But at the moment the victim the Interests Triumphant sought was slipping out of their hands. They must have reflected with inexpressible rage that he would have been helpless if they had but allowed him to remain in Manila instead of marooning him on the shores of Dapitan. Yet there was a chance that he could be clutched and brought back and torn to pieces. Some news of the sirocco of rage and terror that had seized Manila reached the Isla de Panay. One of his Filipino fellow-passengers, Pedro P. Roxas, rich but a sturdy advocate of Philippine independence, foresaw what was at hand and quietly stepped ashore at Singapore, where he was under the protection of another flag. Fervently he had urged Rizal to go with him, pointing out that his enemies were certain to take advantage of the existing panic to kill him, and that as he was virtually a political fugitive he was justified in seeking a political asylum. He pleaded in vain: Rizal made answer that he had done no wrong; he would not flee. [207] He held upon his way, and at Suez the great claw descended upon him. On a cabled order from Manila he was put under arrest, and thence to Barcelona he was a prisoner. [208] The instructions were that he was to be returned as speedily as possible to Manila for trial. He arrived at Barcelona in the morning. A steamer was to sail for Manila that afternoon. Nevertheless, for the few hours he must stay in Barcelona he was thrust into prison, the sudden reversal of the confidence with which he had before been treated indicating plainly enough to the initiated which party was now in control at Manila. By a strange turn of fate, the Spanish commandant at Barcelona was that same Despujol that had so basely decoyed him from Hong-Kong into Spanish power and but for whom he might have been at that moment safe beyond Spanish clutches. Despujol had the hardihood to call upon the man whose life he had sold. Rizal received him with the tolerant spirit that was so marked in his character, for it is not recorded of him anywhere that he uttered so much as one reproach against those that had wronged him; and Despujol seems to have felt something like contrition as he viewed the wreck he had made of a life so unusual. That afternoon the steamer left for Manila with Rizal a prisoner on it.