CARLISTS
A man does not knock about the world for nothing, and the one or two ugly corners I had had to turn in my time had taught me the value of thinking quickly and keeping my head in a crisis. I looked from one to the other of the men—there were three of them—and asked in a cool and level tone—
"Is either of you gentlemen Colonel Livenza?"
"I am. Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"Considering the rather free use you've been making with my name, Ferdinand Carbonnell, and that I was brought here by someone who called himself your messenger—and, if I'm not mistaken, is now standing beside you—and was left in a locked room yonder, that question strikes me as a little superfluous. Anyway, I shall be glad of an explanation," and I pushed on through the door into the lighted room.
The men made way for me, and the moment I had passed shut and locked the door behind me. I affected to take no heed of this act, suggestive though it was, and turned to Colonel Livenza for his explanation.
He was a dark, handsome fellow enough, somewhere about midway in the thirties; a stalwart, upright, military man, with keen dark eyes, and a somewhat fierce expression—a powerful face, indeed, except for a weak, sensual, and rather brutish mouth, but a very awkward antagonist, no doubt, in any kind of scrimmage. One of the others was he who had met me at the station, and the third was of a very different class; and I thought that if his character paired with his looks, I would rather have him in my pay than among my enemies.
"So you are Ferdinand Carbonnell?" cried the Colonel, after staring at me truculently, and with a gaze that seemed to me to be inspired by deep passion. The note in his voice, too, was distinctly contemptuous. What could have moved him to this passion I could not, of course, for the life of me even guess.
"Yes, I am Ferdinand Carbonnell, and shall be glad to understand the reason of this most extraordinary reception, and of the far more extraordinary blunder which must be at the bottom of it."
"You carry things with a high hand—but that won't serve you. We have brought you here to-night—trapped you here if you prefer it—to make you explain, if you can, your treachery to the Carlist cause, and if you cannot explain it, to take the consequences."