"Hold!" cried the Captain-General; "this were a death for an hidalgo. Up, cur! up, and meet thy fate! Up!" And he spurned the wretch with his foot.
The Alguazil rose up, his face black with blood, which, not perfectly dispersing even at release from strangulation, remained in leopard-like blotches over his visage, ghastfully contrasted with the ashy hues that gathered between them. As he rose, his arms were seized by two or three cavaliers; and Sandoval, as quick in action as he was sluggish in speech, snatching the rich sword-sash of samite from his own shoulders, instantly secured them behind his back.
"For the love of God, señores!" cried Villafana, finding speech at last, "what do you mean? what do you design? You will not kill an innocent man? Will you judge me at the charge of a liar? Gaspar is my sworn foe. I will make all clear.--Señor, I have been drinking, and my mind is confused: take me not at this disadvantage. Oh, for God's sake, what do you mean?--The list? what, the list? 'Tis for a merry-making--a rejoicing for my birthday. I will explain all to your excellencies.--I am an innocent man.--Gaspar is a forsworn caitiff--a caitiff, señores, a caitiff!--I claim trial by the civil judges."--
"Strike him on the mouth," said another. And Villafana, gasping for breath, uttered, for a moment, nothing but inarticulate murmurs.
"De Olid, Marin, De Ircio," cried Cortes, rapidly, and with inexpressible decision, "ye are judges of life and death; Sandoval and Alvarado, by right of office, ye can sit in judgment; Quinones, Guzman, and the rest, I make you, in the king's name, special associates of the others.--Why, here is a court, not martial, but civil; and the dog shall have judgment to his content! He stands charged of treason.--Guilty, señores? or not guilty?"
"Guilty!" cried all with one voice: and De Olid added, "Let us take him into the garden, and hang him to the cedar-tree."
"To the window," said Cortes, pointing with his sword to the stout cords, hanging so invitingly from the serpent's-head; and in an instant the victim was dragged upon the platform.
Up to this moment, his fears had been uttered rather in vehement complaints than in outcries; but now, when he perceived that he was condemned by a mockery of trial, doomed without the respite of a minute's space to pray, the rope dangling before his eyes, and already in the hands of a cavalier, who was bending it into a noose, he uttered a piercing scream, and endeavoured to throw himself on his knees.