Free The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki Page A

here? What sins have you committed? Confess. Pour out your tears on my breast. What? No reply? Alas, my child, you are wrong. We do not practise interrogation, that is not our method. We allow the guilty party to accuse himself. Such a confession, if somewhat forced, is not without value, especially if the guilty party denounces his accomplices. What? No reply? So much the worse for you! We will have to set you on the right path. Do you know two princesses from Tunis or rather two infamous witches, two execrable vampires, two demons incarnate? You still remain silent. Have the two infantas of Lucifer’s court brought in.’
    At this point my two cousins were led in. They, like me, had their hands tied behind their backs.
    Then the inquisitor continued as follows: ‘Do you recognize them, my son? Still no reply! My dear child, do not be alarmed by what I am going to tell you. We are going to hurt you a little. You see thesetwo boards. Your legs will be placed between them and they will be tied tightly with ropes. Then we will drive these wedges, which you see here, between your legs and they will be hammered into place. At first your feet will swell up, then blood will spurt from your toes and all your toe-nails will drop off. Then the soles of your feet will split open and from them will issue thick gouts of fat and mangled flesh. That will hurt you a great deal. Still you say nothing. But I am only talking of the standard torture so far. All this will make you faint. Here we have bottles filled with various spirits to bring you round again. When you have regained your senses the wedges will be taken away and these bigger ones will be put in their place. At the first hammer blow your knees and calves will break. At the second your legs will split open all the way up and a mixture of marrow and blood will flow out on to the straw. You will not speak? Well then, apply the thumbscrews.’
    The torturers grabbed hold of my legs and fastened them between the boards.
    â€˜Still no reply? Drive in the wedge! Still no reply? Hammers at the ready!’
    At that very moment a gunshot was heard and Emina cried, ‘Oh Muhammad, we are saved! Zoto has come to rescue us!’
    And Zoto and his band did indeed burst in, chased off the torturers and chained the inquisitor up to a ring on one of the walls of the dungeon. The Moorish princesses and I were then untied. The first use they made of their arms when they were freed was to throw themselves into mine. We were prised apart. Zoto told me to mount and ride ahead of the rest and reassured me that he would follow shortly with the two ladies.
    The advance party with which I left consisted of four horsemen. At daybreak we arrived in a very deserted spot, where we found fresh horses. Then we rode up into the high mountains along snow-covered ridges.
    Towards four o’clock in the afternoon we reached some hollows in the rock where we were to pass the night. I was very glad to have got there before nightfall because the view was truly remarkable, especially to someone like myself who had only ever seen the Ardennes and Zeeland. At my feet stretched out the beautiful plain of Granada,which its inhabitants ironically call ‘la nuestra vegilla’. 1 I saw all of it, with its six towns, its forty villages, the tortuous course of the river Genil, its torrents which tumbled down from the Alpujarras mountains, its groves and shady thickets, its buildings, its gardens and its many
quintas
, or farms. I gave myself up to rapt contemplation of so many fine objects which my eyes could embrace all at once, and felt myself falling in love with nature itself. I forgot about my cousins, but they soon arrived on litters borne by horses.
    They sat down on the flagstones in the cave, and when they had rested a little I said to them, ‘Ladies, I have no complaint about the night I spent at the Venta Quemada but I must tell you that it ended in a way which I found most