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The Government of Spain ever since the restoration of Don Alfonso XII. has been in reality what it was only in name before a constitutional monarchy. During the first years of the young King's reign, Cánovas del Castillo being Prime Minister, there was a distinctly reactionary tendency from the Liberalism of Prim and the revolutionary party of 1868.

Ramon Castillo set forward a couple of chairs and asked his visitors to be seated. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he wore the rope-soled sandals of the Spanish peasant, but he was entirely at his ease. He made the customary little speech of welcome with so simple a dignity and so manifest a sincerity that Hillyard could hardly doubt him afterwards.

I bade him bon voyage on board the 8:41 between the two Gatuns and soon afterward was throwing together my belongings and leaving "Davie" to enjoy his room alone. For Corporal Castillo was to be head of the subterranean department ad interim, and how could the digging of the canal continue with no detective in all the wilderness of morals between the Pacific and Culebra?

In all there were about six hundred passengers, of whom about sixty were women and children. In four days we reached Castillo, where there is a decided fall, passed by a short railway, and above this fall we were transferred to a larger boat, which carried us up the rest of the river, and across the beautiful lake Nicaragua, studded with volcanic islands.

The Spanish postal authorities discovered the conspiracy through a letter written by Castillo to Baselga. General Macias was informed of this discovery, and a quiet investigation disclosed the fact that there were involved in it all of the most prominent residents of the city of San Juan, both native and foreign.

Its commander, Castillo, could offer no resistance; and was subsequently, it is said, beheaded by order of the Duke of Parma for his negligence. The place is but a dozen miles from Antwerp, which city was at the very, moment keeping great holiday and outdoing itself in magnificent festivals in honour of young Ranuccio.

The Fray Hernando del Castillo, who had accidentally happened to be at Simancas, had performed the holy offices, at the request of the deceased, who had died in so catholic a frame of mind, that great hopes might be entertained of his salvation. Although he possessed no property, yet his burial had been conducted very respectably.

Its commander, Castillo, could offer no resistance; and was subsequently, it is said, beheaded by order of the Duke of Parma for his negligence. The place is but a dozen miles from Antwerp, which city was at the very, moment keeping great holiday and outdoing itself in magnificent festivals in honour of young Ranuccio.

Let me warn you, dear people, that if El Diablo learns I am entertaining a party of wealthy English people he may attempt another raid." The others had laughed, assuming that he was jesting. Most of them had decided that Don Carlos had "invented" El Diablo Cojuelo and his brigand gang, with the object of adding a spice of adventure to their visit. El Castillo de Ruiz was a place of surprises.

That evening he entertained the whole party royally at the premier hotel of the city, and next morning they found a fleet of luxurious Hispano cars waiting to convey them through some of the most picturesque parts of Spain to El Castillo de Ruiz, his ancestral home, situated in a fertile valley amid the heights of the Sierra Morena.