“At once,” I said to myself—­“at once.  If I exaggerate, if the danger be not so pressing as I fear, he is just the man to tell me; but, first of all, I will go into my room and destroy this confounded letter.  The posadero did not see it.  All that he can say is—­”

“In the king’s name!” exclaimed a rough voice behind me; and a heavy hand was laid on my arm.

Turning sharply round, I found myself confronted by an officer of police and four alguazils, all armed to the teeth.

“I arrest you in the king’s name,” repeated the officer.

“On what charge?” I asked.

“Treason.  Giving aid and comfort to the king’s enemies, and acting as a medium of communication between rebels against his authority.”

“Very well; I am ready to accompany you,” I said, seeing that, for the moment at least, resistance and escape were equally out of the question; “but the charge is false.”

“That I have nothing to do with.  The case is one for the military tribunal.  Before we go I must search your room.”

He did so, and, except my passport, found nothing whatever of a documentary, much less of a compromising character.  He then searched me, and took possession of Zamorra’s unlucky letter to Ulloa and my memorandum-book, in which, however, there were merely a few commonplace notes and scientific jottings.

This done he placed two of his alguazils on either side of me, telling them to run me through with their bayonets if I attempted to escape, and then, drawing his sword and bringing up the rear, gave the order to march.

As we passed through the gateway I caught sight of the posadero, laughing consumedly, and pointing at me the finger of scorn and triumph.  How sorry I felt that I had not kicked him when I was in the humor and had the opportunity!

CHAPTER IX.

DOOMED TO DIE.

My captors conducted me to a dilapidated building near the Plaza Major, which did duty as a temporary jail, the principal prison of Caracas having been destroyed by the earthquake and left as it fell.  Nevertheless, the room to which I was taken seemed quite strong enough to hold anybody unsupplied with housebreaking implements or less ingenious than Jack Sheppard.  The door was thick and well bolted, the window or grating (for it was, of course, destitute of glass) high and heavily barred, yet not too high to be reached with a little contrivance.  Mounting the single chair (beside a hammock the only furniture the room contained), I gripped the bars with my hands, raised myself up, and looked out.  Below me was a narrow, and, as it might appear, a little-frequented street, at the end of which a sentry was doing his monotonous spell of duty.