landing, and there was a great tumult of feet on
the wooden staircase.

"Disarm him! Bind him!" the colonel could be heard vociferating.

Captain Mitchell had just the time to glance once at the windows, with
three perpendicular bars of iron each and some twenty feet from the
ground, as he well knew, before the door flew open and the rush upon him
took place. In an incredibly short time he found himself bound with
many turns of a hide rope to a high-backed chair, so that his head alone
remained free. Not till then did Sotillo, who had been leaning in the
doorway trembling visibly, venture again within. The soldiers, picking
up from the floor the rifles they had dropped to grapple with the
prisoner, filed out of the room. The officers remained leaning on their
swords and looking on.

"The watch! the watch!" raved the colonel, pacing to and fro like a
tiger in a cage. "Give me that man's watch."

It was true, that when searched for arms in the hall downstairs, before
being taken into Sotillo's presence, Captain Mitchell had been relieved
of his watch and chain; but at the colonel's clamour it was produced
quickly enough, a corporal bringing it up, carried carefully in the
palms of his joined hands. Sotillo snatched it, and pushed the clenched
fist from which it dangled close to Captain Mitchell's face.

"Now then! You arrogant Englishman! You dare to call the soldiers of the
army thieves! Behold your watch."

He flourished his fist as if aiming blows at the prisoner's nose.
Captain Mitchell, helpless as a swathed infant, looked anxiously at
the sixty-guinea gold half-chronometer, presented to him years ago by
a Committee of Underwriters for saving a ship from total loss by fire.
Sotillo, too, seemed to perceive its valuable appearance. He became
silent suddenly, stepped aside to the table, and began a careful
examination in the light of the candles. He had never seen anything so
fine. His officers closed in and craned their necks behind his back.

He became so interested that for an instant he forgot his precious
prisoner. There is always something childish in the rapacity of the
passionate, clear-minded, Southern races, wanting in the misty idealism
of the Northerners, who at the smallest encouragement dream of nothing
less than the conquest of the earth. Sotillo was fond of jewels, gold
trinkets, of personal adornment. After a moment he turned about, and
with a commanding gesture made all his officers fall back.