illa. With a vindictive frown, Tadeo pulled open the student's
cloak, and pointed to his skirtless coat.

"You cannot deny it," he said. "The proof of your guilt is in my
possession. Who is the fellow?"

Geronimo Regato stepped forward and stared in the student's face.

"What!" cried he, "is not that Don Federico, the young advocate, well
known in the coffee-houses as a virulent Exaltado, a determined scoffer,
a propagator of atrocious doctrines?"

"I thought as much," said the Count. "None but such an unprincipled
scoundrel would dare to act the spy in the very palace. Call the guard,
and away with him to prison. Let this man be securely ironed," he added,
to the soldiers who now entered; "and let none have speech of him."

The order was promptly obeyed. A very brief space elapsed before
Federico found himself in a narrow dungeon, stretched on damp straw,
with manacles on hands and feet. In total darkness, and seated
despondingly upon his comfortless couch, the events of the evening
appeared to him like some frightful nightmare. But in vain did he rub
his eyes and try to awake from his imaginary sleep; the terrible reality
forced itself upon him. He thought of Rosaura, the original cause of his
misfortunes, and almost doubted whether she were indeed a woman, or some
demon in angel's form, sent to lure him to destruction. Of Geronimo,
too, he thought with feelings of inexpressible bitterness. He, the
friend in whom he had placed such implicit reliance, to betray him thus;
for his own advantage, doubtless, and to draw his own head out of the
noose! There were none, then, to whom he could now look for succour. The
King was dead; his successor, the apostolical ruler, the partisan and
defender of the Inquisition, whose name, for years past, had been the
rallying-cry of the disaffected, owed his crown to the powerful Tadeo
whom the student had offended and ill treated, whose love he had dared
to cross, whose revenge he must now encounter. Federico felt that his
fate was sealed. Already he heard, in imagination, the clank of
ponderous fetters in the dismal halls of the Inquisition; already he saw
the terrible machines--the screws and weights, the ladder and iron
couch, and felt the burning sulphur, as it was dropped hissing upon his
naked flesh by the masked and pitiless executioner. He thought of
Arguelles, the Divine, whom he had seen an animated corpse, his limbs
crushed and distorted by similar tortures; and in spite