"Beware how you stand between a lion and his prey," said Garcias, releasing my arm; "and let me tell you, Sir Count, it were a thousand times easier to tear his food from the hungry jaws of the wild beast, than to save from the fury of this oppressed people the patron and chief of all their oppressors." "You are wrong, Garcias! you are wrong!" replied I: "since I have been a prisoner here at the arsenal, I have had full opportunity to see and judge whether he wished to be your oppressor or not; and, on my honour, no man would more willingly have done you justice, and punished those who injured you, had he been allowed to hear the evils that were committed under the name of his authority." "That, then, was his crime!" replied Garcias. "He _should_ have heard--he _should_ have known the wrongs and miseries of the people he governed. All in life depends on situation, and in his, indolence was a crime--a crime which has been deeply, but not too deeply expiated. Believe me, Count Louis, that kings and governors, who suffer injustice to be committed, deserve and will ever meet a more tragic fall than those even who commit it themselves." "But see," cried I, "they are going to mutilate the bodies; for Heaven's sake, stop them, and let them not show themselves utterly savages." "What matters it?" asked he; "the heads they are about to strike off will never feel the indignity; but speak to them if you will, and try whether you can persuade them from their wrath.--Ho! stand back, my friends," he continued, addressing the people, who even glared upon him with somewhat of fierceness in their look, as he interrupted their bloody occupation;--"hear what this noble Frenchman has to say to you, and respect him, for he is my friend." "_Viva Garcias!_" shouted the people. "_Viva el Librador!_" and, standing forward, I endeavoured, as well as I could, to calm their excited feelings. "My good friends," said I, "you all know me to be sincerely the well-wisher of Catalonia and the cause of freedom. Many who are here present, saw me dragged through the streets of Barcelona, no later than this morning; tied like a slave, and insulted, as I went, by the brutal soldiery, your enemies and mine, for no other cause but that I was a Frenchman, and that the French are friendly to the Catalonians. I therefore have good cause to triumph in your success, and to participate in your resentment; but there is a bound, my friends, within which resentment should always be confined, to mark it as grand, as noble, as worthy of a great and generous people. It is just, it is right, to punish the offender, to smite the oppressor, and to crush him with is own wrong." A loud shout announced that this was the point where the angry flame still burned most furiously. "But," continued I, "is it right, is it just, is it noble, to insult the inanimate clay after the spirit has departed? Is it dignified? Is it grand? Is it worthy of a great and free people like the Catalonians?"