Journeys Through Bookland, Volume 7 | Page 8

hated an Escribano worse than the devil,
and this one in particular, worse than all other Escribanoes.
"What!" said he, curling up his mustachios fiercely, "does the
captain-general set this man of the pen to practice confusions upon me?
I'll let him see that an old soldier is not to be baffled by schoolcraft."
He seized his pen, and scrawled a short letter in a crabbed hand, in
which he insisted on the right of transit free of search, and denounced
vengeance on any custom-house officer who should lay his unhallowed
hand on any convoy protected by the flag of the Alhambra.
While this question was agitated between the two pragmatical
potentates, it so happened that a mule laden with supplies for the
fortress arrived one day at the gate of Xenil, by which it was to traverse
a suburb of the city on its way to the Alhambra. The convoy was
headed by a testy old corporal, who had long served under the governor,
and was a man after his own heart--as trusty and stanch as an old
Toledo blade. As they approached the gate of the city, the corporal
placed the banner of the Alhambra on the pack saddle of the mule, and
drawing himself up to a perfect perpendicular, advanced with his head
dressed to the front, but with the wary side glance of a cur passing
through hostile grounds, and ready for a snap and a snarl.

"Who goes there?" said the sentinel at the gate.
"Soldier of the Alhambra," said the corporal, without turning his head.
"What have you in charge?"
"Provisions for the garrison."
"Proceed."
The corporal marched straight forward, followed by the convoy, but
had not advanced many paces before a posse of custom-house officers
rushed out of a small toll-house.
"Halloo there!" cried the leader. "Muleteer, halt and open those
packages."
The corporal wheeled round, and drew himself up in battle array.
"Respect the flag of the Alhambra," said he; "these things are for the
governor."
"A fig for the governor, and a fig for his flag. Muleteer, halt, I say."
"Stop the convoy at your peril!" cried the corporal, cocking his musket.
"Muleteer, proceed."
The muleteer gave his beast a hearty thwack, the custom-house officer
sprang forward and seized the halter; whereupon the corporal leveled
his piece and shot him dead.
The street was immediately in an uproar. The old corporal was seized,
and after undergoing sundry kicks and cuffs, and cudgelings, which are
generally given impromptu by the mob in Spain, as a foretaste of the
after penalties of the law, he was loaded with irons, and conducted to
the city prison; while his comrades were permitted to proceed with the
convoy, after it had been well rummaged, to the Alhambra.
The old governor was in a towering passion, when he heard of this
insult to his flag and capture of his corporal. For a time he stormed

about the Moorish halls, and vapored about the bastions, and looked
down fire and sword upon the palace of the captain-general. Having
vented the first ebullition of his wrath, he dispatched a message
demanding the surrender of the corporal, as to him alone belonged the
right of sitting in judgment on the offenses of those under his command.
The captain-general, aided by the pen of the delighted Escribano,
replied at great length, arguing that as the offense had been committed
within the walls of his city, and against one of his civil officers, it was
clearly within his proper jurisdiction. The governor rejoined by a
repetition of his demand; the captain-general gave a surrejoinder of still
greater length, and legal acumen; the governor became hotter and more
peremptory in his demands, and the captain-general cooler and more
copious in his replies; until the old lion-hearted soldier absolutely
roared with fury at being thus entangled in the meshes of legal
controversy.
While the subtle Escribano was thus amusing himself at the expense of
the governor, he was conducting the trial of the corporal; who, mewed
up in a narrow dungeon of the prison, had merely a small grated
window at which to show his iron-bound visage, and receive the
consolations of his friends; a mountain of written testimony was
diligently heaped up, according to Spanish form, by the indefatigable
Escribano; the corporal was completely overwhelmed by it. He was
convicted of murder, and sentenced to be hanged.
It was in vain the governor sent down remonstrance and menace from
the Alhambra. The fatal day was at hand, and the corporal was put in
capilla, that is to say, in the chapel of the prison; as is always done with
culprits the day before execution, that they may meditate on their
approaching end and repent them of their sins.
Seeing things drawing to an extremity, the