urself, Yankee."

The American seemed not to be able to hear on that side, for he
repeated, coolly nodding to him--

"One more on account!"

Salve's patience was exhausted. He had been sitting all this time
squeezed up in the narrow space between the bench and the wall with
people on both sides of him, preventing his getting out; but now
grasping his neighbour violently by the shoulder, he sprang all at once
across the table and over to the unabashed Yankee, with an irresistible
feeling that, come what might, he would get out into the freedom of the
open air once more.

Just then there came from the furthest room a cry of "police." The
lights in that room were at once extinguished; and a moment after, those
in the room where Salve was on the point of falling foul of the American
(who, to his great surprise, found him all of a sudden confronting him)
went out also.

Their hostile relations, however, were almost immediately turned into
friendly ones. For Salve, who had seen the landlord making a rush
towards him, felt himself suddenly, in the midst of the confusion caused
by the darkness, seized by two men and forced towards a door leading in
another direction than that in which he saw the stream was setting, and
which no doubt was the way out.

"Help, Yankee! there's some villany on here; the small door to the
right!" he shouted, with great presence of mind, and at the same moment
the door was slammed behind him. A handkerchief was tied over his mouth;
he was tripped up and brought heavily to the ground, where his feet and
hands were tied, and he was then shot into a dark side-room, which
seemed to be at the back of a press, that was unlatched to pass him
through.

"H'm!" said the Yankee coolly, to himself. "I am not going to lose his
pay, if I know it," and he set out accordingly in search of the police,
with whom he had no outstanding account.

Salve was certain he had heard the senorita's voice whispering in the
outer room; and not long after he heard the latch in the press raised,
and she stood before him with a light. She looked at him mischievously,
and spilt some oil out of the lamp on to his face with a little scornful
laugh. But her expression changed then to that of a tigress burning for
revenge that is compelled to put off the gratification of her fury, and
she darted out again, clapping down the latch behind her.

Salve lay tightly bound with his hands behind his back. But his cat-like
suppleness