‘What does the rogue say?’ inquired the lieutenant, for such he was who walked behind. My sentinels answered that I spoke somewhat in an outlandish gibberish they could not understand; and presently, seizing me by each shoulder, they turned down a great arched gateway, beneath a long straggling house, with pillars in the front, and a flag over the roof. Here were sentries, who challenged our party and received the countersign, and then we entered a large bare room on the ground floor, which was dimly lighted by but one lantern, placed at a desk, where a soldier, whom I judged to be a sergeant, was writing. Along the sides of this room ran a slanting ledge of wooden boards, on which hard bed full a score of soldiers lay sleeping in their _ponchos_, or loose cloaks. ‘What springald have we here?’ said the sergeant, rising from his writing, and flinging the full light of the lantern, which did not cause any very great illumination, over me, as I stood, somewhat pale, I daresay, and all dripping from my bath. But just at that moment the lieutenant, who was my captor, entering, the sergeant saluted after military fashion, and despatching one of his men, the officer on duty presently walked in, having his uniform doublet unbuttoned, and a silk napkin tied round his head, as though he had been roused from an after-supper’s nap. The officers made each other very ceremonious bows, and then he of the sea delivered me formally up to he of the land, as a person unable or unwilling to give any account of myself, and captured from a strange boat in the harbour, one of the crew of which, at all event, spoke English. The word made quite a sensation in the guardroom. The half-waking soldiers rolled off their benches, and came scowling and muttering about—the sergeant, bestirring himself, went to his desk, and from a clash of iron there I concluded, and justly, that he was selecting his heaviest pair of handcuffs—and the officer with the napkin round his head, who did not appear altogether sober, crossed himself very religiously, and, cursing me for a damnable heretic, ordered the men back, telling them that they would see me much better when I came to be hanged. He then demanded whether I understood any Spanish? to which interrogatory, as I had previously determined, I replied that I did a little; and then, to their great astonishment, I asked very fiercely whether Great Britain and Spain were at war, that an English mariner was to be dragged out of his boat while giving offence to none, forcibly bound, and taken to a Spanish watch-house.