"
"Sir officer," I replied, "by ill-treating and detaining an Englishman
you are doing your cause no good."
He answered that he was grieved that his people had found it necessary
to treat me roughly, for he put it in that mild way. Everything, he
said, short of liberating me, would be done to make my sojourn in El
Molino pleasant.
"If it is necessary that the General should see me himself before I
can have my liberty, pray let these men take me to him at once," I
said.
"He has not yet left El Molino," said an orderly, standing in the room.
"He is at the end of the town at the Casa Blanca, and does not leave
till half-past three."
"It is nearly that now," said the officer, consulting his watch. "Take
him to the General at once, Lieutenant Alday."
I thanked the officer, who had looked and spoken so unlike a
revolutionary bandit, and, as soon as I had succeeded in clambering
on to my horse, we were once more dashing along the main street at a
fast gallop. We drew up before a large, old-looking stone house at the
end of the town, standing some distance back from the road, and screened
from it by a double row of tall Lombardy poplars. The back of the house
was towards the road, and, passing round to the front after leaving
our horses at the gate, we entered a spacious _patio_, or yard.
Running along the front of the dwelling was a wide corridor, supported
by wooden pillars, painted white, while the whole of the _patio_
was shaded by an immense grape-vine.
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