This hopeless floundering in the effort to rebut evidence of which the source was so carefully concealed appears still more strongly in the case of Diego de Uceda, in 1528, before the same tribunal, on a charge of Lutheranism, founded on a chance talk with a stranger at Cerezo, while travelling from Burgos to Córdova. The suppression of time and place and of details, in the publication, threw him on a false scent and he imagined the accusation to have arisen from a conversation some nights later at Guadarrama, with the Archpriest of Arjona, and all his energies were wasted on the attempt to prove that the latter talk was blameless, leaving the real testimony against him uncontroverted. It was a game at cross-purposes, in which the inquisitors allowed him to entangle himself hopelessly. Incidentally, the record affords a vivid picture of the agony of suspense endured by the prisoner in his cell during the inevitable delays arising from the method of procedure. He was chamberlain of Fernando de Córdova, clavero or treasurer of the Order of Calatrava; as such he had followed the court, and his witnesses _in abono_ were necessarily scattered. Six months were consumed in finding them and securing their testimony, during which he sought repeated audiences, imploring the inquisitors for the love of God to despatch his case. At one time a second messenger was sent at his expense, to Burgos and to Valladolid, with long instructions, and he counted the days that it would take at ten leagues a day, the customary allowance for foot-couriers. At last he was summoned to an audience and told that all his witnesses save four had been examined and he could name others in their place. This he declined; he had produced ample testimony as to character but of course had failed to rebut the evidence of the unknown witnesses who had denounced him. As we have already seen, he was tortured, confessed and revoked and was sentenced to appear in an auto de fe, to abjure _de vehementi_, with a fine of sixty ducats and some spiritual penances, leaving him a dishonored and ruined man for a few careless words to a stranger.[174]