NOTES
begged that Don Juan would take her into his own home: and that disposition of her, accordingly, was made—with the result that more "odious gossip" was aroused. What became of the beautiful Doña Ana is unrecorded. Her episodic existence in the story seems to be due to the fact that because of her the popular ill-will against Don Juan and against the Viceroy was increased.
A far-reaching ripple from the wave of the Portuguese and Catalonian revolt of the year 1640, influencing affairs in Mexico, gave opportunity for this ill-will to crystallize into action of so effective a sort that the Viceroy was recalled, and his favorite-no longer under protection-was cast into prison. Don Juan's commitment-the specific charge against him is not recorded-was signed by one Don Francisco Vélez de Pereira: who, as Señor Obregón puts it, "was not only a Judge of the criminal court but a criminal Judge" (no era solamente un Alcalde del crimen sino un Alcalde criminal) because he made dishonest proposals to Doña Mariana as the price of her husband's liberation. It would seem that Doña Mariana accepted the offered terms; and in so grateful a spirit that she was content to wait upon the Alcalde's pleasure for their complete ratification by Don Juan's deliverance. Pending such liquidation of the contract, news was carried to Don Juan in prison of the irregular negotiations in progress to procure his freedom: whereupon. he procured it for himself, one night, by breaking jail. Going straight to his own home, he found there the Alcalde—and incontinently killed him.
That one killing that Don Juan Manuel certainly did commit—out of which, probably, has come the
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