r," cried he; "if you touch a wrong spring, his neck is
snapped as though it were a maize stalk; and, by San Lorenzo! I think it
would almost be a kindness to do it. The caballero is the first whom ever
heard beg for death, and call upon God and devil to send it him. But,
nevertheless, may the lowermost hell catch me, if I had not a notion that
this manga would never see the inside of old Lorenzo's wallet."

While thus discoursing, this wild executer of the laws had unfettered the
prisoner.

"_Silencio!_" said the alguazil. "You were mistaken. The manga shall be
yours."

"He is to change his clothes then? Will your worship be pleased to give a
helping hand, for it will be a full hour before he gets the use of his
limbs. A damnable shower-bath it is, this inferniello; and for that
matter, so are they all."

It was with no small difficulty that the alguazil accomplished his task of
undressing the prisoner, who seemed more dead than alive, and lay passive
and motionless while he was stripped, first of his manga, then of his
embroidered jacket, and finally of his hose. He seemed to have lost nearly
all sensation; only at times an agonized sigh burst from his over-charged
breast, and was accompanied by a convulsive quivering of the whole body.
His sufferings had evidently been dreadful.

"We will leave him his under garments," said the alcalde, who had
experienced, on trying to remove them, that kind of unconscious resistance
which even persons in a swoon will sometimes make when their instinctive
sense of modesty is wounded. Then, throwing his cloak round the prisoner,
he took him in his arms, and partly bore, partly dragged him out of the
inferniello.

"Is it he?" asked one of the two figures who had remained near the pillar,
raising the cap a little as he spoke.

"It is," muttered the other.

"It is," repeated the alguazil.

"_De pregonero a verdugo_," muttered the executioner; "so says the
proverb, but here things are reversed. Follow me, Senorias--I will lead
you to a place where he shall sleep safely; that is to say if the rats,
whom he will have for companions, will allow him."

The party now disappeared in the windings of a corridor, whence, after a
short absence, the executioner and alguazil again emerged, bringing with
them a young man whose stature, hair, and general appearance, coincided
strongly with those of the prisoner they had just carried away. Like the
latter, the newcomer had a cap drawn over