ter, Zureda wrote again:

"I have been having my trial. Luckily all the witnesses testified in my
behalf, and this, added to the good opinion the prison authorities have
of me, has greatly improved my position. The indictment was terrible,
but I'm not worrying much about that. To-morrow I shall know my
sentence."

All the letters of Amadeo Zureda were like this, peaceful and noble,
seemingly dictated by the most resigned stoicism. He never let anything
find its way into them which might remind Rafaela of her fault. In these
pages, filled with a strong, even writing, there was neither reproach,
dejection, nor despairing impatience. They seemed to be the admirable
reflection of an iron will which had been taught by misfortune--the most
excellent mother of all knowledge--to understand the dour secret of
hoping and of waiting.

VI

The very same day when Amadeo Zureda got out of jail, he received from
Rafaela a letter which began thus:

"Little Manolo was twenty years old, yesterday."

The one-time engineer left the boat from Africa at Valencia, passed the
night at an inn not far from the railroad station, and early next
morning took the train which was to carry him to Ecks. After so many
years of imprisonment, the old convict felt that nervous restlessness,
that lack of self-confidence, that cruel fear of destiny which men
ill-adapted to their environment are accustomed to feel every time life
presents itself to them under a new aspect. Defeat at last makes men
cowardly and pessimistic. They recall everything they have suffered and
the uselessness of all their struggles, and they think: "This, that I am
now beginning, will turn out badly for me too, like all the rest."

Amadeo Zureda had altered greatly. His white mustache formed a sad
contrast with his wrinkled face, tanned by the African sun. The
expression of an infinite pain seemed to deepen the peaceful gaze of his
black eyes. The vertical wrinkle in his brow had deepened until it
seemed a scar. His body, once strong and erect, had grown thin; and as
he walked he bent somewhat forward.

The rattling uproar of the train and the swift succession of panoramas
now unrolling before his eyes recalled to the memory of Zureda the joys
of those other and better times when he had been an engineer--joys now
largely blotted out by the distance of long-gone years. He remembered
Pedro, the Andalusian fireman, and those two engines, "Sweetie" and
"Nigger," on which