"To the prison—ah! To the prison—ah!"
There was no help for it.
The watchman, who had approached at the sound of the first ah's, led them off to the town prison, in attendance on his worthy chief, while the neighbors watched the scene from behind their window-panes in mingled compassion and derision.
Don Roque exercised his authority by locking the door of the dovecot himself, and handed the key over to Marcones, and with the usual "Proceed," they continued their perilous course. The mayor and his aide-de-camp had not gone very far when, in one of the narrowest and dirtiest streets, they espied a man's figure cautiously approaching a door, which he tried to open.
"Stop!" whispered Don Roque in the ear of his subordinate. "There is one of the thieves."
The official only caught the last word, but it was enough to make him drop his gun.
"Don't tremble, Marcones, for there is only one," said the mayor, seizing him by the arm.
If the venerable Marcones had been at that moment in full possession of his faculties of observation, he might have detected a decided tendency to a convulsive movement in the hand of his chief. The thief, hearing the steps of the patrol, suddenly turned his head and stood motionless, with his hand still on the door-handle. Don Roque and his companion also stood motionless, and the moon appearing from under a cloud shed its light upon the direful scene.
"Hsh! hsh! friend," said the magistrate at the end of some time, without advancing a step.
The robber heard this exclamation of authority, and took flight at one and the same moment.