‘Townsmen!’ he shouted, ‘are we to be insulted, spit on, and because, forsooth, our contemner is a noble of Castile?—are we to cower as meek as flogged hounds before his highness? I say the fellow before us is a pirate. He is, at all events, an Englishman, which means the same thing. He is a heretic and a buccaneer-spy, and he shall strap for it. Holy Mother! shall we turn loose the rogue to prey upon our vitals? I hate him—I hate his race! they have spoiled great ventures of precious merchandise; they have captured ships I equipped; they have harried treasures I amassed; they pillage and harass our lawful trade; they intrude themselves on our coasts, and in our seas; they have burnt Panama; they have taken Nicaragua; they have taken Santa Maria; they have taken Gibraltar in Venezuela; they have raged and thirsted for our blood; they are the enemies of our faith, and of our nation; and so may my right hand wither, may my right arm wither from socket to wrist, but those of the murthering pirates who come within my grasp, shall go thieving no more! Said I well, townsmen—said I well?’ This furious tirade was answered by a great shout from the people, who crowded round me, cursing and flashing their broad-bladed knives in my face. One fellow raised his arm to strike; I saw the swell of the moving muscles, and the glitter of the poised knife, when Don José, with one bound leaped from the dais, and scattering the crowd, as a charge of horse scatters broken infantry, he dashed up the arm raised to stab, and drawing his rapier, the mob fell back from him, while he shouted in tones which rung like trumpet-notes—— ‘Hounds that you are!—would you murder in cold blood an unarmed and manacled man?’ There was dead silence for near a minute. ‘Alcaide of Carthagena,’ continued my defender, ‘look well to yourself—what I have done, was that the ends of justice might be served, and I will answer for my acts. I can do no more—I leave this man in your hands—you shall be answerable for your treatment of him. Make way there, and permit me to go forth.’ Again the mob yielded a passage. ‘He speaks like a king,’ said one fellow. ‘Truly, he hath the bearing of an emperor,’ murmured another. And so, still holding his unsheathed rapier in his hand, his features being calm and composed, save that there was on his forehead a slight flush, and a hot sparkle gleaming in his eye, he passed through the yielding crowd, who instinctively fell back before him—walking with the port of a conqueror, who enters a fallen city—this man—a banished libertine—but still a grandee in whose veins ran the haughty blood of Old Castile!