Washington Irving: The Complete Travel Sketches and Memoirs Collection. Washington Irving
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Название: Washington Irving: The Complete Travel Sketches and Memoirs Collection
Автор: Washington Irving
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Книги о Путешествиях
isbn: 9788027202720
isbn:
“Fetch it hither,” said the governor. The escribano bustled into his office, delighted with having another opportunity of displaying his ingenuity at the expense of the hard-headed veteran.
He returned with a satchel full of papers, and began to read a long deposition with professional volubility. By this time a crowd had collected, listening with outstretched necks and gaping mouths.
“Prithee, man, get into the carriage, out of this pestilent throng, that I may the better hear thee,” said the governor.
The escribano entered the carriage, when, in a twinkling, the door was closed, the coachman smacked his whip — mules, carriage, guards and all dashed off at a thundering rate, leaving the crowd in gaping wonderment; nor did the governor pause until he had lodged his prey in one of the strongest dungeons of the Alhambra.
He then sent down a flag of truce in military style, proposing a cartel or exchange of prisoners — the corporal for the notary. The pride of the captain-general was piqued; he returned a contemptuous refusal, and forthwith caused a gallows, tall and strong, to be erected in the centre of the Plaza Nueva for the execution of the corporal.
“Oho! is that the game?” said Governor Manco. He gave orders, and immediately a gibbet was reared on the verge of the great beetling bastion that overlooked the Plaza. “Now,” said he in a message to the captain-general, “hang my soldier when you please; but at the same time that he is swung off in the square, look up to see your escribano dangling against the sky.”
The captain-general was inflexible; troops were paraded in the square; the drums beat, the bell tolled. An immense multitude of amateurs gathered together to behold the execution. On the other hand, the governor paraded his garrison on the bastion, and tolled the funeral dirge of the notary from the Torre de la Campana, or Tower of the Bell.
The notary’s wife pressed through the crowd with a whole progeny of little embryo escribanos at her heels, and throwing herself at the feet of the captain-general, implored him not to sacrifice the life of her husband, and the welfare of herself and her numerous little ones, to a point of pride; “for you know the old governor too well,” said she, “to doubt that he will put his threat in execution, if you hang the soldier.”
The captain-general was overpowered by her tears and lamentations, and the clamors of her callow brood. The corporal was sent up to the Alhambra, under a guard, in his gallows garb, like a hooded friar, but with head erect and a face of iron. The escribano was demanded in exchange, according to the cartel. The once bustling and self-sufficient man of the law was drawn forth from his dungeon more dead than alive. All his flippancy and conceit had evaporated; his hair, it is said, had nearly turned gray with affright, and he had a downcast, dogged look, as if he still felt the halter round his neck.
The old governor stuck his one arm akimbo, and for a moment surveyed him with an iron smile. “Henceforth, my friend,” said he, “moderate your zeal in hurrying others to the gallows; be not too certain of your safety, even though you should have the law on your side; and above all take care how you play off your schoolcraft another time upon an old soldier.”
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