"What matters to me that newspaper or the education of the people?"
"Look you, Don Alfonso, I did not come here to talk nonsense about newspapers or education. If you refuse me your confidence, I cannot help you. Your name is in the list of the suspected, but the head of the conspiracy is this Señor Evaña. Give me all the papers he has given you to keep for him, and I have a promise from the Viceroy that you shall not be molested in any way."
"The Señor Evaña has never given me any paper of his."
"Then I cannot help you at all," said Asneiros, rising from the chair on which he had seated himself. "Sleep well to-night in your own bed, to-morrow night you will sleep in the calabozo."
"Dios mio! Don Ciriaco," said Don Alfonso, seizing him by the arm, "what have I done? Why should they put me in the calabozo? I would not even listen to the Señor Evaña when he wished to speak to me of things."
"You did wrong not to listen, you might have learned something, and your evidence against Evaña would have saved yourself. But perhaps it is not too late, I will give you three days, after that I cannot protect you any longer; you will be arrested, your house searched, and all your effects confiscated."
"But, Don Ciriaco, do not leave me. Why do you say such things? You say there is some conspiracy, if there is I know nothing of it. The Señor Evaña has never spoken of it to me, how can I give evidence against him? Don Baltazar asked me——"
"A conspiracy there is, and we will know all about it very soon. Don Baltazar de Cisneros is not like that Frenchman Liniers, the least punishment the conspirators may expect will be imprisonment and confiscation. Take care of yourself, you do not appear very rich, but everything you have will be confiscated."
Don Alfonso fell back in his chair with a groan.
"I am not a conspirator, and I am very poor. God help me!" he said. "But, Don Ciriaco, you have always been a good friend to me, even yet you may do something for me; even if they put me in prison you will not let them search the house, you will prevent that. Why should they, I have nothing worth the trouble of carrying away."