"Dear uncle, my cousin Antonia tells me dreadful news."
"Dreadful news! what is it, dearest?" "She tells me," said Isabella, shuddering and gasping for breath, "that these unfortunate Americans are to be put to death to-morrow morning."
"Poh, poh! what nonsense! you know as well as I do that the law gives me no such power."
"But, dearest uncle, why should they be punished at all? nothing is proved against them, nothing is found about them that indicates guilty intentions," for, notwithstanding her indisposition, she had learned all the facts of the case from her gossip, Juanita, and the officers that had called in the course of the forenoon, "I have heard all the particulars, and confess that I see no reason why they deserve punishment at all."
"You know nothing at all about the matter, child. They have been seen, at other times than last night, landing boxes and bales at the same place."
"Are you quite sure that it was not some other persons?"
The governor paid no attention to this question, which he had never dreamt of asking his informer.
"Besides, if these are pardoned, other offenders will plead their innocence, and refer to the case of these men as a precedent. No, Isabella, I cannot, I dare not do it; they must abide by the consequences."
"Then if their lives are to be spared, what is to be done with them?"
"I shall write to the Viceroy, and keep them confined till I receive his instructions as to their future destiny."
"And that," said the young lady, in a faint voice, "will be worse than death! O think of it, dear, dear uncle."
"You take too gloomy a view of the case," said Don Gaspar, kissing the forehead of the lovely suppliant; "the Viceroy may pardon them, but I dare not--You plead in vain," continued he, as he saw she was about to speak; "were they my own sons, they should undergo the sentence of the law for their misconduct."
Fearing to excite her uncle's suspicions by too great urgency, Isabella changed her battery--
"At least, let them be used kindly--let them have plenty of good food and wine."
"Certainly, dearest little niece," said the governor, delighted to find the most formidable and irresistible of his female assailants so lukewarm in the cause of the prisoners, "and you shall be their provider."