"By what right?" the other repeated with his ill-omened grin; "Viva Cristo! I might, if I thought proper, reply that it was by the right of force, and the reason would be peremptory, I imagine."
"Certainly," the traveller replied sarcastically, "and I presume it is the only one you can invoke."
"Well, you are mistaken, my good sir; I do not invoke it, but arrest you as a spy, convicted of high treason."
"Nonsense, you are mad, señor Coronel. I a traitor and a spy!"
"Señor, for some time past the government of his most gracious Excellency, President Juárez, has had its eye on you; your movements have been watched; we know for what motive you so hurriedly left Veracruz, and with what object you are going to Mexico."
"I am going to Mexico on commercial business, and the President is well aware of the fact, as he himself signed my safe conduct, and the escort that accompanies me was graciously granted me by him, without my having the necessity to ask for it."
"All that is true, señor; our magnanimous President—who always feels a repugnance for rigorous measures—did not wish to have you arrested; he preferred, through consideration for your grey hairs, to leave you means of escape; but your last act of treachery has filled up the measure, and though he has been obliged to force himself to do so, the President recognized the necessity of acting vigorously against you without delay. I was sent after you with orders to arrest you, and this order I now execute."
"And may I know of what treason I am accused?"
"You must know better than anyone else, señor don Andrés de la Cruz, the motives which induced you to give up your own name and assume that of don Antonio de Carrera."
Don Andrés—for such in reality was his name—was startled by this revelation; not that he felt himself guilty, for this change of name had been effected with the assent of the President; but he was confounded by the duplicity of the people who arrested him, and who, for want of better reasons, even played this one to make him fall into an infamous snare, in order to seize on a fortune which they had long coveted.