Yet that you
should Judaize--that you should be bound in wedlock by the
unclean ties of Judaism--Oh!" The melancholy voice broke off upon
a sob, and Torquemada covered his pale face with his hands--long,
white, emaciated, almost transparent hands. "Pray now, my child,
for grace and strength," he exhorted. "Offer up the little
temporal suffering that may yet be yours in atonement for your
error, and so that your heart be truly contrite and penitent, you
shall deserve salvation from that Divine Mercy which is
boundless. You shall have my prayers, my son. I can do no more.
Take him hence."
On the 6th of February of that year 1481, Seville witnessed the
first Auto de Fe, the sufferers being Diego de Susan, his fellow-
conspirators, and Don Rodrigo de Cardona. The function presented
but little of the ghastly pomp that was soon to distinguish these
proceedings. But the essentials were already present.
In a procession headed by a Dominican bearing aloft the green
Cross of the Inquisition, swathed in a veil of crepe, behind whom
walked two by two the members of the Confraternity of St. Peter
the Martyr, the familiars of the Holy Office, came the condemned,
candle in hand, barefoot, in the ignominious yellow penitential
sack.
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