injected, wide open mouth, and dropped jaw the man sat all
fallen together in his seat, the gold ornaments still strewed about him,
the pencil with which he had been checking them fallen from his
nerveless grasp.

"I have accounted for the old lady," said Rollo, who with the eager
professional assistance of La Giralda had been gagging and securing the
Tia. La Giralda with a wicked glee also undertook the office of searcher
of her rival's person, into the details of which process the unlearned
historian may not enter--suffice to say that it was whole-hearted and
thorough, and that it resulted in a vast series of objects being slung
upon the table, many of them plundered from Don Luis's own house and
others doubtless secreted during the process of overhauling Ramon's
strong box.

"Ah-ah, most excellent Tia, you will not refuse me a peseta as my share
next time you go out a-caudle-ing!" said La Giralda, all in a grinning
triumph when she had finished, and to fill the cup yet fuller, was
adjusting her friend's gag to a more excellent advantage.

"Stay where you are, Luis Fernandez," said El Sarria, sternly, as he sat
down with his pistols on either side of him. "I advise you not to move
hand or foot, if you set any value upon your life. I shall have much to
say to you before--before the morning!"

And the doomed man, recognising the accents of deadly intent in his late
friend's voice, let his head sink into his hands with a hopeless moan.

"Meantime I will put these things in order," said the Scot, in whose
military blood ran the instinct of loot, and he was beginning to throw
all the objects of value indiscriminately into the open chest when El
Sarria checked him.

"I will take only what is mine own--and hers," he said, "but meantime
abide. There is much to be said and done first!"

Then he turned his broad deeply lined brow upon Fernandez, who looked
into his eyes as the trembling criminal, hopeless of mercy, waits the
black cap and the sentence.

Rollo had settled the Tia on the floor with her head on a roll of
household stuffs which she herself had rolled up in her cloak for
transport.

La Giralda asked her friend if she felt herself as comfortable as might
be, and the Tia looked up at her with the eyes of a trapped wild-cat.
Then the Scot stood on guard by the door which led to the staircase, his
sword drawn in his hand. The picturesqueness of the scene at the table
appealed to the play-actor in him.

El S