Something in the slight action struck Fray Fernando. One whom he knew long ago had been wont to use it. Exactly thus: the brow just touched, not pressed; the eyes—dark, thoughtful eyes—not covered, but looking out, as it were, a great way off. Of what was he dreaming? And why did the patio of his father’s house at Seville, with everything it contained, from his father’s portrait by Juan de las Roelas down to the least ornament, rise suddenly before his eyes?—But this must not go on. With an effort he dispelled the vision, and once more saw the matador standing before him. “Consider what you wish to do, my friend,” he said kindly. “I have considered, reverend father,” the matador answered, removing his hand and looking earnestly at the monk, who felt every moment more tormented by thronging memories of the past;—until at length there came a flash of relieving thought—“Last night I must have dreamed some vivid dream of my early home. Doubtless it is that which haunts me now, though memory fails to recall it distinctly.” Meanwhile, the matador was saying, “It seems to me that it is not well to write. All those I knew think me dead long ago. Perhaps they are dead themselves; for I have been in the galleys nigh upon twenty years.—No, not quite—sixteen years last December. I had my sentence at Seville, in the great _auto-da-fé_.” “You are then a prisoner of the Holy Office?” Fray Fernando asked, with a vague unaccountable feeling that his dream was coming back to him, and that the scene in which he was acting was a part of it. “Yes; I hope your reverence will not think the worse of me for that?” “No; you have probably been drawn aside from the Faith by the subtleties of some designing heretic?” “That was not exactly my case, father. My crime was not heresy, but daring resistance to the Holy Office.” “How?” asked Fray Fernando, now thoroughly awake, and startled—nay, alarmed. What if one, concerned in _that_ enterprise, were suddenly to appear and, even in this remote corner of the world, to recognize— The matador spoke again: “We essayed a desperate deed. We—for to _you_ I fear not to confess all—we dared to attack the Triana itself.” The blood forsook Fray Fernando’s cheek and lips as he questioned,—“_We!_ Who?” The matador, embarrassed by the question, not only from the abrupt and startling way in which it was proposed, but from the difficulty of answering without naming names guarded by his loyal heart in sacred silence, replied after a pause,—“I was the leader—I myself.” “You!” exclaimed the monk, fastening his eyes upon him in amazement. “_You!_—’Tis false.—’Tis not true!” “Father, I am God’s free-man, though the king’s slave, and I speak the truth as in His presence,” said the matador, with gentle dignity. Fray Fernando was no longer pale, he was ghastly, and his lips trembled as they faltered, “Your name?” “At the service of your reverence—Melchior del Salto.”