"Yes, your Excellency," replied Asneiros, "I am here; my Andaluces are also close at hand, the Spanish artillery have not left their barracks. It appears that there is some conspiracy against you; I, my Andaluces, and the Spanish artillery all put ourselves under your orders if you grant me at once a favour that I require of you."
"Speak," said Marshal Liniers.
"You have imprisoned an honourable gentleman, Don Marcelino Ponce de Leon; I demand his immediate release."
"He is in the Cabildo," replied Marshal Liniers. "If to-day at sundown I am Viceroy I will set him free."
"A thousand thanks, your Excellency; not to-day only, but many days you will yet see yourself Viceroy."
Then as he turned away Asneiros looked around him, and his eye fell upon Evaña, who, with his drawn sabre in his hand, was talking eagerly with a number of militia officers.
"He here and armed!" said Asneiros to himself; "he then is not of the conspiracy. Fool that I am, I have let myself be deceived by the soft voice of a woman. But it is not too late yet; if I go and shout for the Junta over there Don Martin will set him free for me."
But as he crossed the drawbridge, and looked to where he had left his men, he saw a mounted officer sitting in his saddle in front of them speaking to them. As he ceased, the men took off their round caps and tossed them in the air shouting:
"Viva Don Cornelio!" Then as Don Cornelio, raising his hand for silence, again spoke, they shouted even louder than before:
"Viva el Virey Don Santiago Liniers! Viva!!"