"Only such an emergency as this could have induced me to throw aside my incognito and come to you openly. I bring you the worst possible news. Everything has failed; and the cause never stood in higher peril than at this present moment, when the success we have striven, worked, and fought for seemed actually in our grasp—seemed?—nay, was actually in our grasp. The great event of to-day, so cunningly planned, so patiently waited for, was successful. The young Pretender was captured by our comrades, and was actually in their hands; I myself was present—as I strive to be everywhere in the moment of crisis—and saw it done. They carried him away, and all seemed to have gone gloriously, when just before the village of Podrida was reached, by means which have yet to be discovered, the whole scheme was wrecked; our comrades were struck down, overborne probably, after fighting valiantly, by a vastly superior force." (I reckoned that this was the account of the rescue the men would be likely to bring back.) "The young Pretender was snatched from them and brought back to the capital. I returned when I knew of it, and I come now hot foot from the Opera, where he has just made a public appearance, amid the cheers of those sycophants among the people who persist in upholding his wrongful claim to Our Master’s throne." I did not look once at Sarita while delivering this harangue, and by the time I had reached that point the news I brought had not only convinced everyone of my sincerity, but had set them quaking on the score of their own safety. "You saw this with your own eyes?" exclaimed the doctor, excitedly. "Holy Mother of God, what will it mean?"