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."
"But so it shall not be," interposed the King himself, ere either
Sub-Prior or the Hermano could reply; "even as the prisoner, we
ourselves hold evidence dishonestly obtained of little moment--nay,
of no weight whatever.
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