Don Cristobal slightly rubbed his bruised wrists. "He did me the honour of telling me so with his own lips," he said. He moved to the table, and dipped a quill in the inkhorn. "One man to take this writing to Don Luis de Fermosa, to request him order out the alguazils to search the town. The prisoner cannot have gone far." Cruza wrinkled his brow at that. "Señor, will he not make for the Frontier?" Don Cristobal dusted his paper with sand, and read it over before he answered. As he folded and sealed it he said calmly:--"He must procure a horse for that, Cruza, and we know that he has no money." He gave the paper into his lieutenant's hands, and turned to his valet. "A hat and a cloak, Juan." The valet hurried away. Cruza ventured another question. "Señor, where do you go?" "To the Alcazar," replied the Governor. "To learn his Majesty's pleasure in this matter." Access to Philip was at first denied him. The King was private in his closet, and would see no one. A word in the King's valet's ear produced the required effect. That privileged person went off in a hurry, and presently Don Cristobal was summoned to the presence. The news had been told Philip, but he displayed his habitual equanimity to Don Cristobal, deeply bowing before him. He let his apathetic gaze run over the Governor, but said nothing. "Sire"--Don Cristobal made the shortest work he could of it--"I have to inform your Majesty, to my shame, that my prisoner has escaped." Philip folded his cool hands. "This is a very strange thing that you tell me, Don Cristobal." The Governor flushed. "I do not know what to say, sire. I am myself overwhelmed." "Compose yourself. When did the prisoner escape?" "Not an hour ago, sire. He overpowered the guard who brought his supper to him, stabbed the sentry without; by some means unknown to me slipped through the hands of two parties of guards who thought they had him trapped between them, and by means equally unknown to me reached my own chamber. I, entering and knowing nothing of the affair, was taken by surprise, sire." His hand went involuntarily to the bruise on his chin. "The prisoner struck me down, sire, before I was aware, and when I came to myself I was gagged and bound upon the floor. The prisoner put on him my hat and cloak, my insignia of the Golden Fleece, my sword, and thus disguised, sire, went down to the coach that waited to take me to the house of a friend. My lieutenant, suspecting some mischief, sent after the coach hot-foot, but when the guards came up with it the prisoner had vanished." Silence fell. The lids dropped over Philip's eyes, hiding whatever chagrin or anger he might be feeling. After a pause he raised them again. It was characteristic of him that he chose to dwell upon one of the smaller points of the matter. "This would seem to show that he is El Beauvallet, by his own confession," he said weightily.