ppears to be a solid wall
of rock confronts us. It is actually a cunningly-contrived door giving
entrance to a series of caves which Nature must surely have constructed
for my use. And El Diablo Cojuelo has improved on nature. _He aqui!_"

With his foot he pressed some hidden spring or lever on the ground, and
a massive door swung open, revealing to the astonished eyes of Myra a
big, irregularly-shaped room that looked as if it had been hewn out of
the solid rock, a room furnished with roughly-constructed chairs and a
settee on which there were many cushions, and with many rugs on the
rocky floor. Most amazing feature of all, the place was lighted with
electricity and warmed by an electric radiator.

"I suppose I am awake and not dreaming!" exclaimed Myra, moving forward
and gazing round with wondering eyes. "This is more amazing than the
castle of Don Carlos. Are you a magician as well as a brigand?"

"Both, senorita," Cojuelo answered, as he closed the secret door, "but
there is nothing magical about it, after all. It was a simple matter
to have an electric light plant smuggled up here in sections. It was
an equally simple matter to obtain rugs and cushions from the Castillo
de Ruiz, since all the servants of Don Carlos, as I have told you, are
in my pay."

He strode forward to the table and touched a bell, and almost
immediately an ancient woman with a wrinkled monkey-like, nut-brown
face, tanned by wind and weather, appeared through an opening concealed
by a curtain in the further wall. She was obviously of great age, but
her eyes were bright and sparkling with intelligence, and she was
active in her movements.

"This is Mother Dolores, who will attend you," Cojuelo explained, after
giving the woman some instructions in her native tongue. "She has a
change of clothing and refreshments in readiness for you. I will leave
you in her charge while I attend to the disposal of my other captives."

He disappeared through the aperture in the wall, and Mother Dolores,
after inspecting Myra appraisingly and admiringly, gabbling away in
Spanish idioma meanwhile, indicated to the fair prisoner that she
wished her to accompany her.

She led the way through a regular maze of crooked passages, and Myra
saw that Cojuelo's mountain lair was a strange freak of nature,
probably the result of a volcanic upheaval or an earthquake in some
prehistoric age. It was a series of caves connected with fissures, a
sort of irre