t she stopped,
in evident irritation, and beckoned him to one side, with a certain
authority, in spite of his having the table to attend to.

They spoke eagerly together, and Salve caught a rapid glance directed
towards himself by the senorita, which he did not at all like. She was
unnaturally pale; and he saw that she finally gave the other her hand,
which he kissed with an enraptured expression, and she then disappeared
from the room.

The landlord's face beamed the whole evening afterwards, and he bowed
politely to Federigo as he passed the table. The latter, the next time
he came near Salve, whispered rather scornfully--

"I believe my sister has bartered away her soul this evening, and
promised to marry that old money-bag there who keeps the tavern.
Congratulate us, _amigo mio_!"

Salve observed that the said money-bag conferred now more than once with
the man at the head of his own table, and was apparently making terms
with him; and that the latter also, when he thought he was not observed,
glanced over at himself in a way that was very far from putting him at
his ease.

The American who had spoken to him before--a tall, athletic-looking man,
with a fair beard round a hard Yankee face, and with a remnant of gold
lace on the sleeve of his jacket--had since been at the gaming-table,
and had been losing one doubloon after another.

"They don't play fair, my lad!" he cried in English to Salve, to whom he
seemed anxious to make up.

"I daresay not," was the reply; "it's a vile den."

"What country do you hail from?"

"Norway."

"Ah! Norwegian. Good sailors."

"Deserted at Rio?" he asked then, with a laugh, as if he expected, as a
matter of course, an answer in the affirmative.

"Shall I play for you?" he asked presently.

"No money."

"Here's a guinea on account of your wages on board the 'Stars and
Stripes,' for Valparaiso and Chinchas!" he cried, with a laugh that was
heard above the surrounding din; and flinging a gold piece on the table,
he lost it.

He turned, and putting his hand to his mouth, shouted--

"One more on account!" and another gold piece shared the fate of the
first.

"One more on account!" there came again, and with the same result.

Salve had by this time had about enough of this free-and-easy and
undesired playing on his account. The man's face, moreover, with all its
joviality, by no means attracted him, and he shouted to him in a
sharply-protesting tone--

"Play for yo