"Domingo and his fellow-prisoner have for a neighbour," continued the Cripple, "a young Castilian who has been arrested for having, in the presence of too many witnesses, struck his father." "Oh heaven!" cried Leandro, "is it possible? Lives there a child, however lost to shame, who can raise his impious hand against a father?" "Oh yes," said the Demon: "yon Castilian is not without example; and I will cite you one whose history is rather remarkable. Under the reign of Don Pedro I., surnamed the Just and the Cruel, the eighth king of Portugal, a youth of twenty fell into the hands of justice for the same crime. Don Pedro, as much surprised as yourself at the novelty of the case, was curious to interrogate the mother of the criminal, and he examined her so adroitly as to obtain from her a confession, that the real father of this child was a certain reverend prelate. If the Castilian's judges were discreet enough to interrogate his mother with equal address, it is probable that it would be attended with a similar avowal.
"Cast your eyes into a large dungeon beneath the prisoners I have just pointed out to you, and observe what is passing there. Do you see those three ill-looking rascals? They are highwaymen. See! they are effecting their escape. Some one has furnished them with a dumb-file in a loaf of bread; and they have already cut through one of the thick bars of a window, by which they may gain the court-yard, and from thence the street. They have been more than ten months in prison, and it is upwards of eight since they should have received the public recompense due to their exploits; but, thanks to the tardiness of justice, they are about to begin again their career of robbery and murder.
[Illustration: a prisoner being beaten up by his fellow inmates]
"And now look into that low roofed cell where you perceive twenty or thirty men, some of them stretched upon straw. They are mostly pickpockets, shop-lifters, or professors of other branches of the Spartan craft. Do you observe five or six of them worrying a sort of labourer, who was introduced to their society this morning for having wounded an alguazil with a stone?" "And what are they thrashing him for?" asked Zambullo. "Why," replied Asmodeus, "because he has not paid his entrance-fees. But," added he, "let us leave this horrible place, and the miserable wretches it contains; they are not in my vocation: we will go elsewhere, in search of objects less disgusting."