It was left to him, therefore, to denounce me to the Holy Office as a renegade and an infidel, and this he did one night; it was the night before the day when we should have taken ship.

I was sitting with your mother and her mother in their house at Seville, when six cowled men entered and seized me without a word.

When I prayed to know their purpose they gave no other answer than to hold a crucifix before my eyes.

Then I knew why I was taken, and the women ceased clinging to me and fell back sobbing.

Secretly and silently I was hurried away to the dungeons of the Holy Office, but of all that befell me there I will not stop to tell.
'Twice I was racked, once I was seared with hot irons, thrice I was flogged with wire whips, and all this while I was fed on food such as we should scarcely offer to a dog here in England.