This last was so conclusive an argument that I had of course nothing to reply to it. "Yes, it is Calros; it is Calros," said the crowd at the door.
"It will be as well to have these men shot instantly," continued the alcalde; " if they are not the two pretenders, they are at any rate two of the factious."
"I am by no means certain that they are either one or the other," said a gruff voice. Our glances rested upon the figure who held watch at the door. He had planted the barrel of his musket on the floor, and was leaning his chin against the butt.
"I have been examining this man," he continued, pointing to myself, "and listening whilst he spoke, and it appears to me that after all he may prove an Englishman; he has their very look and voice."
Here the alcalde became violently incensed. "He is no more an Englishman than yourself," he exclaimed; "if he were an Englishman, would he have come in this manner, skulking across the land? Not so I trow. He would have come in a ship."
After a fierce dispute between the alcalde and the guard, it was decided to remove us to Corcuvion, where the head alcalde was to dispose of us as he thought proper.
The head alcalde was a mighty liberal and a worshipper of Jeremy Bentham. "The most universal genius which the world ever produced," he called him. "I am most truly glad to see a countryman of his in these Gothic wildernesses. Stay, I think I see a book in your hand."
Myself: The New Testament.
Alcalde: Why do you carry such a book with you?
Myself: One of my principal motives in visiting Finisterra was to carry this book to that wild place.