den the heart, and be ever afterwards remembered with repugnance
and pain.

There is, perhaps, no prison in the universal world where one may
witness so many, and such a variety of criminals; since there is no
crime known to the calendar that has not been committed by some one of
the gaol-birds of the Acordada.

Its cells, or cloisters--for the building was once a monastery--are
usually well filled with thieves, forgers, ravishers, highway robbers,
and a fair admixture of murderers; none appearing cowed or repentant,
but boldly brazening it out, and even boasting of their deeds of
villainy, fierce and strong as when doing them, save the disabled ones,
who suffer from wounds or some loathsome disease.

Nor is all their criminal action suspended inside the prison walls. It
is carried on within their cells, and still more frequently in the
courtyards of the ancient convent, where they are permitted to meet in
common and spend a considerable portion of their time. Here they may be
seen in groups, most of them ragged and greasy, squatted on the flags,
card-playing--and cheating when they can--now and then quarrelling, but
always talking loud and cursing.

Into the midst of this mass of degraded humanity were thrust two of the
unfortunate prisoners, taken at the battle of Mier--the two with whom
our tale has alone to do.

For reasons that need not be told, most of the captives were excepted
from this degradation; the main body of them being carried on through
the city to the pleasant suburban village of Tacubaya.

But Florence Kearney and Cris Rock were not among the exceptions; both
having been consigned to the horrid pandemonium we have painted.

It was some consolation to them that they were allowed to share the same
cell, though they would have liked it better could they have had this
all to themselves. As it was, they had not; two individuals being
bestowed in it along with them.

It was an apartment of but limited dimensions--about eight feet by ten--
the cloister of some ancient monk, who, no doubt, led a jolly enough
life of it there, or, if not there, in the refectory outside, in the
days when the Acordada was a pleasant place of residence for himself and
his cowled companions. For his monastery, as "Bolton Abbey in the olden
time," saw many a scene of good cheer, its inmates being no anchorites.

Beside the Texan prisoners, its other occupants now were men of Mexican
birth. One of them, under more fav