and stood leaning there. From the creation of his mind's eye,
as he doubtlessly, half-conscious of his weakness, designated the
familiar form, he glanced at the sentinel and shook as though
abruptly conscious of his situation. Across the valley the soldiers
showed signs of bestirring themselves, the smoke of many fires
hovering earthward beneath the mist. Drawing his thin frame proudly to
its full height, with a gesture of disdain for physical weakness, and
setting his keen, wild eyes upon the soldier, Mauville said in a
hollow tone:

"Is that really you, Mr. Saint-Prosper? At first I thought you but a
trick of the imagination. Well, look your fill upon me! You are my
Nemesis come to see the end."

"I am here by chance, Edward Mauville; an officer in the American
army!"

"And I, a spy in the Mexican army. So are we authorized foes."

Rubbing his trembling hands together, his eyes shifted from the dark
birds to the mists, then from the phantom forests back to the hut,
finally resting on his shabby boots of yellow leather. The sunlight
penetrating a rift in the mist settled upon him as he moved feebly and
uncertainly through the doorway and seated himself upon a stool. This
sudden glow brought into relief his ragged, unkempt condition, the
sallowness of his face, and his wasted form, and Saint-Prosper could
not but contrast pityingly this cheerless object, in the garb of a
ranchero, with the prepossessing, sportive heir who had driven through
the Shadengo Valley.

Apparently now the sun was grateful to his bent, stricken figure,
and, basking in it, he recalled his distress of the previous night:

"This is better. Not long ago I awoke with chattering teeth. 'This,' I
said, 'is life; a miasma, cold, discomfort,' Yes, yes; a fever, a
miasma, with phantoms fighting you--struggling to choke you--but
now"--he paused, and fumbling in his pocket, drew out a cigarette
case, which he opened, but found empty. A cigar the other handed him
he took mechanically and lighted with scrupulous care. Near at hand
the guard, more cheerful under the prospect of speedy relief from his
duties, could be heard humming to himself:

"Oh, Teady-foley, you are my darling,
You are my looking-glass night and morning--"

Watching the smoker, Saint-Prosper asked himself how came Mauville to
be serving against his own country, or why he should have enlisted at
all, this pleasure-seeking man of the world, to whom the hard