Marshal Liniers took no steps whatever to crush this rebellion; the Spaniards of Buenos Aires hailed the event with joy, as a presage of what they would presently do themselves, and native Argentines were filled with well-grounded alarm. Don Martin Alzaga exulted at the success of his first step, and steadily prepared to follow it up. Yet among the Spaniards there was one who felt alarm at this first success. Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon saw that the deposition of the Viceroy would be a much more difficult matter to achieve in Buenos Aires than it had been in Monte Video, and that any false step would bring on a collision with the people in which not only the power of the Viceroy but Spanish rule altogether, might be overturned. And among native Argentines there was one who for precisely the same reason heard of the event with exultation. Don Carlos Evaña hailed with joy any event which might bring his fellow-countrymen into open collision with their rulers. * * * * * October passed over and nothing was done, so also November. Towards the end of November, one warm afternoon on which the sun shone down upon the city from a sky of intense blue, uncheckered by one white cloud, when the white-washed houses cast a glare upon the streets such that it was a torment to walk abroad, when steady-going citizens were just rousing themselves from their siesta in the coolest recesses of their houses, one man braved both the sun and the glare, left his house and walked slowly along the deserted street till he reached the house of Don Fausto Velasquez. Entering by the open doorway, he crossed the first patio, passed through the zaguan into the second, and paused to clap his hands. A mulatta girl issued from one of the side rooms at his summons, smiled at him as she saw him, and came up to him saying: "At your service, Don Carlos. What may be your pleasure?" "The Señora Doña Josefina; will it be possible for me to speak with her?" replied Don Carlos Evaña, for he it was who had thus come to disturb the siesta of Doña Josefina. "Certainly it will, Don Carlos," replied the mulatta. "It is late already," she added, looking up at the sun. "If you will have the goodness to pass to the sala, in one moment she will be with you."