I stepped back, drawing my sword, and exclaiming, “Assassins!” and then with a rapid movement, I thrust my blade into the body of the nearest assailant. I then left the arcade, and began to run down the street. The second assassin fired a pistol at me, but it fortunately missed me. I fell down and dropped my hat in my rapid flight, and got up and continued my course without troubling to pick it up. I did not know whether I was wounded or not, but at last I got to my inn, and laid down the bloody sword on the counter, under the landlord’s nose. I was quite out of breath. I told the landlord what had happened, and on taking off my great coat, I found it to be pierced in two places just below the armpit. “I am going to bed,” I said to the landlord, “and I leave my great coat and the sword in your charge. Tomorrow morning I shall ask you to come with me before the magistrate to denounce this act of assassination, for if the man was killed it must be shewn that I only slew him to save my own life.” “I think your best plan would be to fly Barcelona immediately.” “Then you think I have not told you the strict truth?” “I am sure you have; but I know whence the blow comes, and God knows what will befall you!” “Nothing at all; but if I fly I shall be accounted guilty. Take care of the sword; they tried to assassinate me, but I think the assassins got the worst of it.” I went to bed somewhat perturbed, but I had the consoling thought that if I had killed a man I had done so to self-defence; my conscience was quite clear. At seven o’clock the next morning I heard a knocking at my door. I opened it, and saw my landlord, accompanied by an officer, who told me to give him all my papers, to dress, and to follow him, adding that he should be compelled to use force in case of resistance. “I have no intention of resisting,” I replied. “By whose authority do you ask me for my papers?” “By the authority of the governor. They will be returned to you if nothing suspicious is found amongst them.” “Where are you going to take me?” “To the citadel.” I opened my trunk, took out my linen and my clothes, which I gave to my landlord, and I saw the officer’s astonishment at seeing my trunk half filled with papers. “These are all the papers I have,” I said. I locked the box and gave the officer the key. “I advise you, sir,” he said, “to put all necessary articles into a portmanteau.” He then ordered the landlord to send me a bed, and finally asked me if I had any papers in my pockets. “Only my passports.” “That’s exactly what we want,” he rejoined, with a grim smile. “My passports are sacred; I will never give them to anyone but the governor-general. Reverence your king; here is his passport, here is that of the Count of Aranda, and here the passport of the Venetian ambassador. You will have to bind me hand and foot before you get them.”