"At the door stood Pero Lopez Padilla, chief of the mace-bearers of the guard, with four of his people. Don Fadrique, still accompanied by the Master of Calatrava (Diego Padilla) knocked at the door. Only one of its folds opened, and within appeared the king, who forthwith exclaimed, 'Pero Lopez, arrest the Master!'--'Which of the two, sire?' inquired the officer, hesitating between Don Fadrique and Don Diego de Padilla. 'The Master of Santiago!' replied the king in a voice of thunder. Immediately Pero Lopez, seizing Don Fadrique's arm, said, 'You are my prisoner.' Don Fadrique, astounded, made no resistance; when the king cried out, 'Arbalisters, kill the Master of Santiago!' Surprise, and respect for the red cross of St James, for an instant fettered the men to the spot. Then one of the knights of the palace, advancing to the door, said: 'Traitors! what do you? Heard you not the king's command to kill the Master?' The arbalisters lifted the mace, when Don Fadrique, vigorously shaking off the grasp of Pero Lopez, sprang back into the court with the intention of defending himself. But the hilt of his sword, which he wore under the large mantle of his order, was entangled with the belt, and he could not draw. Pursued by the arbalisters, he ran to and fro in the court, avoiding their blows, but unable to get his sword out. At last one of the king's guards, named Nuño Fernandez, struck him on the head with his mace, and knocked him down; and the three others immediately showered their blows upon the fallen man, who lay bathed in his blood when Don Pedro came down into the court, seeking the knights of Santiago, to slay them with their chief." In the very chamber of Maria Padilla, the assassin-king gave with his own hand the first stab to his brother's esquire, who had taken refuge there. Leaving the ensanguined boudoir, (Maria Padilla's apartments in the Alcazar were a sort of harem, where much oriental pomp was observed,) he returned to the Master, and finding he still breathed, he gave his dagger to an African slave to despatch him. Then he sat down to dinner in an apartment two paces distant from his brother's corpse. It is a relief to turn from acts of such unnatural barbarity to the traits of chivalrous generosity that sparkle, at long intervals, it is true, upon the dark background of Pedro's character. One of these, connected with a singularly romantic incident, is attested by Alonzo Martinez de Talavera, chaplain of John II. of Castile, a chronicler M. Mérimée is disposed to hold in high esteem. In one of his campaigns against his rebellious brethren and their Arragonese allies, the king laid siege to the castle of Cabezon, belonging to Count Trastamare; and whose governor, summoned to yield, refused even to parley.