ships of
a campaign must have been as novel as distasteful.

"Are you satisfied with your trial?" said the soldier at length.

"Yes," returned Mauville, as if breaking from a reverie. "I confess I
am the secret agent of Santa Anna and would have carried information
from your lines. I am here because there is more of the Latin than the
Anglo-Saxon in me. Many of the old families"--with a touch of insane
pride--"did not regard the purchase of Louisiana by the United States
as a transaction alienating them from other ties. Fealty is not a
commercial commodity. But this," he added, scornfully, "is something
you can not understand. You soldiers of fortune draw your swords for
any master who pays you."

The wind moaned down the mountain side, and the slender trees swayed
and bent; only the heavy and ponderous cactus remained motionless, a
formidable monarch receiving obeisance from supple courtiers. Like
cymbals, the leaves clashed around this armament of power with its
thousand spears out-thrust in all directions.

The ash fell from the cigar as Mauville held the weed before his
eyes.

"It is an hour-glass," he muttered. "When smoked--Oh, for the power of
Jupiter to order four nights in one, the better to pursue his love
follies! Love follies," he repeated, and, as a new train of fancy was
awakened, he regarded Saint-Prosper venomously.

"Do you know she is the daughter of a marquis?" said Mauville,
suddenly.

"Who?" asked the soldier.

"The stroller, of course. You can never win her," he added,
contemptuously. "She knows all about that African affair."

Saint-Prosper started violently, but in a moment Mauville's
expression changed, and he appeared plunged in thought.

"The last time I saw her," he said, half to himself, "she was dressed
in black--her face as noonday--her hair black as midnight--crowning
her with languorous allurement!"

He repeated the last word several times like a man in a dream.

"Allurement! allurement!" and again relapsed into a silence that was
half-stupor.

By this time the valley, with the growing of the day, began to lose
much of its evil aspect, and the eye, tempted through glades and
vistas, lingered upon gorgeous forms of inflorescence. The land
baron slowly blew a wreath of smoke in the air--a circle, mute
reminder of eternity!--and threw the end of the cigar into the
bushes. Looking long and earnestly at the surrounding scene, he
started involuntarily. "The dark valley--whar