They crossed the Puerta del Sol, continued through the Calle Mayor and stopped before the Municipal Police Headquarters. To the left of the causeway, by a narrow stairway, they had to descend to a room with a low ceiling which was lighted by an oil lamp. There were a number of high cots where ten or a dozen guards were asleep in a row, with their clothes and shoes on.
From this room they descended another tiny stairway to a very narrow corridor, one of the sides of which was divided into two cages with huge gratings. Into one of these they thrust Don Alonso and Manuel, locking the gate after them.
A man and a knot of gamins surrounded them curiously.
“This is an outrage,” shouted Don Alonso. “We’ve done nothing that gives them a right to imprison us.”
“Neither did I,” grumbled a young beggar who, according to report, had been caught asking an alms. “Besides, it’s impossible to stay here.”
“What’s the trouble?” asked Manuel.
“One of these fellows has made a mess. He’s sick and naked. They ought to take him to the hospital. He says they’ve robbed him of his clothes. The kids, though, say he gambled them away in the cell.”
“And so he did,” declared one of the ragamuffins. “We were sent up for two weeks. When we left prison, just as we had reached the gate, they grabbed us all again and brought us here.”
By the light from the corridor could be made out, in the rear of that cage, several men on the floor.