OLD SPANIARD. 



79 



they wanted, but they declared, that they dared 

 not return without something to prove they had 

 actually seen and conversed with him. The old 

 man resisted for a long time : at last, one of them 

 took up a book with his name upon it, and said 

 that it would serve as a voucher, and he unwit- 

 tingly allowed them to take it away. The friars, 

 who were arrested in the course of the same day, 

 with the book in their possession, were, at first, 

 treated as spies, and it was expected they would 

 be hanged on the spot; but, to the surprise of 

 every one, they were both released, and the old 

 Spaniard alone imprisoned. This gave rise to 

 the notion, I believe unfounded, that they had 

 been employed merely to entrap our incautious 

 friend. It was soon known that he was to be tried 

 by a military commission, and alarm and distress 

 spread from one end of Lima to the other : in- 

 deed, had the public sentiment been less univer- 

 sally expressed in his favour, he would, in all 

 probability, have been put to death, for the pur- 

 pose of striking terror into the minds of all the 

 remaining Spaniards, and inducing them to leave 

 the country. 



