classes, who poured into the jealous despot's ear the venom of
calumny and falsehood; these the spies and traitors who, by secret and
insidious denunciations, brought sudden arrest and unmerited punishment
upon their innocent fellow-citizens, and who kept the King advised of
all that passed in Madrid, from the amorous intrigues of a grocer's
wife, to the political ones concerted in the cabinet of the Infante Don
Carlos.

The student's first uneasiness at finding himself upon such new and
perilous ground, vanished when he saw that he was wholly unheeded. He
remembered to have heard that persons once admitted to the camarilla,
and honoured by the King's confidence, were at liberty to return when
they thought fit, at short or long intervals; and thus it might well
happen that some of the members were unknown to each other. And on that
night, these illicit counsellors of majesty were evidently preoccupied
with some pressing and important matter. They crowded round Regato, took
his arm, seized him by the button, whispered so eagerly, and questioned
him so fast, that the little man lost all patience.

"Hands off, gentlemen!" he cried. "Which of you will buy me a new coat
when you have torn mine? 'Tis true that this morning our gracious lord
the King was very ill: but I hear that he is now better; and by the
grace of our blessed Lady, he will rejoice his humble and loving slaves,
and dispel their deep anxiety, by the sunshine of his presence."

The words had scarce left Geronimo's lips, when the opening of a
side-door proved the signal for a respectful silence in the apartment.
The whole assembly bowed profoundly, and preserved that posture,
although no cause was yet apparent for such extraordinary greeting. At
last one showed itself, in the person of a man who tottered slowly and
feebly into the room, supported on the arms of two attendants, his livid
and bloated countenance distorted by a smile as painful to behold as if
compelled by thumbscrews. The face of the new comer, who nodded in reply
to the humble salutation of the camarilla, might once have been
handsome, but it could never have been intellectual or prepossessing,
and now it was hideously cadaverous and ghastly. The features were those
characterising a well-known family, world-renowned for the high places
it has filled, rather than for the virtues or abilities of its members.
The eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, the straight, scanty black
hair shaded a brow