"No, and no horse did it; I had relays about every fifteen miles."
"You travelled post? What did you carry? A despatch for Espartero, or a cartel to Cabrera?"
"Prepare yourself for a surprise, Leon. I carried in my hand the safety of the queen and the regent."
"The safety of the queen and regent! You are not joking, are you? How could you have to ride three hundred miles on such an errand?"
"Well, briefly, Leon, the queen and the queen regent were carried away a hundred and fifty miles, and I brought them back again."
Leon looked seriously at his friend.
"You are not quite well, are you?" he said; "you are a little upset, my dear fellow, about something. You are talking nonsense, you know; the queen has not been out of Madrid. She has been unwell, and her mother has been nursing her."
"So you were led to believe, but the facts are as I have stated. The queen and her mother were seized when driving through the streets of Madrid four days ago. They were placed in a carriage with closed blinds, and were carried to a place some twenty-five miles beyond the Ebro and some thirty miles from Tudela. I followed them with Roper. I had the luck to obtain an interview with her majesty, rode to Tudela, and brought back a squadron of horse, surrounded the house where they were imprisoned, captured all the conspirators, and brought the queen and her mother back to Madrid at one o'clock this morning."
"You seem to be talking sensibly," Leon said, "but I really cannot take in what you say. It's a hundred and thirty miles good to the Ebro, and you say it was twenty-five miles farther; then you rode from there to Tudela and back, a distance of sixty miles, so that you have, in fact, covered some four hundred miles. Where have you slept?"
"I think I slept a little on horseback on the way to Tudela and back, and I have slept since three o'clock this morning, as I was some time at the palace. I have no doubt that in addition I dozed occasionally for some minutes in succession in the saddle during the return journey, and I had a sleep of eight hours in the daytime the day before yesterday; and if you had not come in I dare say I should have had as many more before I woke to-day."