CHAP. XV.
Nowithstanding the muleteer made the utmost dispatch possible, I thought my journey from Cadiz to Alcantara the slowest I ever made. On my arrival, I flew immediately to the Corregidor, to obtain the release of two innocent men, condemned to the horrors of a dungeon, and loaded with the galling chains of supposed criminality. He received me with astonishment, and heard my tale with sullen remorse. "You come too late, Don Carlos," said the judge, "one of the victims of presumptive guilt is no more. Twice he was put to the tormenting rack, and suffered his body to be lacerated by the whip of the executioner, and his limbs to be forced out of joint by the fatal machine: still persisting in the solemn profession of his innocence. During the third performance of the torture, nature yielded, and with his last dying groan, he said: 'I am innocent!'—He has left a wife and three
