PRIMO FELICIANO VELÁSQUEZ.

to beat him, while they overwhelmed him with insults. They stripped him from the waist up and violently tore away the coarse and rasping cloth which was bound closely to his flesh; they threw a halter about his neck and, in this guise, dragged him to a second oratory where was painted a Magdalene anointing the Lord’s feet. Placing him there before an Indian who, seated in his tribunal, represented Divine Justice, they accused him of being a wicked man, an ingrate, proud, perverter, and false. He replied nothing on the matter to the questions of the judge, but, after a little time, confessed his sins, ingratitude, and faults, in a loud voice. He replied as little to a new accusation, made against him with false witnesses, of the truth of which the judge declared himself convinced, and ordered that they should beat him naked, which they did, thoroughly, until the blood ran down upon the ground from his raw and quivering body. Afterward they kindled splinters of fat pine, with the sizzling resin of which they scorched him from the shoulders to the soles of his feet, and lastly they laid upon him a heavy cross, which he bore in a procession around the enclosure over a bed of glowing coals.