ez with
complicity, denouncing Martinez as the ringleader of the business. The
other two, Insausti and Bosque, were already dead.

Immediately Vasquez attempted to seize the survivors. But Mesa had gone
to earth in Aragon, and Rubio was with him. Martinez alone remained,
and him they seized and questioned. He remained as cool and master of
himself as he was true and loyal to me. Their threats made no impression
on him. He maintained that the tale was all a lie, begotten of spite,
that I had been Escovedo's best friend, that I had been greatly
afflicted by his death, and that no man could have done more than I to
discover his real murderers. They confronted him with Enriquez, and
the confrontation no whit disturbed him. He handled the traitor
contemptuously as a perjured, suborned witness, a false servant, a man
who, as he proceeded to show, was a scoundrel steeped in crime, whose
word was utterly worthless, and who, no doubt, had been bought to bring
these charges against his sometime master.

The situation, thanks to Martinez's stoutness, had reached a deadlock.
Between the assertions of one man, who was revealed to the judges for a
worthless scoundrel, and the denials of the other, against whom nothing
was known, it was impossible for the court of inquiry to reach any
conclusion. At least another witness must be obtained. And Vasquez
laboured with all his might and arts and wiles to draw Rubio out of
Aragon into the clutches of the justice of Castile. But he laboured in
vain, for I had secretly found the means to instruct my trusty Mesa to
retain the fellow where he was.

In this inconclusive state of things the months dragged on and my
captivity continued. I wrote to Philip, imploring his mercy, complaining
of these unjust delays on the part of Vasquez, which threatened to go
on forever, and begging His Majesty to command the conclusion of the
affair. That was in August of '89. You see how time had sped. All that
came of my appeal was at first an increased rigour of imprisonment, and
then a visit from Vasquez to examine and question me upon the
testimony of Enriquez. As you can imagine, the attempt to lure me into
self-betrayal was completely fruitless. My enemy withdrew, baffled, to
go question my wife, but without any better success.

Nevertheless, Vasquez proclaimed the charge established against myself
and Martinez, and allowed us ten days in which to prepare our answer.
Immediately upon that Don Pedro de Esc