"There shall be no unnecessary bloodshed, I shall merely disperse them and send them off to their homes, where they will be much more safe than in trying to help Liniers to hoist the Spanish flag on that staff outside there. Plenty of them will die if they try to do that." "If I can bring six or eight of our principal men here, will you tell them that you will do your best to aid us in freeing ourselves from Spain?" "I will tell them what I have told you, that I myself would gladly join you if I had a commission to that effect, and that I believe the British Government would receive the idea very favourably. But I tell you now, that you will not get six or eight men to listen to me, whom I would care to speak to." "Not now perhaps, but they may," replied Evaña, with some hesitation. "Yes, when they have had a lesson to show them their weakness." "You will give them that lesson, you say?" "Yes, but Liniers should be at Colonia by now, if my advices are correct. There is no time to lose if we are to come to any understanding together. Once Liniers joins them, to me all are alike Spaniards." "Will you promise me that your troops shall not fire upon them?" "I do not think I shall go myself, I shall probably send Colonel Pack, his orders will be to disperse them. If he finds it necessary he will fire, not otherwise." Evaña turned from him and walked to the far end of the room, where he stood for some moments at a window, gazing with dreamy eyes out upon the parade-ground, where British sentries in long grey coats paced between the Spanish guns which had so recently changed owners; upon the Plaza de Los Perdices, where the market-people moved to and fro among their stalls; and further yet upon the towers and domes of the churches of his native city. "The day is close at hand," said he to himself. "This man does not see his danger, though I tell him of it. He will fight like a lion at bay, but that flag with the red and blue crosses will come down, and that hated flag, the flag of tyranny, will go up there again. If there were division among them he might have some chance, and as he says there is no time to lose, even to-morrow Liniers may land and it will be too late, to-day is already the last day in July. Besides, I shall not save them any way, he has spies." As he said this, his whole frame trembled with suppressed passion. "Yes, they want a lesson, the fools," he muttered through his teeth. Then turning back to Beresford, he looked him sternly in the face. "The Quinta de Perdriel, do you know where that is?" "Yes," answered Beresford. "There it is that your pupils await you." A smile flitted over the face of the English general as he bowed in reply. Evaña without another word left the room and walked with hasty strides away to his own home. CHAPTER V PERDRIEL