"But under your favor, Reverend Father, all the evidence has not been brought forward," rejoined the chief Hermano. "And methinks that which is still to come is the most important of the whole. That the business is complicated, and judgment most difficult, I acknowledge, and therefore gladly avail myself of any remaining point on which the scale may turn. Sworn as I am to administer impartial justice, prejudice against the prisoner I can have none; but the point we have until now overlooked, appears sufficient to decide not only individual but general opinion. I mean the _premeditated vengeance_ sworn by the prisoner against the deceased--long indulged and proclaimed enmity, and premeditated determination to take his life or lose his own. Don Ferdinand Morales--be his soul assoilized!--was so universally beloved, so truly the friend of all ranks and conditions of men, that to believe in the existence of any other enmity towards his person is almost impossible. We have evidence that the prisoner was at feud with him--was harboring some design against him for weeks. It may be he was even refused by Don Ferdinand the meeting he desired, and so sought vengeance by the midnight dagger. Let the evidence of this enmity be examined, and according or not as premeditated malice is elicited, so let your judgment be pronounced." "Ay, so let it be," muttered the King as a loud murmur of assent ran through the hall. "We have two witnesses for this; and, by heaven, if the one differ from the other in the smallest point, the prisoner may still be reprieved!" Whether the royal observation was heard or not, there was no rejoinder, for at the summoning of the chief Hermano, Don Luis Garcia stood before the assemblage. His appearance excited surprise in many present, and in none more than the prisoner himself. He raised his head, which had been resting on his hand during the address of the Sub-Prior, and the reply of the Hermano, and looked at the new witness with bewildered astonishment. As Don Luis continued his relation of the stormy interview between the deceased and the accused, and the words of threatening used by the latter, astonishment itself, changed into an indignation and loathing impossible to be restrained. "Thou base dishonored villain!" he exclaimed, so suddenly and wrathfully that it startled more by its strange contrast with his former calmness than by its irreverent interruption to the formula of the examination; "where wert thou during this interview? Hearing so well, and so invisibly concealed, none but the voluntary spy could have heard all this; so skilfully detailed that thou wouldst seem in very truth _witness_ as well as hearer. What _accident_ could have led thee to the most retired part of Don Ferdinand's garden, and, being there, detained thee? Thou treacherous villain! and on thy evidence--evidence so honorably, so truthfully obtained, my life or death depends! Well, be it so."