slipping on part of his dress, hurried to arouse him. Unluckily, however, a servant, who had not yet retired to rest, had also heard the knocking, and going to the door, inquired who was there.

"Gente de paz," was the answer, and the man recognizing the voice of the corregidor of the town immediately withdrew bars and bolts, and gave entrance to that functionary, followed by two other magistrates of inferior grade, and a score of well-armed alguazils. Leaving sentries at the door, the party mounted the stairs; and as the master of the house, whose alertness a life of ease and sloth had somewhat impaired, was entering a gallery leading to the Empecinado's apartment, he found himself face to face with the corregidor.

"You are doubtless proceeding to the same quarters as ourselves, Senor Canonigo, although on a different errand probably," said the magistrate with a sarcastic smile, running his eye over the unfortunate churchman's perplexed countenance and scanty attire.

This is a serious matter, senor," added he, resuming his gravity. "You are said to be sheltering a notorious robber and traitor, on whose head a price has been set. Be good enough to accompany me in the search I am about to institute for the outlaw Juan Martin Diez."

And pushing the unlucky canon before them, the party proceeded along the gallery, and stopped at the door of the Empecinado's room. Making a sign to his followers to move silently, the corregidor entered a large apartment, at the further end of which was an alcove where Diez lay sleeping with his pistols and sabre on a chair beside his bed. These were removed by an alguazil; but even then, so great was the terror inspired by the well known strength and desperate courage of the partizan, that, backed as he was by twenty armed men, the corregidor's hand trembled as he laid it on the shoulder of the sleeper. A touch was sufficient to arouse the guerilla; he sprang into a sitting posture and confronted the magistrate.

"In the King's name, Martin Diez, you are my prisoner," said the latter.

"In the name of what King ?" asked the Empecinado, who saw at once that resistance was useless, and that a day of triumph for his enemies

had arrived; "I know of none in Spain at present."

"In the name of King Ferdinand the Seventh," replied the corregidor.

"Vil Afrancesado!" exclaimed Diez, his eyes flashing, and his features assuming so terrible an expression that his captor stepped a pace backward, and looked to his armed retinue as though for protection. "Add not hypocrisy to your treason, but say at once it is by order of the French you commit this base act, unworthy of a true Spaniard."

While this was passing above stairs, and notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, a number of persons had assembled at the door of the Canon's house, attracted by a report which had spread that an important arrest was taking place. The assemblage consisted chiefly of artizans and labourers, a class that almost, without exception, entertained a violent hatred for the French, differing in that respect from some of the higher ranks, of which many individuals had deemed it necessary to their security, or advantageous to their interests, to side with the invaders. Nicolas el Coco was also there. Scarcely had he given information to the corregidor of the Empecinado's arrival in the town, when he began to be agitated by violent fears lest the large reward that had been his stimulus to the treachery should yet escape him, and be grasped by some more powerful hand than his own. Nor were his apprehensions unreasonable, considering the then confused and disorganized state of things in Spain, and the corruption of the new authorities appointed by the French. The corregidor asked him where Diez had alighted, but to this he was unable to reply. The magistrate's suspicions, however, were immediately directed to the canon, whom he knew to be a townsman and friend of the Empecinado, and to his house he forthwith proceeded, as has already been seen. The beggarman, trembling for the price of his villany, stuck close to his skirts, but on arriving at the canon's door, even his avarice was not sufficiently strong to induce him to confront the man whom he had betrayed, and he waited in the street while the capture was effected.

"What's to do neighbours?" said a burly, beetled-browed man, in the garb

"You know as much about it as we do, friend Esteban," replied one of the persons addressed. "It seems they are arresting somebody, but whom I cannot tell you.'

66

Somebody!" reiterated another bystander, "some dozen you mean. Why man, there were near upon thirty alguazils entered the house, armed all of them to the very teeth. It must be something out of the common way to render such a force as that necessary.' "They are there, perhaps, not so much to seize the prey as to hold it when taken," said Esteban. "Mayhap the corregidor has a notion that it cannot be very agreeable to true-hearted Spaniards to see their countrymen and friends thrown into prison, and hung and shot at the command of the French. By the Holy Trinity! we are a craven and degenerate people, or such things would not be."

"Hush! man," said another speakerin alowertone, "such words are dangerous. But yonder is Nunez the alguazil, I will ask him what is going on."

And making his way to the door, he exchanged a few words with one of the men that had been left to guard it, -and returned to Esteban's side.

"He knows not whom they are arresting, but Nicolas the beggar gave the information."

"Nicolas!" exclaimed the butcher, "has that crippled cur turned informer? Nay, then, let him keep clear of me. This very morning I gave him an alms and a bone, but, by the tail of St Anthony's pig, a cudgel shall be his welcome when he next crosses my threshold."

"Where is the hound?" cried another; "'tis but a moment since I saw his ill-omened visage in the crowd."

Before any search could be instituted for the mendicant, the house door was thrown wide open, and the magis trates issued forth, preceding the Empecinado, handcuffed, but preserving his usual commanding gait and stern unquailing countenance, amidst the fixed bayonets of his guards.

"The Empecinado!" exclaimed Esteban the butcher, to whom Diez was personally known.

VOL. LII. NO. CCCXXI.

"You betrayed the Empecinado," said Esteban, placing his heavy foot upon the breast of the prostrate wretch.

"No! Senor, no!" cried the beggar, "'tis false; I told no one of his coming."

You betrayed the Empecinado," repeated the butcher in an unaltered tone, but pressing hard upon the chest of his victim.

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Mercy! Senor," shrieked the unhappy Nicolas, "I betrayed him not, I knew not he was here.'

"The butcher's brow contracted, and he threw the whole weight of his body upon the foot which held down the beggar.

"Liar!" he exclaimed; and a third time he repeated, "You betrayed the Empecinado.”

The blood gushed from the mouth of the traitor.

"Perdon! perdon!" he gurgled in a quenched and broken voice. verdad ! 'tis true!"

"Es

The first sight that on the following morning greeted the eyes of the corregidor of the Burgo de Osma, was the dead body of Nicolas hanging by the neck from a tree opposite his windows. A paper pinned upon his breast was stained by the blood that had flowed from his mouth, but not sufficiently so to prevent the magistrate from reading the following words, "Los Vendedores del Empecinado, Numero Una, Venganza!"

**

The corregidor could not repress a shudder as he turned from the window, and thought who might chance to be Numero Dos.

This daring and significant demonstration, whose authors it was impossible to discover, owing to the fidelity with which the secret was kept, alarmed the authorities, and their first care was to send off to the village of San Esteban de Gormaz, where the nearest French detachment, consisting of three hundred infantry, was quartered, in order to obtain a sufficient guard for the important prisoner that had been made. These troops immediately marched to the Burgo de Osma; and as the intelligence of the Empecinado's capture spread, other parties, both of infantry and cavalry, kept pouring in, until in a very short time nearly three thousand men, commanded by a brigadier-general, were assembled in the town. The Empecinado having been arrested by the Spanish authorities, it was thought proper to go through the formalities of trying him by a civil tribunal, instead of subjecting him to the more summary operation of a ten minutes' shrift and a dozen musket balls, which would have been his lot had the French themselves been his captors. Accordingly the corregidor was charged to get all ready for the trial, and to collect the necessary witnesses to prove the murders and robberies of which the Empecinado was accused; for the French had throughout affected to consider him as a mere bandit and highwayman, and as such not entitled to the treatment or privileges of a prisoner of war.

The room in the town prison in which Diez had been placed, was a small stone-floored cell, damp and cold, which the jailer, anxious to curry

ters.

One morning shortly after his incarceration, the Empecinado was lying on his straw bed, and reflecting on the circumstances of his position, which might well have been deemed desperate. But Martin Diez possessed, in addition to that headlong courage which prompted him to despise all dangers, however great the odds against him, other qualities not less precious. These were, an unparalleled degree of fortitude, and a strength of mind that enabled him to bear up against sufferings and misfortune that would have reduced most men to despondency. However abandoned by friends and shackled in his own resources, he never allowed himself to despair; and it was this heroic spirit, added to great confidence in his physical energies, that, fifteen years later, when he was led out to execution, prompted the most daring attempt ever made by a prisoner to escape, naked and weaponless, from a numerous and wellarmed guard.

To break out of the prison where he now was, certainly appeared no easy matter, and a sum in gold that he had on his person when he entered the town, having been taken from him, he could have no hopes of corrupting the jailer. While ruminating on the means of communicating with his friends without, he heard his name

pronounced in a distinct but cautious whisper, and, turning his eyes to the only quarter whence such a sound could come, he beheld the grated window nearly blocked up by the head of a man, who was gazing at him through the bars.

"Martin Diez," said the stranger, perceiving that he had attracted his attention; "dost thou not know me?"

The Empecinado arose, and, approaching the window, recognised the features of a certain shoemaker named Cambea, a native of Aranda, and who had served with him in the war of '92. He had been thrown into jail for some offence which was, however, of so trifling a nature, that he was not confined to a cell in the daytime, but had the run of the prison, and even worked at his trade by the connivance of the jailer. Having learned that the Empecinado was a prisoner, he watched an opportunity to visit him, and now offered to do all in his power to aid in his escape.

The risk of discovery was too great for Cambea to remain long in conference with the guerilla. A few sentences, however, were exchanged, and he then went away, but returned the same afternoon, and with a lump of wax contrived to take an impression of the lock on the Empecinado's dungeon-door, in order to get a key made by a friend he had in the town, who by trade was a locksmith.

Two days elapsed without his reappearance, and Diez began to fear that their communication had been discovered, and Cambea subjected to stricter confinement, when the door of the cell gently opened, and the shoemaker entered, a key in his hand, and his face radiant with satisfaction. This difficulty being overcome, their plans were soon arranged, and it was agreed that on the following Sunday, while mass was celebrating, the grand attempt should be made.

The day arrived, and at ten in the morning the wife and daughter of the jailer, their servant and the turnkey, having gone to church, the prison remained silent and deserted, except by the prisoners and the jailer himself, who was shut up in his apartment. Without losing a moment, and with the greatest silence and caution, Cambea repaired to the Empecinado's dungeon, and arming him with one of the knives he used for cutting leather, took

him upon his shoulders, and in that manner carried him to the door of the jailer's room.

The alcayde, or jailer, was lolling in a large well-stuffed arm-chair, and opposite to him was seated the lawyer appointed to conduct Diez's prosecution. On a small table between them were placed glasses and a dusty cobweb-covered bottle, with the contents of which the two worthies were solacing themselves, while they discussed the all-absorbing topic of the day, the trial of the Empecinado, and its probable, or rather certain result. As glass after glass was emptied of the oily old Xeres wine, the lawyer rehearsed his speech, the jailer found guilty, and passed sentence, until, step by step, and before the bottle was out, the Empecinado had, in imagination, and somewhat prematurely, been condemned, placed in capilla, confessed, and led out to execution. Just as the lawyer was conjecturing how he would look with the rope round his neck, some one tapped at the door.

"Adelante!" cried the jailer, and Cambea made his appearance.

"Senor Alcayde," said be, "the corregidor is at the prison-gate, and desires to speak with you."

Putting on one side the bottle and glasses, the jailer hurried to receive the chief magistrate of the town, but as he passed through the door behind which the Empecinado was concealed, the latter made a sort of buck leap, with his fetters upon his feet, and grappled him like a tiger, seizing him by the hair with his left hand, and with his right clutching his throat so as nearly to strangle him. At the same time Cambea threw himself upon the lawyer, whose head he muffled in his own cloak, and then, taking him up in his arms, carried him bodily to the Empecinado's cell, and there locked him in. Then returning to the assistance of Diez, they tied the jailer's hands, and, putting a gag in his mouth, placed him also in the dungeon, The next thing to be done was to rid the Empecinado of his manacles, which was soon accomplished by means of riveting tools found in the jailer's

room.

But they had as yet only surmounted a part of their difficulties, and much remained to be done before they could consider themselves in safety. It is true, they had the keys, and could un

lock the door and walk out of the prison, but the streets were swarming with French soldiers, through whom they would have to run the gauntlet before getting out of the town. To do this with less chance of detection, they returned to the dungeon, and, taking the clothes off its present inmates, put them on themselves. Cambea took possession of the lawyer's three-cornered hat, and Diez of that of the alcayde, and then arranging their cloaks in such a manner as to conceal the greater part of their faces, they walked out of the principal gate of the prison, carefully shutting it after them, and passing unsuspected through the French soldiers on guard. Fortunately, as it was the hour of high mass, all the town's-people were in the church, and the French took no notice of the two fugitives as they walked through the streets with grave and deliberate pace, studiously avoiding any appearance of haste, lest it might lead to detection.

In this manner they had nearly got out of the town, when they perceived an orderly dragoon holding two horses, saddled and bridled, at the door of a house, apparently waiting for some

officer of rank who was about to take a ride. The Empecinado had found in a pocket of his borrowed garments a box, full of that excessively fine and pungent snuff, called in Spain the Encarnado de los frayles. Emptying the contents into his hand, he walked up to the soldier, and asked to be directed to the quarters of the general commanding. While the man answering him, Diez threw the snuff in his face and eyes, and, opening his cloak, gave him a buffet that stretched him, stunned and blinded, upon the ground. Then, seizing his drawn sword, he sprang upon the officer's horse, and Cambea mounting that of the dragoon, they succeeded in passing the town-gate unchallenged.

was

They had not been clear of the town five minutes, when they heard trumpets sounding and drums beating to arms, and soon the road in their rear was covered with light cavalry in hot pursuit. But their horses were good, the start they had was sufficient, and they speedily reached the mountains. Three days afterwards the Empecinado had rejoined Mariano Fuentes, and was again at the head of his band.