"Softly, softly," I said, somewhat taken aback by his
earnestness. "Granted that you are a player, you seem to have
played to small purpose.. Why are you here, my friend, and not in
Madrid?"

He drew up his sleeves, and showed me that his wrists were deeply
scarred.

I shrugged my shoulders. "You have been in the hands of the Holy
Brotherhood?" I said.

"No, my lord," he answered bitterly. "Of the Holy Inquisition."

"You are a Protestant?"

He bowed.

On that I fell to considering him with more attention, but at the
same time with some distrust; reflecting that he was a Spaniard,
and recalling the numberless plots against his Majesty of which
that nation had been guilty. Still, if his tale were true he
deserved support; with a view therefore to testing this I
questioned him farther, and learned that he had for a long time
disguised his opinions, until, opening them in an easy moment to
a fellow servant, he found himself upon the first occasion of
quarrel betrayed to the Fathers. After suffering much, and
giving himself up for lost in their dungeons, he made his escape
in a manner sufficiently remarkable, if I might believe his
story. In the prison with him lay a Moor, for whose exchange
against a Christian taken by the Sallee pirates an order came