BRIGANDAGE IN SPAIN. 125 



protection of a certain magistrate of influential position 

 in Seville, who was stated to be on terms of intimacy 

 with his sister, a woman of remarkable beauty. 



The following' occurrence, which refers to, perhaps, the 

 only robbery of magnitude carried out by Agua-Dulce, was 

 cited by Sanchez in proof of the above report. A sum 

 representing nearly six hundred pounds, all, curiously 

 enough, in the smallest gold coin, had been taken from 

 Don Juan Malvido of Jerez. A few days later, Agua-Dulce 

 was discovered in a wine-shop of the Calle Cruz Yieja, 

 dividing with two other men a large quantity of these 

 same small gold coins. He was arrested and imprisoned. 

 The judge at that time was one Alvarez, who was, 

 however, absent from his post on account of illness ; the 

 interim authority being Don Juan Cerron, a man of 

 upright and intrepid principle, who believed that now 

 sufficient evidence was forthcoming to bring home to the 

 villain his crime, and secure at length the condign punish- 

 ment be had so often deserved. When the prisoner was 

 asked to explain how he became possessed of so much 

 small gold, he replied it was the proceeds of a certain 

 business he had just effected in Seville. For the purpose 

 of ascertaining the truth of this, the judge commissioned 

 an inquiry (j>uso un exhorto) to be made at Seville. The 

 reply was a demand for the prisoner's presence in that 

 city — doubtless to learn from Agua-Dulce's lips how the 

 exhorto could be answered favourably to his cause ! 



The Jerez deputy-judge roundly refused to allow this. 

 Then it was that the invalid judge was ordered — no matter 

 what the state of his health — to return at once to his post. 

 Though seriously ill, he complied with the request, and 

 next morning from the Magisterial chair ruled that Agua- 

 Dulce should be sent to Seville. A few days later the 

 reply to the exhorto arrived — in terms entirely favourable 

 to the prisoner, and no doubt inspired by him. No charge 

 could now be sustained. The papers were sealed up, and 

 Agua-Dulce once more set -at liberty, the small gold coins, 

 which every one was morally certain had proceeded from 

 the Malvido robbery, being returned to him. 



