As we have already said, the crowd, not content with flinging insults, took it into their heads to indulge in brutal treatment of them. One rough youth gave the example by hurling a piece of orange. Many others followed his example, and there fell on the unfortunate prisoners a hailstorm of projectiles, more disgusting, it must be confessed than deadly. However, a cabbage stalk thrown violently, hit Maria in the face and made her lips bleed.

Oh! then the unhappy Don Mariano's fury burst forth, terrible and resistless, as the sea in its moments of tempests, as a volcano in eruption. His athletic figure fell upon the group of loungers nearest him, and he annihilated it with his onslaught, scattering the men on the ground as though they had been made of straw; those who were left on their feet fled without awaiting a second attack. The Señor de Elorza would have made his way through the whole crowd, but meeting with resistance in the serried ranks, he grasped the throat of the first ruffian at hand and would have surely choked him to death, had not the soldiers come to his aid and pushed back the angry father. His wrath then broke out in a storm of frenzied words, which brought the throng to silence.

"Guttersnipes! vile guttersnipes! cowards! beasts!... If they had not prevented me, I would have pulled your tongues out, one at a time.... You have wounded my daughter.... Didn't you know she was my daughter, you rascals! Here you showed your valor, you bullies! why don't you go to Navarra to fight with armed men, instead of attacking the defenceless?... Because you are cowards!... An indecent rabble that ought to be scattered with whips! If there be among you any one worthy of meeting me, let him come out so that I can spit in his face.... Let go of me, let go of me, for God's sake! Let me kill one of these pimps who have wounded my daughter. Let me go, señores, let me go!..."

Don Mariano struggled to tear himself from the arms of the soldiers. The rabble who had fallen back before his attack, seeing him in custody, recovered from their alarm, and crowded back again like basilisks, foaming at the mouth with rage.

"This old coxcomb insults the people!"—"He's a crazy fool!"—"It's a shame for the people to be so insulted!"—"Why don't you kill this knave!"—"Kill him, yes, kill him!"—"Kill him!"—"Kill him!"

And the throng pressed up to the band closer and closer, though slowly, like an ocean of waves swelling and threatening, and would soon have put an end to Don Mariano and the prisoners, had not the lieutenant prevented such an act of barbarism by shouting at the top of his voice,—

"Attention, company—ready—aim!"

Then the swelling waves subsided as by magic. The lieutenant's voice was Neptune's sed motos prestat componere fluctus. The sovereign people turned tail, and saying in their hearts "escape if you can," started to run in all directions, tripping up here, and scrambling to feet again there. And it is reported that His Majesty ran so fast and so far, that in less than three minutes he disappeared from before the guns of the military.

Thanks to this, the prisoners were left in peace until they reached the prison, where they were lodged in a great hall, filthy enough, with a wooden floor, filled with rat-holes in many places. Maria was assigned a separate room, comparatively clean and comfortable.

The hour set for the hearing before the council of war was twelve o'clock; and when the clock struck, the prisoners, perfectly guarded, were transferred to a handsomely decorated salon in the building where it met. The officers composing it were seated behind a long table, covered with red damask trimmed with gold lace, under a velvet canopy which, in other times, before we had the republic, had served to give regality and prestige to the portrait of the king. The presiding officer was the military governor, who was anxious to have done with the business in a rapid and violent manner. He wished to inflict exemplary punishment upon all of the conspirators, or, what is the same thing, "not to leave a mannikin with his head on," to use his own words. He was a chubby man, with great blub-cheeks and a thin mustache: a perfect image of what we, and likewise the Commandant Ramírez, and the lieutenant of the convoy, have already called him. The other officers had absolutely nothing remarkable in their faces: coarse features, black eyes, twisted mustachios, sharp-pointed goatees, commonplace faces, on the whole, though manly. At first sight, it was evident that they wore their togas broad. When the prisoners entered, the doors and the standing-room of the building were invaded by a great crowd, not so rude and low as that of the morning; it was made up of people of more respectability,—students for the most part, hidalgos and officeholders. This throng preserved a thoughtful, compassionate silence at seeing them enter.