"What a question!" exclaimed the doctor, in a transport of indignation. "What! has my whole life been devoted to scientific pursuits! have I deprived myself of rest and almost of food! and wasted the midnight lamp in bringing to perfection some of the most sublime discoveries ever vouchsafed to man, to be insulted suited with such a doubt as that? Know, sir, that you see before you Doctor Entwerfen, the fortunate inventor of the immortalizing snuff, one single pinch of which cures all diseases by the smell; the discoverer of the capability of caoutchouc being applied to aërial purposes; and the maker of the most compendious and powerful galvanic battery ever yet beheld by mortal!" "Then you are the very man I want," said the alcaide; "go to prison contentedly, and rest satisfied that your confinement will be of very short duration. In a day or two I will see you, and explain the project I have conceived for your deliverance." So saying, he summoned his guards, and, ordering them to convey the travellers to prison, the doctor and Edric were dragged away, and, being immured in separate dungeons, were left there to ruminate upon the varied and busy scenes in which they had been so lately engaged. Sadly and heavily passed the time; yet days and weeks rolled on ere they again saw the alcaide. At length, when they had begun almost to despair, they were reconducted to his presence. "Do you understand the management of an electrical machine?" asked he abruptly. "Certainly!" cried the doctor, transported with joy at the question, before Edric, who was half blinded by the sudden change from his gloomy prison to the broad light of day, had sufficiently recovered himself to reply. "Then it is in your own power to set yourselves free," continued the alcaide. "The principal general of the army stationed here is ill; a powerful party exists against him who wish his death, at the head of whom stands the leader who was the cause of your being taken into custody. The general himself is a mere nonentity; but the opposite party, to which I belong, wish to save his life, as his name affords a sanction under which they can act. He is now ill of a palsy, and has been recommended to try the effects of an electrical shock. A machine has been with difficulty procured in this remote district; but the philosopher of the army being lately dead, and another not having been yet appointed, no one here knows how to apply it. Now, if you--" "Say no more!" cried the doctor, interrupting him, in a transport of delight; "say no more--I see, I comprehend the whole! I shall restore him, and receive my liberty as the reward. Nay more, I shall obtain immortality amongst the Spaniards by the deed; their poets will sing my fame, and their historians will pause upon the fact!"