the punishment awaiting the regicides, with as much art as they had employed in forming so treasonable and bloody a design; for it must be allowed that no conspiracy was ever kept more secret, or was so near being successful; but the attempt being once made, and by so considerable a number of persons, it was scarcely possible the original authors of the plot could long remain concealed. Notwithstanding all the above-mentioned precautions, a report was presently circulated throughout Lisbon, that the king had been assassinated. Crowds of people assembled before the palace, and eagerly demanded to see his majesty, who immediately complied with their request, and declared aloud, that the hurts he had received were occasioned by being overturned in his calash. He afterwards engaged the nobles more particularly attached to his person, and who had eagerly flown to attend him, to leave no means untried to remove every suspicion from the minds of the public, of an attempt having been made against his life. The duke d'Aveiro, who had been the first to propose pursuing the assassins at the head of the horse guards on duty that night at the palace, seemed unwilling to consent to the plan of secrecy adopted by the king: but Carvalho, who began to entertain some suspicions of his being concerned in the conspiracy, was not the dupe of his zeal: he therefore pretended to entrust him with some particular secrets, whilst he insisted upon his entering into the views, and complying with the injunctions of his majesty. Difficult as it appears to keep secret an affair of this nature, it, however, never transpired; and the king, even before his wounds were closed, appeared in public, and took his usual exercise. The conspirators also put on a calm appearance, and began to believe all danger over. One man only amongst the number, named Polycarpe, who was a domestic in the Tavora family, mistrusted such mysterious inactivity on the part of government, and taking alarm, quitted the kingdom. Every thing now appeared quiet; the public mind was re-assured; the conspirators thought themselves in safety, and the attempt on the king's life seemed forgotten. Carvalho, however, had been constantly and secretly employed in diving to the bottom of this dreadful transaction: the principal contrivers of it were already known to him, when, by the effect of the most extraordinary chance, he became acquainted with the whole of their accomplices.