"How, nothing?"
"Don Andrés was tried, and as he protested his innocence, in spite of all the efforts of the judges to make him condemn himself, he was subjected to torture."
"To torture!" the hearers exclaimed with a start of horror.
"Yes; this wounded, dying old man was suspended by the thumbs, and received the strappado on two different occasions. In spite of this martyrdom his torturers did not succeed in making him confess the crimes with which they charge him, and of which he is innocent."
"Oh, this surpasses all credence!" don Jaime exclaimed; "And of course the hapless man is dead?"
"Not yet; or, at least, he was not so on my departure from Puebla. He had not even been condemned, for his murderers are in no hurry; time is their own, and they are playing with their victim."
"And Dolores!" doña Carmen exclaimed; "Poor Dolores! How she must suffer!"
"Doña Dolores has disappeared; she has been carried off."
"Disappeared!" don Jaime shouted in a voice of thunder; "And you still live to tell me of it?"
"I did all I could to be killed," he replied simply, "but did not succeed."