THE LIVING SPECTRE
tianity expected of him—had any right to be. Therefore the Viceroy rid himself of an affair that was much the same to him as a basket of nettles by turning Gil Pérez over to the Holy Office—and off he was carried to Santo Domingo and clapped into one of the strongest cells.
Most men, of course, on finding themselves that way in the clutches of the Inquisition, would have had all the insides of them filled with terror; but Gil Pérez, Señor—being, as I have mentioned, an old campaigner—took it all as it came along to him and was not one bit disturbed. He said cheerfully that many times in the course of his soldiering he had been in much worse places; and added that—having a good roof over his head, and quite fair rations, and instead of marching and fighting only to sit at his ease and enjoy himself—he really was getting, for once in his life, as much of clear comfort as any old soldier had a right to expect would come his way. More-over, in his dealings with the Familiars of the Holy Office his conduct was exemplary. He stuck firmly to his assertion that—whatever the devil might have had to do with him—he
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