"It is rash to threaten men in whose power you are.

These walls reveal no secrets, and though the town were full of your English pirates, yet would your doom be accomplished; without a possibility of rescue, and without your fate ever becoming known, beyond these four walls.
"Bethink you," he said, "before you compel me to use the means at my disposal; for men have spoken as bravely and as obstinately as you, but they have changed their minds, when they felt their bones cracking under the torture.

We would fain abstain from injuring figures as manly as yours; but, if needs be, we will so reduce them to wrecks that you will envy the veriest cripple who crawls for alms, on the steps of the cathedral here." The boys remained silent, and the inquisitor, with an air of angry impatience, motioned to the men ranged along by the wall to seize their prisoners.
The lads saw that the time for action was come.

Each produced his pistol from his breast, the one leveling his at the head of the grand inquisitor, while the other faced the foremost of those advancing towards them.
"One step nearer," Ned said, "and the two of you are dead men." A silence as of death fell in the chamber.

The judges were too astonished even to rise from their seats, and the familiars paused in their advance.
"You see," Ned said to the grand inquisitor, "that you are not masters of the situation.