temptation of such disloyalty. I cannot
forget, Brother Diego, that amongst the letters from the King was one
that said, 'Be not troubled by anything your enemies may do against you.
I shall not abandon you, and be sure their animosity cannot prevail. But
you must understand that it must not be discovered that this death took
place by my order."'

"But if the King were to release you from that command?" he asked.

"When His Majesty in his goodness and generosity sends me a note in his
own hand to say, 'You may confess that it was by my express order that
you contrived the death of Escovedo,' then I shall thankfully account
myself absolved from the silence his service imposes on me."

He looked at me narrowly. He may have suspected that I saw through the
transparent device to ruin me, and that in a sense I mocked him with my
answer.

He withdrew, and for some days nothing further happened. Then the
rigours of my captivity were still further increased. I was allowed
to communicate with no one, and even the alguazil who guarded me was
forbidden, under pain of death, to speak to me.

And in January I was visited by Vasquez, who brought me a letter from
the King, not, indeed, addressed to me and in the terms I had suggested,
but to Vasquez himself, and it ran:

You may tell Antonio Perez from me, and, if necessary, show him this
letter, that he is aware of my knowledge of having ordered him to put
Escovedo to death and of the motives which he told me existed for this
measure; and that as it imports for the satisfaction of my conscience
that it be ascertained whether or not those motives were sufficient, I
order him to state them in the fullest detail, and to advance proof of
what he then alleged to me, which is not unknown to yourself, since I
have clearly imparted it to you. When I shall have seen his answers, and
the reasons he advances, I shall give order that such measures be taken
as may befit.

I, THE KING

You see what a twist he had given to the facts. It was I who had urged
the death of Escovedo; it was I who had advanced reasons which he had
considered sufficient, trusting to my word; and it was because of this
he had consented to give the order. Let me confess so much, let me prove
it, and prove, too, that the motives I had advanced were sound ones, or
I must be destroyed. That was all clear. And that false king held fast
the two trunks of papers that would have given the lie to this atrocious
note of hi