descending voice--

"I have concluded not to detain you, Senor Mitchell. I am of a forgiving
disposition. I make allowances. Let this be a lesson to you, however."

The peculiar dawn of Sulaco, which seems to break far away to the
westward and creep back into the shade of the mountains, mingled with
the reddish light of the candles. Captain Mitchell, in sign of contempt
and indifference, let his eyes roam all over the room, and he gave a
hard stare to the doctor, perched already on the casement of one of the
windows, with his eyelids lowered, careless and thoughtful--or perhaps
ashamed.

Sotillo, ensconced in the vast armchair, remarked, "I should have
thought that the feelings of a caballero would have dictated to you an
appropriate reply."

He waited for it, but Captain Mitchell remaining mute, more from extreme
resentment than from reasoned intention, Sotillo hesitated, glanced
towards the doctor, who looked up and nodded, then went on with a slight
effort--

"Here, Senor Mitchell, is your watch. Learn how hasty and unjust has
been your judgment of my patriotic soldiers."

Lying back in his seat, he extended his arm over the table and pushed
the watch away slightly. Captain Mitchell walked up with undisguised
eagerness, put it to his ear, then slipped it into his pocket coolly.

Sotillo seemed to overcome an immense reluctance. Again he looked aside
at the doctor, who stared at him unwinkingly.

But as Captain Mitchell was turning away, without as much as a nod or a
glance, he hastened to say--

"You may go and wait downstairs for the senor doctor, whom I am going to
liberate, too. You foreigners are insignificant, to my mind."

He forced a slight, discordant laugh out of himself, while Captain
Mitchell, for the first time, looked at him with some interest.

"The law shall take note later on of your transgressions," Sotillo
hurried on. "But as for me, you can live free, unguarded, unobserved.
Do you hear, Senor Mitchell? You may depart to your affairs. You are
beneath my notice. My attention is claimed by matters of the very
highest importance."

Captain Mitchell was very nearly provoked to an answer. It displeased
him to be liberated insultingly; but want of sleep, prolonged anxieties,
a profound disappointment with the fatal ending of the silver-saving
business weighed upon his spirits. It was as much as he could do to
conceal his uneasiness, not about himself perhaps, but about things
in general. It