"On the 20th of last month you were at Valladolid, two days later at Burgos, and two days later still at Saragossa, urging that a rising should take place there simultaneously with that planned at Berga two months hence in May."
"I have not been at either of those places for three years past. At the dates you mention I was in London; and I warn you that you are giving me information which may prove very compromising for you and those associated with you. I am no Carlist." My protestation was received with fresh symptoms of utter disbelief.
"You were to go to Paris in connection with the funds needed for the enterprise; the two leaders chosen to go with you to receive the money were Tomaso Garcia and Juan Narvaez; and a list of the names of all the leaders in the matter was given to you."
"This is all an absolute blunder," I cried, indignantly. "I know nothing whatever of a jot or tittle of it."
"I warned you not to lie," cried Corpola, sternly. "This is all proved here in black and white under your own name;" and he flourished before me some documents. "This is the charge against you and explain it if you can. Almost directly afterwards our two comrades, Garcia and Narvaez, disappeared; nearly the whole of the men whose names were on that list given to you were arrested at one swoop by the Government; and a secret information in your handwriting together with the original list of the leaders found their way into the hands of the Government. Explain that act of foul treachery if you can"—and his voice almost broke with passion—"or may the Holy Mother have more mercy on you than we will have."
The intense earnestness and passion of the man were a proof of his sincerity, and also of the danger in which I stood. The whole thing was a mad mistake, of course; but that I could prove it in time to stop them taking the steps which I could see they contemplated was far less clear; and for the moment I was nonplussed. Up to that instant I had been so confident the mistake would be discovered that I had felt no misgivings as to the issue. But the sight of Corpola's burning indignation, his obvious conviction. that I was the man who had been guilty of the act which had so moved him, and my intuitive recognition that his fanaticism made him really dangerous, disturbed me now profoundly.
"Speak, man, speak," he cried, stridently, when I stood thinking in silence.
"I can only say what I have said before, that it is all a horrible mistake. I am not the man you think me."
"You are Ferdinand Carbonnell, you have admitted it."
"I am not the Ferdinand Carbonnell you accuse of treachery."