"Papa! Don Fausto, papa! They have taken him! Don Ciriaco——"
She could say no more, and would have fallen on her face, but Don Fausto, taking her in his arms, raised her up and saw it was Magdalen. He carried her inside into his wife's room, where she presently recovered sufficiently to give a clear account of what had happened, but it was a long time before Don Fausto could persuade her that her father was in no danger, and would very soon be set at liberty.
Don Alfonso was but little known in the city, and those who did know him had but small respect for him, yet in the then excited state of the public mind, a very slight circumstance was sufficient to create great agitation. Men enquired eagerly one of another who was this Don Alfonso Miranda, and what was the cause of his imprisonment; and when they learned that he was the brother of General Miranda, whose exploits in Venezuela had caused him to be looked upon as the champion of liberty by all Spanish Americans, his crime became clear to them at once—he had dared to devise some scheme for liberating them from Spanish tyranny, and in their eyes he rose to be a hero and a martyr.
Groups of men paraded the Plaza Mayor and the principal streets, as they met they asked one another in loud voices:
"How long shall these things be?"
And as some Spaniard high in office passed them, frowning angrily and chafing within himself at his impotence to put a stop to such disorderly assemblages, they would turn and shout after him as he went:
"Spain has fallen!"
Don Carlos Evaña, strolling through the streets of the city, heard these shouts and smiled to himself:
"The day is at hand."
Marcelino Ponce de Leon, busy at his desk in the office of the Consulado, heard these shouts, and passed his fingers through his curly, black hair, saying resignedly: