d my companion. "And I may call you Dick,
may I not? Senor sounds so very formal, does it not?" Her quaint
mimicry of my earnestness of manner was irresistibly droll.

"Of course you may," I agreed eagerly. "Well, Lotta--now, let me
remember--what was it I was about to say? Oh, yes, of course--how came
you to be a prisoner in the power of this man Ricardo?"

"Very simply, yet in a manner that you would scarcely credit," was the
reply. "You must know that my mother died just after I was born, my
father when I was just two years old. Up to then Mammy had looked after
me, but when my father died his estates were taken in charge by some
people whom my father had appointed to look after them--what do you call
those people--?"

"Trustees, we call them in England," I suggested.

"Yes," assented Lotta, "they were my father's trustees, and my
guardians, empowered to look after my interests and manage the estates
until I should arrive at the age of eighteen. When I was seven years of
age the trustees decided to send me over to Old Spain to be educated,
and I accordingly went, in charge of the wife of one of them, with Mammy
to look after me. I was educated at the convent of Santa Clara, in
Seville, where I remained until my fourteenth birthday, when I was taken
out of the convent and placed on board a ship bound to Havana, my
guardians having decided that I had received as much education as was
necessary, and that the time had arrived when I ought to return to Cuba
and take my place as mistress of my household and owner of the vast
estate of which I was the heiress. Then a terrible misfortune befell
us: the ship on board which I was a passenger caught fire, and was
utterly destroyed, and everybody was obliged to take refuge in the
boats. Then, to add still further to our misery, a gale sprang up, and
the boats became separated. We suffered dreadfully during that gale,
and were several times in the greatest danger of being drowned. Then,
when the gale was over, the sailors in our boat knew not in which
direction to steer, and so we went drifting aimlessly hither and
thither, not knowing where we were going, but hoping, day after day,
that a ship would come in sight and pick us up. And very soon our food
and water became exhausted, and our sufferings intensified to such an
extent that some of the men went mad and threw themselves into the sea.
As for me, I became so weak at last that I lost consciousness, and did