"If Evaña had been present we might have arrived at some resolution," said Marcelino; "but with these men of the sword it is useless to discuss anything."
"With Evaña it would have been impossible to come to any arrangement with the Spanish officers, and without their concurrence any plan we might devise would most certainly entail a civil war," replied Belgrano.
"We might have striven to conciliate them, but to admit them to our conference was folly," said Marcelino. "What ideas have they but such as Don Ciriaco was bold enough to proclaim?"
"That was absurd; that was nothing but a joke," said Belgrano.
"A joke!" said Marcelino; "I fear me much some of us may find the whole affair something more than a joke."
When Don Ciriaco Asneiros left the conference he walked quietly away to his own quarters, but before sunrise, in the dress of a private soldier, he stood at the bedside of General Nieto.
The following afternoon Don Juan Martin Puyrredon was arrested in his own house and taken to the barracks of the Patricios, where he was placed in solitary confinement, and no one was allowed to visit him.
The news of his arrest spread consternation through the city, and brought sorrow and fear into many a household; to none more than into the household of the Señor Saenz-Valiente, whose wife, Doña Juana, was the sister of Don Juan Martin. That night and the next morning Marshal Liniers was besieged on all sides by applications for him to interfere and procure the release of the prisoner, but to all alike he turned a deaf ear. Even to Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon, who represented to him that he was likely to bring odium upon the rule of the new Viceroy, and so endanger the very existence of Spanish authority, he had but one answer, that the affair was none of his, and that doubtless General Nieto had sufficient reasons for what he had done, and would in due time declare them.
It was about two hours past noon when Don Roderigo left the Viceroy. Instead of going himself to tell Doña Juana of the non-success of his mission, he sought out his son, and commissioned him to tell her of it.
Marcelino found Doña Juana and her sister, with Doña Josefina and Doña Constancia, who had spent all the morning with them, sympathising and encouraging their hopes, though every hour brought intelligence of some fresh failure. When Marcelino announced his message, their last ray of hope vanished, for if Don Roderigo could not prevail upon Marshal Liniers to interfere, they well knew that all other intercession was useless.