V.: Sancho!—Are you making sport of me? Are you trifling with my agony?—But, no, no, you would not be capable of that, impossible.—You are not an ingrate.

S.: Seat yourself, Señor Viceroy, and hear me.

V.: Seat myself?—Good, I obey you—Now, you see—I seat myself.—But you must tell it me.

S.: Listen. Only last night, Señor Viceroy, I told you that Juan de Paredes,—the person who has been recommended to you——

V.: My God! but—and, what has this to do?

S.: If you are not calm——!

V.: Sancho!

S.: If you are not calm, I will say nothing and then you would know nothing, even if you put me to the torture.

V.: Well! well!—I am silent—I listen—What anxiety!

S.: Juan de Paredes, unhappy orphan, entrusted to a friend—very intimate—in fact a second self—the mission of avenging his wrongs upon the person who dishonored his mother, Doña Mencia, and assassinated his father—and this firm friend finally discovered the scoundrel—ah, he was a man of great power!