ped.

"Very well," I said. "The papers shall be surrendered. Let my steward,
Diego Martinez, come to me here, and he shall receive my instructions
to deliver the chests containing them to my wife, that she in turn may
deliver them to the King."

He withdrew, well pleased. No doubt he would take great credit to
himself for this. Within three days, such haste did they make, my
faithful steward stood before me in my prison at Turruegano.

You conceive the despair that had overwhelmed me after giving my
consent, the consciousness that it was my life I was surrendering with
those papers,--that without them I should be utterly defenceless. But
in the three days that were sped I had been thinking, and not quite in
vain.

Martinez left me with precise instructions, as a result of which those
two iron-bound chests, locked and sealed, were delivered, together
with the keys, to the royal confessor. Martinez was asked what they
contained.

"I do not know," he answered. "My orders are merely to deliver them."

I can conceive the King's relief and joy in his conviction that thus had
he drawn my teeth, that betide now what might, I could never defend or
justify myself. The immediate sequel took me by surprise. We were at
the end of '85, and my health was suffering from my confinement and
its privations. And now my captivity was mitigated. My wife Juana even
succeeded in obtaining permission that I should be taken home to Madrid,
and there for fourteen months I enjoyed a half liberty, and received the
visits of my old friends, among whom were numbered most of the members
of the Court.

I imagined at first that since my teeth were drawn the King despised me,
and intended nothing further. But I was soon to be disillusioned on that
score. It began with the arrest of Martinez on a charge of complicity in
the murder of Escovedo. And then one day I was again arrested, without
warning, and carried off for a while to the fortress of Pinto. Thence
I was brought back in close captivity to Madrid, and there I learnt at
last what had been stirring.

In the previous summer King Philip had gone into Aragon to preside
over the Cortes, and Vasquez, who had gone with him, had seized
the opportunity to examine the ensign Enriquez, who had, meanwhile,
denounced himself of complicity in the murder of Escovedo. Enriquez made
a full confession--turned accuser under a promise of full pardon
for himself and charged Mesa, Rubio, and my steward Martin