Leckinski, startled, sat up, with eyes scarcely open. Yet he kept his wits about him. 'What do they want with me?' he said, in German.
This was the first 'proof.' Castagnos wished it to be also the last. 'Give the man something to eat,' said he to his men, 'saddle his horse, and let him go on his way. How, if he were a Frenchman, could he be so thoroughly master of himself?'
But his officers refused to obey. They gave food to Leckinski, but did not saddle his horse, and kept him in the prison until morning. Then he was taken to a place where lay the bodies of ten Frenchman, who had been shot by some peasants. He was threatened with a similar fate. But, although surrounded by snares, listened to by straining ears, watched by keen eyes, the brave fellow let slip not a single suspicious word or gesture. At last, after many hours of this mental torture, he was taken back to his prison, and left alone for a time.
Again Castagnos pleaded for his captive, but his high-handed officers were still dissatisfied.
Leckinski, thankful for solitude, after a spell of uncanny visions, the result of the horrors he had actually seen, again found relief in sleep. Again he was disturbed. 'Get up!' said—in French—the same gentle voice that had spoken to him before. 'Come with me! Your horse is saddled, and you are free.'
'What do they want with me?' said Leckinski in German, as he rubbed his eyes.
Castagnos declared that this 'young Russian,' as he called him, was a noble fellow; but the others still persisted that he was a Frenchman and a spy. After another wretched night, the unhappy prisoner was brought before a sort of tribunal, composed of officers of the General's staff. The four men who conducted him thither uttered on the way horrible threats, but, true to his resolution, Leckinski gave no sign of understanding them. He took, apparently, no notice of anything that was said either in French or in Spanish, and, when he came before his judges, asked for an interpreter.
The examination began. The prisoner was asked what was the object of his journey from Madrid to Lisbon. To this he answered by showing his passport and the dispatches of the Russian Ambassador. These credentials would have been sufficient had it not been for the evidence of the peasant.
'Ask him,' ordered the President of the Court, 'if he loves the Spaniards?'
'Yes,' replied Leckinski, when this question was put to him, 'and I honour their devotion. I wish that our two nations were friends.'