ould have
had news of you. How glad Salvador will be! Where have you been all this
time, and why, oh why, did you not write?"

"I have been in the heart of the Andes, and I did not write because I was
as much cut off from the world as if I had been in another planet."

"You must have a long story to tell us, then. But I am forgetting the most
important question of all. Are you still a bachelor?"

"Worse than that, Juanita. I am a widower. I have lost the sweetest
wife--"

"_Misericordia! Misericordia! Pobre amigo mio!_ Oh, how sorry I am; how
much I pity you!" And the dear lady, now a stately and handsome matron,
fell a-weeping out of pure tenderness, and I had to tell her the sad story
of the quenching of Quipai and Angela's death. But the telling of it,
together with Juanita's sympathy, did me good, and I went away in much
better spirits than I had come. Salvador, she said, would be back in a few
days, and she much regretted not being able to offer me quarters; it was
contrary to the custom of the place and Spanish etiquette for ladies to
entertain gentlemen visitors during their husbands' absence.

After leaving Juanita I walked round by the guard-house in which I had
been imprisoned, and through the ruins where Carmen and I had hidden when
we were making our escape. They suggested some stirring memories--Carera
(who, as I learned from Juanita, had been dead several years) and his
chivalrous friendship; Salvador and his reckless courage; our midnight
ride; Gahra and the bivouac by the mountain-tarn (poor Gahra, what had
become of him?); Majia and his guerillas; Griscelli and his blood-hounds
(how I hated that man, but surely by this time he had got his deserts);
Gondocori and Queen Mamcuna; the man-killer; and Quipai.

My mind was still busied with these memories when I reached the hotel.
There seemed to be much more going on than there had been earlier in the
day--horsemen were coming and going, servants hurrying to and fro, people
promenading on the _patio_, a group of uniformed officers deep in
conversation. One of them, a tall, rather stout man, with grizzled hair, a
pair of big epaulettes, and a coat covered with gold lace, had his back
toward me, and as my eye fell on his sword-hilt it struck me that I had
seen something like it before. I was trying to think where, when the owner
of it turned suddenly round, and I found myself face to face
with--GRISCELLI!!

For some seconds we stared at each other in bl