e he had the chance, he came back, coolly demanding his
property? It was insolence!

"_Gra_-cious," exclaimed Driscoll in his counterfeit of a startled
old lady, "what's the matter?"

But Lopez put on a mien of dark cunning, and replied that he would find
out later.

Murguia's case came first. The stricken father was there, dragged from
his dead by the petty concerns of this world which cannot bide for
grief. He was as a sleep-walker. He had come into another universe. The
hacienda sala, where his child lay mid tapers, where mumbled prayers
arose, or this adobe, where uniformed men fouled the air with cigarettes
and looked after the Empire's business--the one or the other, both
places were of that other universe, dark and silent, in which his dazed
being groped alone.

The new element in the court martial was Tiburcio, and Tiburcio had in
mind one golden goose to save and one meddling Gringo to lose. He
riddled the foregoing evidence with refreshing originality. He testified
to the brigand attack for possession of the marquise. Had he not found
Don Anastasio stretched upon the ground? Had not the dauntless anciano,
the self-same Don Anastasio, fallen in defence of the two French
senoritas? And yet, did he not keep Rodrigo at bay? Si, senores, he had
indeed, until Colonel Dupin and the Contras arrived. He, the witness,
was with them. He had seen these things. Now, let anyone say that the
loyal Senor Murguia was an accomplice of that cut-throat without shame,
Rodrigo Galan; whom he, the witness, loathed from the innermost recesses
of his being; whom he, the witness, should be greatly pleased to strike
dead. But let anyone again besmirch the character of Don Anastasio!

"No, no," vociferously growled the Austrian.

Lopez opposed nothing. He had a clear notion this time as to what he
wanted. Driscoll marveled, and enjoyed it. Pigheadedness had made Don
Anastasio guilty, why shouldn't perjury make him innocent? And it did.
The mountain of suspicion and some few pebbles of evidence melted away
as lard in a skillet. The verdict was acquittal.

Driscoll knew well enough that the presence of the loyal Imperialist
with the baleful eye meant a reversal in his own case too. But the
recent and very definite animus of Lopez against him he could in no way
fathom. The blackmailer testified again. The prisoner, this Americano,
had waylaid him in the wood two days before, and had robbed him of his
last cent.

"Which you stole f