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 offences of those
under his command. The captain-general, aided by the pen of the
delighted escribano, replied at great length, arguing that as the
offence 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 sur-rejoinder 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.
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