"Anything but this!" he pleaded. "God have mercy on me; anything but this, senor, I beg you. I was to have destroyed it."
"As you will. Then our conference fails. I will call in our seconds and——"
But he did not let me finish, for with a groan of despair he brought the paper out and laid it on the table.
I picked it up, and a glance showed me what a prize it was. The writing was Quesada's, and it gave the route of the drive and actually suggested the place where the abduction could be made—a spot on the road to Buenavista, close to where the bridge crossed the Manzanares on the way to Aravaca, and specified the time, five o'clock; adding the significant note—"Only one aide in carriage, no escort; coachman and footman."
When I had read it he held out his hand for it, dreaming apparently that I should return it; and when I put it in my pocket he threw up his hands with a deep sigh of despair.
"Why was to-morrow chosen instead of the following day?"
"I don't know. There have been several changes."
I stopped to think. I had indeed made a splendid haul, and there was little else Livenza was likely to be able to tell me. There was one question I had yet to answer; but it was certain that he would not know any more than I. What was Sebastian's object in all this? I had thought of the probable solution when I was with Sarita—that he was playing for his own hand and meant to get rid of the young King and to crush the Carlists by one and the same stroke; and to pit myself against a man shrewd enough to conceive such a policy and daring enough to put it to the actual test, seemed like madness. But I had made up my mind to attempt it; and the document I now had in my pocket would be a powerful weapon if only I could see the means to use it shrewdly.
As I stood a minute or two revolving these matters, Livenza was staring at me with the fascinated gaze with which a hunted animal will watch the beast of prey that threatens its life, and at length said—
"Is there anything more. I am not well, senor."