It is like a story of overruling destiny. News of the arrest, by this device, of the most illustrious savant in all the Spanish dominions, one of the foremost scientists of the times, had been telegraphed about the world and stirred a general resentment. All men that understood colonial Spain looked with gloomiest forebodings upon his probable doom, now that he was fanged by that medieval dragon. A plan was formed to rescue him when the steamer should reach Singapore by suing out a writ of habeas corpus and so snatching him from Spanish authority. [209] So slender are the chances of fate that a mere decoration on a flag brought to naught this benevolent design. The steamer was the ordinary packet-boat, but on this occasion she was carrying a few troops to the Philippines. Being deemed, therefore, on this voyage to have the status of a transport, she hoisted the Spanish royal ensign, and against that emblem the kindly plotters felt they had no right to proceed. Government vessels are not subject to the authority of other nations whose ports they chance to enter. CHAPTER XVI “I CAME FROM MARTYRDOM UNTO THIS PEACE” It was November 3, 1896, when Rizal, heavily guarded, passed again through the dark gateway of Fort Santiago, whence he had issued four years before to go to Dapitan. Now his enemies had him wholly in their power; he was dragged to earth at last. Yet for a time they were puzzled how to proceed with him. Dull as they were and remote from the highways of European thought, they were not unaware that the eyes of a scornful world were upon them. Therefore they could not, as in the cases of so many “unvalued men,” shoot him at sunrise on a dunghill. Some pretense of legality must be followed; there must be regard to decency.