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In former times there ruled, as governor of the
Alhambra, a doughty old cavalier, who, from
having lost one arm in the wars, was commonly
known by the name of el Gobernador Manco, or
“the one-armed governor.” He in fact prided
himself upon being an old soldier, wore his mustachios
curled up to his eyes, a pair of campaigning
boots, and a toledo as long as a spit, with his
pocket handkerchief in the basket hilt.

He was, moreover, exceedingly proud and
punctilious, and tenacious of all his privileges
and dignities. Under his sway the immunities of
the Alhambra, as a royal residence and domain,
were rigidly exacted. No one was permitted to
enter the fortress with fire-arms, or even with a
sword or staff, unless he were of a certain rank;
and every horseman was obliged to dismount at
the gate, and lead his horse by the bridle. Now
as the hill of the Alhambra rises from the very

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midst of the city of Granada, being, as it were, an
excrescence of the capital, it must at all times be
somewhat irksome to the captain-general, who
commands the province, to have thus an imperium
in imperio, a petty independent post in the very
centre of his domains. It was rendered the more
galling, in the present instance, from the irritable
jealousy of the old governor, that took fire on the
least question of authority and jurisdiction; and
from the loose vagrant character of the people that
had gradually nestled themselves within the fortress,
as in a sanctuary, and from thence carried on
a system of roguery and depredation at the expense
of the honest inhabitants of the city.

Thus there was a perpetual feud and heartburning
between the captain-general and the governor,
the more virulent on the part of the latter,
inasmuch as the smallest of two neighbouring
potentates is always the most captious about his
dignity. The stately palace of the captain-general
stood in the Plaza Nueva, immediately at the
foot of the hill of the Alhambra, and here was
always a bustle and parade of guards, and domestics,
and city functionaries. A beetling bastion
of the fortress overlooked the palace and public
square in front of it; and on this bastion the old
governor would occasionally strut backwards and

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forwards, with his toledo girded by his side, keeping
a wary eye down upon his rival, like a hawk
reconnoitring his quarry from his nest in a dry tree.

Whenever he descended into the city it was
in grand parade, on horseback, surrounded by his
guards, or in his state coach, an ancient and unwieldy
Spanish edifice of carved timber and gilt
leather, drawn by eight mules, with running footmen,
out-riders, and lacquies; on which occasions
he flattered himself he impressed every beholder
with awe and admiration as vicegerent of the king,
though the wits of Granada, particularly those who
loitered about the palace of the captain-general,
were apt to sneer at his petty parade, and in allusion
to the vagrant character of his subjects, to
greet him with the appellation of “the king of the
beggars.” One of the most fruitful sources of dispute
between these two doughty rivals was the
right claimed by the governor to have all things
passed free of duty through the city, that were intended
for the use of himself or his garrison. By
degrees this privilege had given rise to extensive
smuggling. A nest of contrabandistas took up
their abode in the hovels of the fortress, and the
numerous caves in its vicinity, and drove a thriving
business under the connivance of the soldiers
of the garrison.

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The vigilance of the captain-general was aroused.
He consulted his legal adviser and factotum, a
shrewd meddlesome escribano, or notary, who
rejoiced in an opportunity of perplexing the old
potentate of the Alhambra, and involving him in
a maze of legal subtilties. He advised the captain-general
to insist upon the right of examining every
convoy passing through the gates of his city, and
he penned a long letter for him in vindication of
the right. Governor Manco was a straightforward
cut-and-thrust old soldier, who hated an escribano
worse than the devil, and this one in particular
worse than all other escribanos.

“What!” said he, curling up his mustachios
fiercely, “does the captain-general set his man of
the pen to practice confusions upon me? I'll let
him see 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, without deigning to
enter into argument, 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

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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 rusty and staunch 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 ground, 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.

“Hallo there!” cried the leader; “Muleteer,
halt, and open those packages.”

The corporal wheeled round, and drew himself

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up in battle array. “Respect the flag of the Alhambra,”
said he; “these things are for the
governor.”

“A figo for the governor, and a figo 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 levelled 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 cudgellings, 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 vapoured about the bastions,
and looked down fire and sword upon the palace
of the captain-general. Having vented the first

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ebullition of his wrath, he despatched 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 subtile 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 ironbound
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

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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 old
governor determined to attend to the affair in person.
For this purpose he ordered out his carriage
of state, and, surrounded by his guards, rumbled
down the avenue of the Alhambra into the city.
Driving to the house of the escribano, he summoned
him to the portal.

The eye of the old governor gleamed like a
coal at beholding the smirking man of the law
advancing with an air of exultation.

“What is this I hear,” cried he, “that you are
about to put to death one of my soldiers?”

“All according to law—all in strict form of justice,”
said the self-sufficient escribano, chuckling
and rubbing his hands. “I can show your excellency
the written testimony in the case.”

“Fetch it hither,” said the governor. The
escribano bustled into his office, delighted with

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having another opportunity of displaying his
ingenuity at the expense of the hard-headed veteran.

He returned with a satchel full of papers, and
began to read a long deposition with professional
volubility. By this time a crowd had collected,
listening with outstretched necks and gaping
mouths.

“Prythee, man, get into the carriage, out of
this pestilent throng, that I may the better hear
thee,” said the governor.

The escribano entered the carriage, when, in a
twinkling, the door was closed, the coachman
smacked his whip—mules, carriage, guards and
all dashed off at a thundering rate, leaving the
crowd in gaping wonderment; nor did the
governor pause until he had lodged his prey in
one of the strongest dungeons of the Alhambra.

He then sent down a flag of truce in military
style, proposing a cartel or exchange of prisoners—
the corporal for the notary. The pride of the
captain-general was piqued; he returned a contemptuous
refusal, and forthwith caused a gallows,
tall and strong, to be erected in the centre of the
Plaza Nueva for the execution of the corporal.

“Oho! is that the game?” said governor
Manco. He gave orders, and immediately a

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gibbet was reared on the verge of the great beetling
bastion that overlooked the Plaza. “Now,”
said he in a message to the captain-general, “hang
my soldier when you please; but at the same time
that he is swung off in the square, look up to see
your escribano dangling against the sky.”

The captain-general was inflexible; troops were
paraded in the square; the drums beat, the bell
tolled. An immense multitude of amateurs gathered
together to behold the execution. On the
other hand, the governor paraded his garrison on
the bastion, and tolled the funeral dirge of the
notary from the Torre de la Campana, or Tower
of the Bell.

The notary's wife pressed through the crowd
with a whole progeny of little embryo escribanos
at her heels, and throwing herself at the feet of
the captain-general, implored him not to sacrifice
the life of her husband, and the welfare of herself
and her numerous little ones, to a point of pride;
“for you know the old governor too well,” said
she, “to doubt that he will put his threat in execution,
if you hang the soldier.”

The captain-general was overpowered by her
tears and lamentations, and the clamours of her
callow brood. The corporal was sent up to the
Alhambra, under a guard, in his gallows garb,

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like a hooded friar, but with head erect and a face
of iron. The escribano was demanded in exchange,
according to the cartel. The once bustling and
self-sufficient man of the law was drawn forth
from his dungeon more dead than alive. All his
flippancy and conceit had evaporated; his hair,
it is said, had nearly turned grey with affright,
and he had a downcast, dogged look, as if he still
felt the halter round his neck.

The old governor stuck his one arm a-kimbo,
and for a moment surveyed him with an iron
smile. “Henceforth, my friend,” said he, “moderate
your zeal in hurrying others to the gallows;
be not too certain of your safety, even though you
should have the law on your side; and above all,
take care how you play off your schoolcraft another
time upon an old soldier.”

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p226-366

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