rthy
landlady, Donna Teresa Lopez, who had been invisible since the day on
which my lucky stars first guided me to her roof. This worthy woman, who
was somewhere between forty and sixty years of age, (Mexican women, be
it understood, when once they pass thirty, enter on a career of the most
ambiguous antiquity,) had two branches of business, of which she claimed
a thorough knowledge--tobacco and medicine. My sickness, therefore, was
to her a source of intense gratification. She was everlastingly bringing
me some new remedy of her own invention, in spite of which, thanks be to
God, and a good constitution, I at length rallied, and grew gradually
convalescent.

'One night, while lying half-asleep and half-awake, dreamily promising
myself, if the weather were favorable on the morrow, that I would
venture out of doors, I fancied I heard a voice, muttering words in my
own mother tongue. I rose, and resting on my elbow, listened
attentively--but then a profound silence reigned around me. Persuaded,
that feeble as I still was, I had mistaken a dream for a reality, I
languidly let my head fall back upon my pillow. Scarcely a minute,
however, had elapsed, ere a voice whose tone denoted anguish and
distress, and which seemed to come from the middle of the room,
exclaimed, in distinct English: 'My God! my God! take pity on my
anguish, and in mercy help me!'

'Assured this time that I was no longer dreaming, I started up again,
and laboring under much excitement, cried out: 'Who is there?'

'Again all was perfectly silent. Just as I was about to jump out of bed
and explore the mystery, my eye fell upon a faint streak of light, which
glimmered through a crack in the door behind my rocking-chair, near the
foot of my bed. From the same direction, also, came the sound of a
nervous, unequal, jerking tread, which fully explained a portion of the
mystery. It was pretty evident, first, that I had a neighbor; secondly,
that he spoke English; and thirdly, that he was either a somnambulist or
a soliloquist.

'This discovery, ordinary and common-place enough in itself, for
Englishmen and Americans are plentiful enough in Mexico now-a-days,
still made a very serious impression on my mind, for the words I had
overheard, and above all, the tone in which they were uttered, seemed to
imply something mysterious, and to be the key-note of some dramatic
fragment. For hours I tossed about, pondering over those words, and day
was dawning ere I fell