the record of the trial of the latter, where they must belong, since from the frankness which he used he incriminated himself to an extraordinary degree and Yucé not at all. And it is not to be doubted that the inquisitors made use of information thus obtained when they came to examine Yucé Franco on April 9 and 10186 and in a subsequent examination of August 1,187 when they drew from him a deposition which embodies all the foregoing.

On the margin of the last of these depositions there is a note drawing attention to what was said by Benito concerning the widow of La Guardia, which shows that the inquisitors do not intend that this piece of chance information shall be wasted.

Acting no doubt upon the report of the spy, and having at last obtained information upon which they could go to work, the inquisitors, Villada and Lopes, accompanied by their notary, pay Yucé Franco a surprise visit in his cell on the morning of Saturday, April 9. Having obtained his ratification of what he has already deponed at Segovia and in this prison of Avila, they draw from him by vague and subtle questionings the following additions to those admissions:

About three years ago he was told by a Hebrew physician, named Yucé Tazarte, since deceased, that the latter had begged Benito Garcia to obtain him a consecrated wafer, and that Benito had stolen the keys of the church of La Guardia and so contrived to obtain a Host; that in consequence of that theft, Benito was arrested—upon suspicion, we suppose—two years ago last Christmas (i.e. 1488), and detained in prison for two days.

Tazarte told Yucé that the wafer was required “to make a cord with certain knots,” which cord, together with a letter, Tazarte gave the witness for delivery to the Rabbi Peres of Toledo, with which request Yucé had complied.

But beyond this, he adds, he has no knowledge of what became of the Host, nor did Tazarte tell him; and that not only Tazarte, but also Benito Garcia, Mosé Franco—his own brother, since deceased—and Alonso Franco of La Guardia, were mixed up in the affair, according to what had been related by Mosé to his wife Jamila. In this last particular he presently corrected himself: it was not, he says upon reflection, to Jamila that Mosé had related this, but to Yucé himself.

It is a curious statement, and would no doubt be made in answer to the trend of the questions set him as to what he knew of a certain Host that had been used for purposes of magic. And there is reason to believe that—as we shall see presently—Yucé was deliberately lying, in the hope of putting the inquisitors off the scent of the real affair.

But it is noteworthy that in this, as in other depositions, he is careful to betray no Jews whom his evidence can hurt. His brother and Tazarte are dead; Alonso and Benito Garcia are already under arrest, and the latter has admitted to Yucé that he has already said enough to burn him. Moreover, they are Christians—having received baptism—and their betrayal cannot be to Yucé as serious a matter as would that of a faithful Jew. Particularly is this emphasized by his retraction of what he had said concerning the slight connection of his sister-in-law Jamila with the affair, having perhaps bethought him that even so little might incriminate her—as undoubtedly it would have done.

The inquisitors withdraw, obviously dissatisfied, and later on that same day they order Yucé to be brought before them in the audience-chamber. There they recommence their questions, and they succeed in extracting from him a considerable portion of what passed between him and Benito in prison—matters of which, beyond all doubt, they would be already fully informed.

Twice on the following day, which was Sunday, was he haled before their Reverend Paternities. At the first audience his statement of yesterday is read over to him, and when he has ratified it he is again pressed with stealthy questions to add a little more of what passed in those conversations with Benito. But in the course of the second examination on that Sunday, Yucé is at last induced or betrayed into supplying the inquisitors with information nearer their requirements.

He says that four years ago he was told by his brother Mosé that the latter, with Tazarte, Alonso Franco, Juan Franco, Garcia Franco, and Benito Garcia had obtained a consecrated wafer, and that by certain incantations they were to contrive that the justice of the Christians and the inquisitors should not have power to touch them. Mosé invited him to join in the affair, but he refused to do so, having no inclination, and being, moreover, on his way to Murcia at the time. And he knows, from what Mosé told him, that about two years ago the same men repeated the same enchantment with the same Host.188

We do not know whether Yucé is now left in peace for a whole month, but we cannot suppose it. And we have to explain the absence of any report of an examination during that period by the assumption that whatever examinations did take place were entirely fruitless and brought no fresh particulars to light. As the dossier does not anywhere contain a single record of a fruitless examination, this assumption—although we admit its negative character—does not seem unreasonable.

Anyway, on May 7 it is Yucé himself who begs to be taken before the inquisitors to tell them that he remembers having asked Mosé where he and his associates assembled to do what they did, so that the wives of the latter—who were Christian women—should have no knowledge of the affair, and Mosé had answered him that they assembled in the caves between Dosbarrios and La Guardia, on the road to Ocaña.189

It is difficult to suppose such a statement to be entirely spontaneous as following upon depositions made a month earlier. Much rather does it appear to be the result of some fruitless questionings such as we suggest may have taken place in the interval. Similarly we assume that the examinations steadily continue, but another month passes before we get the next recorded one, and this—on June 9190—contains a really important admission.

He says that he doesn’t remember whether he has mentioned that some four years ago, being ill at Tenbleque and the physician Tazarte having come to bleed him, he overheard a conversation between his brother and Tazarte, from which he learnt that the latter, together with the Francos of La Guardia, had performed an enchantment with a Host and the heart of a Christian boy, by virtue of which the inquisitors could take no proceedings against them in any way, or, if they did, the inquisitors themselves would die.

His statement that he doesn’t remember whether he had mentioned a matter of so grave a character is either a foolish attempt to simulate guilelessness, or else, in itself, it suggests a bewildered state of mind resulting from the multiplication of examinations in which this matter of the heart of a Christian boy—contained, as we know, in Guevára’s indictment—has been persistently thrust forward.

He is asked whether he heard tell whence they procured the Host, and where they killed the boy to obtain the heart. But he denies having overheard anything, or having otherwise obtained any knowledge of these particulars.

We have seen Eymeric’s prescription for visiting a prisoner and assuring him that the inquisitors will pardon him if he makes a frank and full confession of his crime and of all that is known to him of the crimes of others. Although it is not positively indicated, there is reason to suppose from what follows that this course was now being pursued in the case of Yucé Franco. To play the part of the necessary mediator, the inquisitors have at hand the gaoler who must have been on friendly terms with the prisoner, having contrived for him a means of communication with Benito at the time when the latter had occupied the cell immediately beneath Yucé’s. That Benito no longer occupies this cell may safely be assumed; for having served his turn, he would of course be removed again.

Whatever the steps that were taken to bring it about, on July 19—a little over a year after his arrest—Yucé is brought before Villada and Lopes,191 at his own request, for the purpose of making certain additions to what he has already deponed.

He begins by begging their Paternities to forgive him for not having earlier confessed all that he knew, protesting that such is now his intention, provided that they will pass him their word assuring him of pardon and immunity for himself and his father for all errors committed.192

It certainly seems that without previous assurance that some such consideration was intended towards him, he would never have ventured to prefer a request of this nature, at once incriminating—since it admitted his possession of knowledge hitherto withheld—and impudent in its assumption that such information would be purchased at the price he named.

The inquisitors benignly answered him that they agreed to do so upon the understanding that in all he should tell them the entire truth, and they warned him that they would soon be able more or less to perceive whether he was telling the truth.193

(This pretence of being already fully informed is the ruse counselled by Eymeric to persuade the person under examination of the futility of resorting to subterfuge.)

Reassured by this answer, and deluded no doubt by the apparent promise of pardon conditional upon a full confession, Yucé begins by offering, as an apology for his past silence upon the matters he is about to relate, the statement that this has been due to an oath which he swore not to divulge anything until he should have been in prison for a year.

Thereupon he is sworn in the Jewish manner to speak the entire truth without fraud or evasions or concealment of anything known by him to concern the Holy Office of the Inquisition, and he addresses himself to the task of amplifying and rectifying what he has previously said.

His confession is that once some three years ago he had been in a cave situated a little way back from the road that runs from La Guardia to Dosbarrios, on the right-hand side as you go towards the latter place, and midway between the two villages. There were present, in addition to himself, his father, Ça Franco, his brother Mosé, since deceased, the physician Yucé Tazarte and one David Perejon—both deceased—Benito Garcia, Juan de Ocaña, and the four Francos of La Guardia—Juan, Alonso, Lope, and Garcia.

Alonso Franco had shown him a heart, which he said had been cut out of a Christian boy, and from its condition Yucé judged that this had been lately done. Further, Alonso had shown him a wafer, which he said was consecrated. This wafer and the heart Alonso enclosed together in a wooden box which he delivered to Tazarte, and the latter took these things apart, saying that he went to perform an enchantment so that the inquisitors could not hurt any of them, or, if they attempted to do so, they must themselves go mad and die within a year.

At this point the inquisitors interpolate two questions:

“Does he know whence the Host was obtained?”

“Does he know whether they sacrificed any boy to procure the heart?”

His answer to the first is in the negative—he has no knowledge.

To the second question he replies that he remembers hearing Alonso Franco state that he and some of his brothers crucified a Christian boy whose heart this was.

Resuming his statement, he says that some two years ago all the above-mentioned assembled again between La Guardia and Tenbleque, and that on this occasion it was agreed to send a consecrated wafer to Mosé Abenamias of Zamora, and that such a Host was delivered to Benito Garcia enclosed in parchment tied with red silk. This, Benito was to take to Abenamias, together with a letter which had first been written in Hebrew, but which—lest this should excite suspicion in the event of the letter’s being discovered—was replaced by another one written in Romance.

The interpretation to place upon this seems to be that, doubts having arisen as to the efficacy of the enchantments performed by Tazarte, it was deemed expedient to have recourse to a magician of greater repute, and to send a consecrated wafer to Abenamias in Zamora, that he might accomplish with it the desired sorcery.

The inquisitors press Yucé to say whether he knows if Benito did actually deliver the wafer to Abenamias. He replies that he doesn’t know what Benito did with it; but that he has been told by Benito [in the course of their conversations in the prison of Avila] that he went upon a journey to Santiago, and that in passing through Astorga he was arrested by order of Dr. Villada, who was the provisor there at the time.

As for the heart, he doesn’t know what happened to it; but he believes that it remained in the possession of Tazarte, who performed his enchantments with it.

Questioned as to who was the leading spirit in the affair, he replies that Tazarte invited him together with his father and his brother Mosé, and that they all went together to the cave, whilst he believes that the Christians (i.e. Ocaña, the Francos, and Benito Garcia) and David Perejon from La Guardia were also summoned by Tazarte.

Finally he is asked whether Tazarte received any money for his sorceries, and whether Benito Garcia was paid to convey the Host to Zamora; and he answers that money was given by Alonso Franco to Tazarte, and that Benito too would be paid for his trouble.

From a ratification on the next day (July 20) of a confession made by the octogenarian Ça Franco, it becomes clear that immediately upon dismissing Yucé, his father was introduced into the audience-chamber for examination.

The inquisitors are now possessed of the information that Ça was present in the cave when Alonso Franco produced the heart of a Christian child. Working upon this and upon the other details obtained from Yucé, they would now be able, by a clever parade of these—and a seemingly intentional reticence as to the rest—convincingly to feign the fullest and completest knowledge of the affair. Thus does the “Directorium” enjoin the inquisitor to conduct his examination.

Believing that all is betrayed, and that further concealment will, therefore, be worse than useless, Ça at last speaks out. He not only confirms all that his son has already admitted, but he adds a great deal more. He confesses that he himself, his two sons and the other Jews and Christians mentioned, assembled in a cave on the right-hand side of the road that runs from La Guardia to Dosbarrios, and he says that some of them brought thither a Christian boy who was there crucified upon two timbers rectangularly crossed, to which they bound him. Before proceeding to do this, the boy was stripped by the Christians, who whipped and otherwise vituperated him.

He protests that he, himself, took no part in this beyond being present and witnessing all that was done. Pressed as to what part was taken by his son Yucé, he admits that he saw the latter give the boy a light push or blow.

It is to this mention of Yucé that we owe the inclusion in the present dossier of this extract from Ça’s ratification of his confession, which reveals to us so clearly the method pursued by the tribunal.

Ça is removed, and Yucé is forthwith brought back again. Questions recommence, shaped now upon the further information gained, and betraying enough of the extent of that information to compel Yucé to amplify his admissions.

No doubt they would question him directly upon the matter of the crucifixion of the boy, insisting upon this—now the main charge—and depending upon Yucé’s replies to supply them with further details than they already possess, so as to enable them to probe still deeper.

Unable to persist in denial in the face of so much obvious knowledge on the part of his questioners, Yucé admits having witnessed the actual crucifixion in the cave some three or four years ago. He says (as his father had said) that it was the Christians who crucified the child, and that they whipped him, struck him, spat upon him, and crowned him with thorns.

So far he merely confirms what is already known. But now he adds to the sum of that knowledge. He states that Alonso Franco opened the veins of the boy’s arms and left him to bleed for over half an hour, gathering the blood in a cauldron and a jar; that Juan Franco drew a Bohemian knife (i.e. a curved knife) and thrust it into the boy’s side, and that Garcia Franco took out the heart and sprinkled it with salt.

He admits that all who were present took part in what was done, and he is able to indicate the precise part played by each, with the exception of his father: he doesn’t remember having seen his father do anything beyond just standing there while all this was going on; and Yucé reminds the inquisitors that his father is a very old man of over eighty years of age, whose sight is so feeble that he couldn’t so much as see clearly what was being done.

When the child was dead, he continues, they took him down from the cross. (They untied him, he says.) Juan Franco seized his arms, and Garcia Franco his legs, and thus they bore him out of the cave. Yucé didn’t see where they took him, but he heard Juan Franco and Garcia Franco informing Tazarte that they had buried him in a ravine by the river Escorchon.

The heart remained in the possession of Alonso until their next meeting in the cave, when he gave it, together with the consecrated wafer, to Tazarte.

“Did this,” they ask him, “take place by day or by night?”

“By night,” he answers, “by the light of candles of white wax; and a cloak was hung over the mouth of the cave that the light might not be seen outside.”

He is desired to say when precisely was this; but all that he can answer is that he thinks it was in Lent, just before Easter, three or four years ago.

They ask whether he had heard any rumours of the loss of a child at about that time in that district, and he says that he heard rumours of a child lost in Lillo and another in La Guardia; the latter had gone to a vineyard with his uncle, and had never been seen again. But he adds that, in any case, the Francos came and went between La Guardia and Murcia, and that on one of their journeys they might easily have found a child and carried it off, because they had sardine barrels in their carts, and some of those would be empty—by which he means that they could have concealed the child in one of these barrels.

Urged to give still further details, he protests that he can remember no more at present, but promises to inform the court if he does succeed in recalling anything else.

He is dismissed upon that with an injunction from Dr. Villada—which may have been backed by a promise or a threat—to reflect and to confess all that he knows to be the business of the Holy Office concerning himself or any others.

CHAPTER XXII
THE TRIAL OF YUCÉ FRANCO (Continued)

It is not difficult to conjecture with what fresh energies the court—armed with such information as it now possessed—proceeded to re-examine the other seven prisoners accused of complicity in the crime of La Guardia, pressing each with the particular share he was himself alleged to have borne in the affair, and continuing to play off one accused against another.

It is regrettable that the records of these proceedings should not at present be available, so that all conjecture might be dispensed with in reconstructing step by step this extraordinary case. And it is to be hoped that M. Fidel Fita’s expectations that these records will ultimately be brought to light may come to be realized.

A week later, on July 28, Yucé is again brought into the audience-chamber for further examination. But he has nothing more to add on the subject of the actual crime. All that he has contrived to remember in the interval are scraps of conversation that took place when the culprits assembled—on that later occasion—for the purpose of sending the consecrated wafer to Abenamias. Nevertheless, what he says is, from the point of view of the inquisitors, as damaging to those who uttered the things which he repeats as their actual participation in the crucifixion of the boy, and it is hardly less damaging to Yucé himself, since it shows him to have been a fautor, or abettor of heretics—a circumstance which he may very well entirely have failed to appreciate.

He depones that Alonso Franco had said that the letter they were dispatching to Abenamias was better than the letters and bulls [of indulgence] that came from Rome and were offered for sale. Ocaña agreed by launching an imprecation upon all who should spend money on such bulls, denouncing such things as sheer humbug (todo es burla), and protesting that there is no saviour other than God. But Garcia Franco reproved him with the reminder that it was good policy to buy one now and then, as it gave them the appearance of being good Catholics.

On this same subject of appearances, Alonso grumbled at the trouble to which they were put by the fact of their being married to Old-Christian women who would not even permit the circumcision of their children.

Three days later Yucé has remembered that it was Benito who crowned the child with thorns. He is again questioned as to what he knows about the boy, and he admits having heard Tazarte say that the child was obtained “from a place whence it would never be missed.”

They press him further on the subject, but he can only repeat what he has already said—that as the Francos travel a great deal with their carts, they may have found the boy on one of their journeys.

As no more is to be extracted from him on the subject, they now change the line of examination, and seek information concerning other Judaizing practices of the Francos of La Guardia, asking Yucé what he knows upon this matter.

He answers that about six years ago the Francos, to his own knowledge, kept the Feast of the Tabernacles and gave the beggar Perejon money to buy a trumpet which was to be sounded on the seventh day of the feast, as is proper. He knows, further, that they sit down to meat prepared in the Jewish manner, over which they utter Jewish prayers—the Beraká and the Hamoçi—and that they are believed to have kept the great fast and to give money for the purchase of oil for the synagogue.194

Asked further to explain the oath of secrecy which he says was imposed upon him and to which he has said that his past silence has been due, he states that all were solemnly sworn by Tazarte that under no circumstances would they utter a word of what was done in the cave between Dosbarrios and La Guardia until they should have been one year in the prison of the Inquisition, and that even should the torture betray them into infidelity to their oath, they must refuse to ratify afterwards, and deny what they might have divulged.

M. Isidore Loeb clung so tenaciously to the theory that the affair of the “Santo Niño” was trumped up by Torquemada that he would not permit his convictions to be shaken by the revelations contained in these records of Yucé’s trial when they came to light. He fastens upon this statement of Yucé’s and denounces such an oath as a flagrant absurdity, concluding thence that here, as elsewhere, Yucé is lying.195

M. Loeb’s criticisms of this dossier are worthy of too much attention to be lightly passed over, and we shall return presently to the consideration of them.

In the meanwhile we may permit ourselves a digression here to consider just this point upon which he bases so much argument for the purpose of proving false the rest of the story.

If we were to agree with M. Loeb that Yucé is lying in this instance, that would still prove nothing as to the rest—and it would be very far from proving that Torquemada is the inventor of the whole affair. Assuming that this tale of an oath of silence to endure for one year after arrest is a falsehood, it may very well be urged that it is employed by Yucé in the hope that it will excuse his having hitherto withheld information and that it will induce the inquisitors to deal leniently with him for that same silence. Let it be observed that he prefaces his confession with that excuse at the time of asking the inquisitors to give him an undertaking that they will pardon him if he divulges all that he knows.

But is he really lying?

It seems to us that in arriving at this conclusion, M. Loeb has either overlooked or else not sufficiently weighed the following statement in Yucé’s confession: “Yucé Tazarte ... went to perform an enchantment so that the inquisitors could not hurt any of them, or if they attempted to do so they must, themselves, go mad and die within a year.” This means, of course, within a year of attempting to hurt any of them, which again means within a year of the arrest of any of them.

Now, the fact of our not believing to-day in the efficacy of Tazarte’s incantations and in the power of his magic spells with the heart and the Host to accomplish the things he promised, is no reason to suppose that Tazarte himself was not firmly persuaded that his enchantments would take effect. Indeed, he and his associates must firmly have believed it, or they would never have gone the length of imperilling their lives in so dangerous a business.

Tazarte’s belief was that these sorceries would invest them all with an immunity from inquisitorial persecution, and that should any inquisitors attempt to violate that immunity, such inquisitors must go mad and die within a year of arresting any of Tazarte’s associates. Therefore in the event of arrest, all that would be necessary to procure ultimate deliverance would be stubbornly to withhold from the inquisitors all information on the subject of this enchantment until the period within which it was to work should have expired.

When this is sufficiently considered, it seems to us that such an oath as Yucé says was imposed by Tazarte becomes not only likely but absolutely inevitable. Some such oath must have been imposed to ensure the efficacy of the enchantment in the event of the arrest of any of them.

It is difficult to think that Tazarte was a mere charlatan performing this business with his tongue in his cheek for the sake of the money he could extract from his dupes; difficult, because he was dealing with comparatively poor people, from whom the remuneration to be obtained would be out of all proportion to the risk incurred. But even if we proceed upon that assumption, are we not to conclude that, being a deliberate charlatan, Tazarte would be at great pains to appear sincere and to impose an oath which he must have imposed if he were sincere?

It is rather singular and it seems to ask some explanation, which it is not in our power to afford, that not until now do the inquisitors make any use of that grave admission of Yucé’s to the supposed Rabbi Abraham in Segovia. It is true that it was extremely vague, but in Ça’s admissions of July 19—if not before—they had obtained the connecting link required.

But not until September 16, when they pay Yucé a visit in his cell, do they touch upon the matter. They then ask him whether he recollects having talked when under arrest in Segovia, upon matters concerning the Inquisition, and with whom.

His answer certainly seems to show that even now he has no suspicion that the “Rabbi Abraham” was an emissary of the Holy Office. He says that being sick in prison and believing that he was about to die, he asked the physician who tended him to beg the inquisitors to allow him to be visited by a Jew to pray with him, and his further admissions as to what passed between himself and the “Rabbi” entirely corroborate the depositions of Frey Alonso Enriquez and the physician Antonio de Avila.

The inquisitors ask him to explain the three Hebrew words he used on that occasion: mita, nahar, and Otohays. He replies that they referred to the crucifixion of the boy, as related by him in his confession.196

At this stage it would almost seem to transpire that Benito’s admissions under torture at Astorga, when, as he has said, he admitted enough to burn him, must have been confined to matters concerning the Host found upon him, and that until now he has said nothing about the crucifixion of the boy.

This assumption is one that deepens the mysterious parts of the affair rather than elucidates them, for it leaves us without the faintest indication of how the Fiscal Guevára was able to incorporate in his indictment nine months ago the particulars of “enchantments with the said Host and heart of a Christian boy.”

From what Benito has said to Yucé in prison we might be justified in supposing that the former is the delator; but in view of the turn now taken by the proceedings this supposition seems to become untenable. It is of course possible that the particulars in question may have been wrung out of one of the other prisoners, or it is possible that Benito himself may have confessed and afterwards refused to ratify. But beyond indicating these possibilities we cannot go.

The fact remains that on September 24 the inquisitors found it necessary to put Benito Garcia to torture that they might obtain his evidence relating to the crucifixion.

And on the rack he confesses that he and Yucé Franco and the others crucified a boy in one of the caves on the road to Villapalomas on a cross made of a beam and the axle of a cart lashed together with a rope of hemp; that first they tied the boy to the cross and then nailed his hands and feet to it; and that as the boy was screaming they strangled or stifled him (lo ahogaron); that all was done at night, by the light of a candle which Benito himself had procured from Santa Maria de la Pera; that the mouth of the cave was covered with a cloak, so that the light should not be seen outside; that the boy was whipped with a strap and crowned with thorns—all in mockery and vituperation of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that they took the body away and buried it in a vineyard near Santa Maria de la Pera.197

There are some slight discrepancies between the details of the affair afforded by Benito and those given by Yucé. The latter has not mentioned that the child’s hands and feet were nailed to the cross; according to him they were merely tied. Nor has he said that the boy was strangled; his statement seems to be that the child was bled to death, as a consequence of opening the veins of his arms—a matter which Benito does not mention. But on the score of the strangling, it is possible that by the word employed—ahogaron—Benito merely means that the boy’s cries were stifled, a detail which would be confirmed by Yucé’s statement that the child was gagged.

The prisoners are evidently permitted to learn that Benito has been tortured. Very possibly they are given the information to the end that it may strike terror into them and so induce them to betray themselves without more ado. But it does not seem that they are very greatly frightened by the prospect of having to undergo the same suffering, if we are to judge by Garcia Franco. This prisoner is permitted on the following day (which is Sunday), by contrivance of the Holy Office, to get into communication with Yucé. In the course of their conversation Garcia strongly urges a policy of denial under torture, should they be subjected to it,198 from which it seems plain that he has no notion of the extent to which Yucé’s tongue has been loosened already.

On the following Wednesday it is Juan Franco’s turn to be put to the torture.

Under it he gives a general confirmation of what has already been extracted from the others. He confesses that he and Yucé Franco and the other Christians and Jews crucified a boy in the cave of Carre Ocaña, which is on the right going from La Guardia to Ocaña; that they crucified him on a cross made of two beams of olive-wood lashed together by a rope of hemp; that they whipped him with a rope; and that Yucé was present when the deponent himself cut out the boy’s heart—as is more fully contained in the deponent’s confession (of which, again, this is no more than an extract relating to Yucé’s share in the crime). He states that an enchantment was performed with the heart, so that the Inquisition might not proceed against them.

This confession was duly ratified upon the morrow.199

On the Friday of the same week they torture Juan de Ocaña and extract from him a confession that is, in the main, in agreement with those already obtained. He relates how he and the others crucified a boy in the caves of Carre Ocaña; that they whipped him with ropes when he was crucified; that they cut out his heart and caught his blood in a cauldron; that it was night and that they had a light; and that when they took the body down they buried it near Santa Maria de la Pera, as fully set forth in his confession.200

As a consequence of his having in the course of this confession spoken of the Host that was sent to Zamora for delivery to Abenamias, Ocaña is questioned again—on October 11—touching this particular. He is asked how he knows that this was done. He replies that he heard Alonso Franco and the Jews—i.e. Ça Franco and his sons (Yucé and Mosé), Tazarte and Perejon—say that such was the intention, but he doesn’t know whether the Host was actually delivered or otherwise disposed of.

The persistence with which this apparently trivial question arises—particularly when it is remembered that the inquisitors were, themselves, in possession of the Host found upon Benito at the time of his arrest—leads us to suppose that they were probing to discover whether this consecrated wafer was the identical one dispatched upon the occasion to which the confessions refer. Considering the lapse of time between the dispatch of that wafer and Benito’s arrest, they may reasonably have been concluding that the Host found upon the latter relates to some similar, later affair. Such an impression is confirmed by the fact that no letter—such as was addressed to Abenamias—had been discovered upon Benito.

The question again crops up in an examination to which Yucé is submitted on that same day.

“Did any of the Jews or Christians,” he is asked, “go to Zamora to Abenamias in this matter?”

He answers precisely as he has answered before: that he doesn’t know what became of the Host beyond the fact that he saw them dispatching it together with a letter to the said Abenamias, as deponed, and that all were present when this took place.

They seek to learn who was the instigator of the affair, but Yucé cannot answer with certainty on that point. What he knows he tells them—that Tazarte meeting him when he was on his way to Murcia, the physician asked him would he join in a matter to be performed with a consecrated wafer to ensure that the Inquisition could not harm the Christians in question. Before they met to crucify the boy, Tazarte told the deponent and his brother Mosé that he had arranged for it; and although Yucé protests that he had no inclination to have anything to do with the affair, he and his brother allowed themselves in the end to be persuaded to be present, and they went with Tazarte that same night to the cave. There they were joined by the Christians, who brought the child with them.

So far, it will be seen, the evidence collected from Yucé’s fellow-prisoners, whilst admitting that he had been present in the cave when the boy was crucified—an admission in itself grave enough and quite sufficient to procure his being abandoned to the secular arm—did not charge him with any active participation in the proceedings. In his own depositions Yucé had insisted that he and his father had been no more than spectators and that they had gone to the cave more or less in ignorance, as if hardly understanding what they were to witness.

Moreover before relating the happenings in that cave of Carre Ocaña, Yucé had made a sort of bargain with the inquisitors that his confession should not be used against himself or his father. And it is noteworthy that the other Jews whom he incriminated were all dead, and that he suppressed the name of the only surviving Jew—Hernando de Ribera—who had taken part in the affair. Of betraying the New-Christians he would, as we have already said, have less concern, as these by their apostasy must have become more or less contemptible in the sight of a faithful Jew.

Whether the inquisitors conceived that in view of his passivity in the matter, combined with the promise they had made him before obtaining his confession, they were not justified in proceeding to extremes with him, we do not know. It is difficult to suppose any such hesitation on their part. Whatever their object, it is fairly clear that they did not account themselves satisfied yet, and for the purpose of probing this matter to the very bottom they now adopted a fresh method of procedure which appears particularly to aim at the further incrimination of Yucé.

Just as the court was in the habit of suppressing evidence entirely or in part, or the names of witnesses, when this course best served its purposes, so, when the depositions were obtained from co-accused, there must obviously come a moment when the publication of the evidence and of the witnesses by confrontation must further the aims of the tribunal.

The anger aroused in each prisoner by the discovery that his betrayer is one of his associates must spur him to reprisals, and drive him to admit anything he may hitherto have concealed. There is, of course, the danger that he may be urged to embark upon inventions to damage in his turn the man who has destroyed him. But inquisitorial justice was not deterred by any such consideration. Pegna—as we have seen—tells us plainly enough that the point of view of the Holy Office was that it was better that an innocent man should perish than that a guilty one should escape.

In pursuit of this policy, then, Benito Garcia is brought before the inquisitors on October 12, and he is asked whether in the matter of the crucifixion and the Host he will repeat in the presence of any of the participators in the crime what he has already deponed. He replies in the affirmative. Thereupon he is taken out. Yucé Franco is introduced and asked the same question with the same result. Benito is brought in again, and, the two being confronted, each repeats in the presence of the other the confession he has already made.

They are now asked whether they will repeat these statements once more, in the presence of Juan de Ocaña, and they announce themselves ready to do so. They are removed. Ocaña is introduced, and having similarly obtained his agreement to repeat before others whom he has accused of complicity what he has already confessed, the inquisitors order the other two to be brought back.

The notary records that they actually manifest pleasure at seeing one another.

Ocaña now repeats his confession, and Yucé and Benito again go over theirs. The three agree one with the other, and it is now further elicited that it was six months after the crucifixion, more or less, when they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia to give Benito the letter and the Host which he was to convey to Abenamias in Zamora.

On October 17 there is another confrontation—of Juan Franco with Ça and Yucé Franco. In this each repeats what he has already confessed, which we now learn for the first time. Juan Franco admits that it was he himself who opened the boy’s side and took out his heart, and in this as in other particulars the depositions agree one with another.

Juan Franco goes on to say that they next met in the cave some time after the crucifixion, and that his brother Alonso brought the heart and the Host in a box which he gave to Tazarte, who withdrew with them to a corner of the cave to carry out his enchantments. Later on they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia—at a place which, according to this witness, was called Sorrostros—and gave Benito a letter to take to Zamora, this letter being tied with a coloured thread.

So far he is completely in accord with the other deponents; but now there occurs a startling discrepancy. He says that at this last meeting (which, we are told, took place some six months after the crucifixion), in addition to the consecrated wafer and the letter for Abenamias, they also gave Benito the heart to take to Zamora.

Now all the other depositions lead us to suppose that the heart and the first wafer were employed—presumably consumed in some way—by Tazarte in the enchantment performed at the first meeting after the crucifixion, and that as doubts afterwards arose touching the efficacy of the spells performed by the physician, another Host was obtained some six months later, which they forwarded to Zamora.

Is the explanation the simple one that Juan Franco is mistaken on the subject of the heart? It seems possible, because he adds that he did not actually see the Host (on this particular occasion), but that he understood that it was given to Benito. Similarly he may have understood—erroneously taking it for granted—that the heart accompanied it.

And now you may see the confrontation bearing fruit, and yielding the results which we must suppose are sought by the inquisitors—the further incrimination of Yucé Franco.

Juan de Ocaña is examined again on October 20 and questioned as to Yucé’s participation in the crime. He now adds to his former confession that Yucé and the others used great vituperations to the child, which vituperations were really aimed at Jesus Christ; he cites the expressions, and in the main they are those we have already quoted from the Testimonio201; these, he says, were used by Ça Franco and his two sons. He says that they all whipped the boy, and that it was Yucé himself who drew blood from the arms of the victim with a knife.

“Whence was the child?” they ask him.

He replies that it was the dead Jew Mosé Franco who had brought the boy from Quintanar to Tenbleque on a donkey, and that, according to Mosé’s story, he was the son of Alonso Martin of Quintanar.202 From Tenbleque several of them, amongst whom were Yucé and his father, brought him on the donkey to the cave where he was crucified, and it was Yucé who went to summon the brothers Franco of La Guardia, Benito Garcia, and the witness himself.

So that from having been a more or less passive spectator of the scene, Yucé is suddenly—by what we are justified in accounting the vindictiveness of Ocaña—thrust into the position of one of the chief actors, indeed, almost one of the instigators of the crime.

On the same day Benito Garcia is re-examined. His former depositions are read over to him, and he is asked if he has anything to add to them. He has to add, he finds, that Yucé—whom he has hardly mentioned hitherto—had whipped and struck the boy, and that he was an active participant in all that was done, his avowed aim being the destruction of Christianity, which he spoke of as buffoonery and idolatry.

On the morrow Ocaña is brought back to ratify his statements of yesterday. He is asked if he has anything to add that concerns the participation of Yucé, and his answer is so very much in the terms of the latest additions made by Benito that one is left wondering whether, departing from their usual custom, the inquisitors put their questions in a precise and definite form—founded upon what Benito has said—and obtained affirmative replies from Ocaña. For Ocaña, too, remembers that Yucé said that Christianity was all buffoonery and that Christians were idolaters.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE TRIAL OF YUCÉ FRANCO—(Concluded)

It might now be said that, thanks to the patient efforts which the inquisitors themselves have been exerting for close upon a year, the prosecutor is at last furnished with the evidence necessary to support his original charge against Yucé Franco.

To this end he appears before the court on that same October 21, 1491, to present in proof of his denunciation the entire dossier, as taken down by the notary of the tribunal. He begs that Yucé be brought into the audience-chamber to hear the additions which he has to make to the original charge. These additions are the matters lately extracted from Ocaña and Benito Garcia: that Yucé used vituperative words to the child when he was being crucified, and that these vituperations were really aimed at our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Faith; that he struck the boy many times, and that he drew blood from the boy’s arm with a penknife. Wherefore, he begs the inquisitors to abandon the prisoner to the secular arm, as is right and proper.203

He does not, however, add that Yucé’s brother had procured the child, and that Yucé was one of those who brought him to the cave and who summoned the Francos to attend—an omission which shows the credit attached to Ocaña’s statement and its lack of corroboration.

Yucé’s answer is a denial of all that is alleged and added by the Fiscal, the lad protesting that he never did or said anything beyond what he has, himself, confessed.

Guevára, thereupon, petitions the court to permit him to submit his proofs of the matters of which he accuses the prisoner, and the court having accorded him this petition, he puts in as evidence the entire dossier from which we have drawn these pages on the subject.204

Five days later both parties are again before the court, Guevára now petitioning their Reverend Paternities to pass to the publication of witnesses, that the trial may be brought to its conclusion. Dr. Villada announces his readiness to do so, but accords the defendants three days within which to lodge any objection to any of the matter contained in the depositions.

Yucé begs through his advocate that copies be given him of all the depositions of those who were present at the crucifixion, with the name of each hostile witness and a statement of the day, month, year, and place in which anything alleged against him is said to have taken place.

But Guevára immediately objects, urging that in the copies of the depositions to be given defendant, no names shall appear of any of the witnesses who had deponed, and no circumstances shall be included which might enable Yucé to conjecture the names. It seems a purely formal objection; for after the confrontations there have been it appears to serve very little purpose. But some purpose it does serve, because those confrontations after all were limited to Ocaña and Benito, and from the moment that it was not considered necessary to proceed to confrontation with any of the other prisoners it would seem that they had needed no such spur to drive them into depositions hostile to Yucé.

However, the reverend inquisitor replies loftily enough that he will do what justice demands, and he orders the notary to deliver to Yucé copies of all the depositions against him. But from Yucé’s advocate’s plea on October 29—upon the expiry of the three days appointed—it is plain that the particulars claimed have been withheld.

From the fact that the advocate Sanç has drawn up so strong an objection on behalf of his client, it is perfectly clear that even at this date Yucé’s guilt of heresy cannot be considered as established. If that were the case, Sanç, in obedience to the oath imposed upon him when entrusted with the defence, would have been compelled to lay down his brief and withdraw.

Yucé denies all the allegations against him which charge him with having taken any active part in the crucifixion of the boy, and he protests that he is unable properly to defend himself because the copies of the depositions supplied him do not mention time or place of the alleged offences nor yet the names of the witnesses by whom these allegations are made. Upon the assumption, however, that these deponents are Benito Garcia, Juan Franco, and Juan de Ocaña, he proceeds to answer the charges as best he can.

This answer consists of a repudiation of those depositions as inadmissible upon the grounds that they do not agree one with another, and that each refers to a separate circumstance, no two confirming any one particular accusation, and all being contrary to what the same witnesses had stated in confrontation with the defendant, when each had acknowledged that Yucé’s relation of the events was the true one. Hence it is established that on one or the other of these occasions they must have lied, from which it follows that they are perjured and unworthy of faith.

Further, he claims that they may not be admitted as witnesses because they were, themselves, participators in the crime committed. Finally, he declares that their implication of himself is an act of spite and vengeance upon him. It is his full and faithful confession which has placed the inquisitors in possession of the facts of the case and the names of the offenders, and the latter are determined that since they themselves must die, Yucé shall die with them—out of which malice and enmity they have accused him.

Upon these grounds, and insisting that he has told them the utter and complete truth, and that he himself was no more than a witness of the events, and in no way a participator, Yucé bases his defence, and begs that the depositions should cease to weigh against him.205

Guevára’s answer, if it inclines to the grotesque, is quite typical, and is certainly more to the taste of the court.

He denies that the witnesses are inspired by any such animosity as Yucé suggests, and he asserts that they have deponed “with devout zeal of faith, and to deliver their souls from peril.” And amongst these, be it remembered, was Benito Garcia, who conceived that the worst thing he had ever done in his life had been to get himself baptized a Christian, and who continued firm in his resolve to die a Jew at all costs. Only at the very stake itself—as we shall see—did he recant again, that he might earn the mercy of strangulation. Yet Guevára does not hesitate to say—what he must know to be untrue—that these men have confessed “with devout zeal of faith.”

On these grounds Guevára urges that the depositions must be admitted as made in good faith and as proof; and since the said Yucé Franco would not spontaneously confess all that he had done, their Reverend Paternities should put him to the question of torture, as by law prescribed in such circumstances as the present.206

The court agrees with its Fiscal and proceeds to draw up a list of fifteen questions to be put to the accused.207

With this list the inquisitors Villada and Santo Domingo, accompanied by their notary, go down into the prisons of the Inquisition on November 2, and order Yucé Franco to be brought before them.

“Very lovingly and humanely” they admonish him to tell the whole truth of the things known to him that are the business of the Holy Office, and particularly in answer to the questions they have prepared. These questions being summed up amount to the following: Whence was the child that was crucified? Whose child was it? Who brought it to the cave? Who first set on foot this affair?

They promise him that if he makes truthful answer they will use him as mercifully as the law and their consciences permit.

Yucé has cause to mistrust any such promises. His first confession was made three months ago under a promise of pardon, and he has every reason to suppose that it has been the ruin of him.

He says, however, that being in the cave on the occasion when they foregathered there for the enchantment—about fourteen days after the crucifixion—he heard Tazarte inquire whence was the child, and Juan Franco replied before all that it was from a place whence it would never be missed, “as stated in his confession.”

(When last asked this question—at the time of making his confession—he had attributed these words to Tazarte.)

He protests that he can remember no more than he has already confessed.

Their Reverend Paternities deplore his stubbornness. They tell him that since he will not speak the entire truth of what he knows—as they have proof—they must proceed to other measures. They summon Diego Martin, the torturer, and into his hands they deliver the prisoner, with orders to take him to the torture-chamber, strip him naked, and bind him to the escalera—intending, if necessary, to proceed to the water-torture.

This is done, and Yucé is stretched naked and cruelly bound with ropes that bite into his flesh as a foretaste of the garrote by which his torments will commence. The inquisitors enter—possibly after a delay sufficient to allow the mental torture of anticipation to terrorize the patient into a more amenable frame of mind.

Again they admonish him for his own sake to speak what he knows, and they even point out to him that it is his duty as a God-fearing Jew to speak the truth. Again they promise to deal mercifully with him if he will answer their questions fully and truthfully; and lastly they protest that if his blood is shed in the course of what is to follow, or should he suffer any other harm, or mutilation of limb, or even death, the blame must fall entirely upon himself and nowise upon their reverences.

Fully intimidated by this skilful accumulation of terrorizing agents, Yucé implores them to repeat their questions, which he will do his best to answer.

“Whence,” they ask him again, “was the boy who was crucified at La Guardia?”

“Juan Franco,” he replies, “brought him from Toledo.” He adds that Juan Franco announced this before them all, and told them that he had kept the child concealed in La Hos de La Guardia for a day before bringing him to the cave to be crucified.