“Did you find the house of Don Simon, Señor Fortescue?” he asked when he saw me.
“Yes, but I did not find him. The house is empty and deserted. What do you mean by sending me on such a fool’s errand?”
“I beg your pardon, señor. You asked me to direct you to Señor Ulloa’s house, and I did so. What could I do more?” And the fellow cringed and smirked, as if it were all a capital joke, till I could hardly refrain from pulling his long nose first and kicking him afterwards, but I listened to the voice of prudence and resisted the impulse.
“You know quite well that I sought Señor Ulloa. Did I not tell you that I had a letter for him? If you were a caballero instead of a wretched posadero, I would chastise your trickery as it deserves. What has become of Señor Ulloa, and how comes it that his house is deserted?”
“Señor Ulloa is dead. He was garroted.”
“Garroted! What for?”
“Treason. There was discovered a compromising correspondence between him and Bolivar. But why ask me? As a friend of Señor Ulloa, you surely know all this?”
“I never was a friend of his—never even saw him! I had merely a letter to him from a common friend. But how happened it that Señor Ulloa, who, I believe, was a correjidor, entered into a correspondence with the arch-traitor?”
“That made it all the worse. He richly deserved his fate. His eldest son, who was privy to the affair, was strangled at the same time as his father; his other children fled, and Señora Ulloa died of grief.”
“Poor woman! No wonder the house is deserted. What a frightful state of things!”