“Nine o’clock.”
“It lacks an hour,” he cried, trembling nervously. “Sixty minutes. It may be the French have mined this Plazuela de San Felipe where we are, and perhaps in a moment the earth will leap under our feet and open a horrible gulf in which we shall all be buried—all, the victim and the executioners.”
“What victim is that?”
“The unfortunate Candiola. He is shut up in the Torre Nueva.”
In the doorway of the Torre Nueva there were some soldiers, and a faint light illumined the entrance.
“Of course,” I said, “I know that that infamous old man was taken prisoner with some of the French in the orchard of San Diego.”
“His crime is unquestioned. He showed the enemy the passage, known to him alone, from Santa Rosa to his house los Duendes. Besides, there being no lack of proof, the unhappy man has tonight confessed all, in the hope of saving his life.”
“They have condemned him?”
“Yes, the council of war did not discuss it long. Candiola will be shot within an hour. There he is, and here you are. Here am I, Gabriel, captain of the battalion of Las Peñas de San Pedro. These cursed epaulets! Here am I with an order in my pocket which commands me to execute the sentence at ten o’clock at night here in this very place, in the Plazuela de San Felipe, at the foot of the tower. Do you see it? Do you see this order? It is signed by General Saint March.”
I was silent; because I could not think of one word to say to my companion in that terrible hour.
“Courage, my friend!” I cried at last. “You must obey the order!”
Augustine did not hear me. He acted like a madman, and tore himself away from me, only to return a second later, uttering words of desperation, then looking at the tower which, splendid and tall, lifted itself above our heads crying with terror—
“Gabriel, do you not see it? Don’t you see the tower? Don’t you see that it is straight, Gabriel? The tower has been made straight!”
I looked at the tower, and, naturally, the tower was still leaning.
“Gabriel,” said Augustine, “kill me! I do not want to live. No, I will not take life from that man. You must take the order. I, if I live, must run away. I am sick. I will tear off these epaulets, and throw them in the face of General Saint March. No, do not tell me that the Torre Nueva is still leaning. Why, man, do you not see that it is straight? My friend, you deceive me. My heart is pierced as by red-hot steel, and my blood burns within me. I am dying of the pain.”
I was trying to console him, when a white figure entered the plaza by the Calle de Torresecas. On seeing her I trembled, for it was Mariquilla. Augustine did not have time to flee, and the distressed girl embraced him, exclaiming eagerly in her emotion—
“Augustine! Augustine! thank God, I have found you here! How much I love you! When they told me that you were the jailer of my father, I was wild with delight, for I know that you will save him. Those savages of the council have condemned him to death. He to die who has done harm to no one! But God does not wish the innocent to perish, and He has put him in your hands, so that you may let him escape!”
“Oh, my heart’s Mariquilla,” said Augustine, “leave me, I pray you! I don’t wish to see you. Tomorrow—tomorrow we will talk. I love you, too. I am mad for you. Let Saragossa perish, but don’t leave off loving me! They expected me to kill your father.”
“Oh, God, do not say that!” cried the girl. “Thou!”
“No, a thousand times no! Let others punish his treachery.”
“No, it is a lie! My father is not a traitor. Do you also accuse him? I never have believed it. Augustine, it is night. Untie his hands; take off the fetters that hurt his feet. Set him at liberty. No one can see. We will flee. We will hide ourselves in the ruins of our house, there by the cypress where so many times we have seen the spire of the Torre Nueva.”
“Mariquilla, wait a little,” said Montoria, with great agitation. “This cannot be done so. There are many people in the plaza. The soldiers are greatly incensed against the prisoner. Tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow! What do you say? You are laughing at me. Set him at liberty this instant. Augustine, if you do not do it, I shall believe that I have loved the most vile, the most cowardly, the most despicable of men.”
“Mariquilla, God hears us. God knows that I adore you. By Him I swear that I will not stain my hands with the blood of this unhappy man. I will sooner break my sword. But—in the name of God, I tell you also that I cannot set your father at liberty. Mariquilla, Heaven is against us.”
“Augustine, you are deceiving me,” said the girl, anguished and bewildered. “Do you tell me that you will not set him at liberty?”
“Oh, no, I cannot. If God should come in human form to ask of me the freedom of him who sold our heroic peasants, delivered them up to the French sword, I would not do it. It is a supreme duty, in which one cannot fail. The innumerable victims immolated by his treachery, the city surrendered, the national honor outraged, are things which weigh too strongly upon my conscience.”
“My father cannot have done this deed of treachery,” she said, passing at once from grief to an exalted and nervous anger; “these are calumnies of his enemies. They lie who call him traitor, and you, more cruel and more inhuman than all, you lie also! It is not possible that I have loved you! It causes me shame to think of it. You say you will not free him? Then of
