her look out at her ease. I complained the first day of this absence of women, which gives the streets of Goa a mournful and deserted appearance; but I was told that on the next day but one I should have an opportunity of seeing on the Plain of St. Lazarus all that was best and brightest in the town. On further inquiries I found that this was the spot where the Auto-da-Fé was held.
"I had been told it was extremely difficult without possessing influence in high quarters to get reserved places, while to secure the ordinary seats you had to wait hours outside. But I was supposed to be a rich man, as I have said, and so everybody sent to offer me places; for these they had the effrontery to ask as much as two or three pagodas at first, but the price diminished the longer I stood out, and eventually I obtained a ticket immediately underneath the Viceroy's box for two rupees.
"The ceremony was fixed for the feast of St. Dominic, the patron Saint of the Inquisition, and I believe that the night before nobody probably except myself went to bed in all Goa. There was nothing but dances, singing and serenading in the streets, and it was plain that, as I had heard said a score of times in the course of the day, something highly agreeable to Goa was to take place on the morrow.
"I had my place reserved in the circular tier of seats which were raised right round the Auto-da-Fé, so that I could enjoy one after the other all the details of the spectacle.
"In the first instance I saw the condemned victims leave their prison; they numbered about two hundred.
"I asked how long the ceremony was to last, as so large a number of sufferers must require at least a week to dispose of. But my neighbour, who was a rich Portuguese merchant of the town, replied with a melancholy shake of the head that the Court of the Inquisition was relaxing in zeal every day, and that amongst all this crowd of heathens and heretics only three were condemned to be burned, the rest having escaped the severer penalties of the Holy Office and being condemned merely to terms of imprisonment—fifteen, ten, five, or two years, some even merely fined, to make a public recantation, and to be present at the punishment of the three poor wretches who had been adjudged worthy of death. I then asked which were the ones destined to the stake; whereupon my obliging informant told me it was perfectly easy to distinguish them, inasmuch as on the long, black gowns they wore they had their portraits standing on burning embers with flames rising all about them and devils dancing in the flames; those who were condemned to imprisonment, instead of flames rising from the hem of the robe to the girdle, had flames descending from the girdle downwards; those whose punishment merely consisted in a recantation and being present at the execution, wore black gowns with white stripes, without any flames either ascending or descending.
"All the condemned were led in the first instance from the prison to the Jesuit church, where they were sternly rebuked and exhorted; after this their sentences were read out to them, though each doubtless knew his fate already, thanks to the gown he had on. Finally, mass duly heard and judgment read, the funeral procession set out for the Plain of St. Lazarus. My spice-dealer had told me quite true, and this time my complaint had been entirely unjustifiable. All that was rich, wealthy, and elegant among the ladies of Goa was assembled there within a space the size of an ordinary bull-ring; the seats were loaded everywhere to breaking-point. In the midst rose the stake with the wood piled about it; the former was triangular and had an iron ring fixed in each face to keep the condemned man in position, and fronting each ring an altar surmounted by a cross, to the end the sufferer might enjoy the happiness of looking upon the Christ till the last moment of his existence.
"We found no small difficulty, my companion and myself, in reaching our places; however, we succeeded at last, entering at the same moment as the condemned, who appeared on the scene of their doom through a door hung with ai black curtain spangled with silver tears.
"Their entrance was greeted with 3 great outburst of chanting, while the ladies began to roll between their fingers magnificent rosaries, some of amber, others of pearl, darting glances the while to right and left from under their half, lifted veils. I think I was recognised for the supposed rich pearl-merchant, for not a few of these flattering looks came my way. It is also true that, being directly
