Jose was obliged to say that he would go and ask my father for
the key. I followed him out of the room.

"Jose, I will go to my father and get the key, while you stay with the
strangers," I said to him. "Give them plenty of wine, and amuse them as
long as you can."

I hurried to my father's room to consult what was to be done; though I
intended not to mention that the key had been asked for till he had come
into the passage, as of course my mother would be very much alarmed at
hearing of it.

I had got him out into the passage, and was mentioning the unwelcome
arrival of the Spaniards in as calm a tone as I could command, when it
struck me that I might prevent his being implicated in the secretion of
the fugitive if I took the whole blame upon myself. I at last told him
of the suspicions the behaviour of the horrid dog had aroused in the
minds of the officers; and entreated him, by every argument I could
think of, to let me manage the affair as best I could.

"They can scarcely inflict any severe punishment on me," I observed,
"while they might drag you off to prison, and leave my mother and
brother and sisters without a protector."

"I must take the consequences of what I have done," he returned. "At
the same time I do not repent having endeavoured to save the poor
fellow. The act was right, and that must be my consolation."

But I was not so easily to be turned aside from my purpose; and at last
he consented to let me take the key, and to use it if driven so to do,
while he remained in his room. I returned, as may be supposed, in no
great hurry to the hall; and as I got close to it I heard, amid the loud
talking of the Spaniards and Jose, who was doing his best to amuse them,
the scratching and snarling of the savage brute at the door.

"My master is incapable of breaking the laws; that I can assure your
Excellencies," I heard Jose say. "If the man you seek is inside there,
he did not put him in, you may depend on it. If you find anything, it
will be a rat or a little mouse, perhaps, for which all this fuss is to
be made."

"What you say may be true, friend; but if the key is not brought we must
break open the door," observed one of the Spaniards. "The dog is not a
pure bloodhound; but he has enough of the race in him to know the
difference between an Indian and a rat."

At last I thought it better to go in with the key. When I reached the
door of the passage, the brute snarled at me savagely, and