the brazen side of his character asserted itself. Passing the
sleeve of his uniform over his face he pulled himself together, His
truculent glance turned slowly here and there, checked the noise where
it fell; and the stiff body of the late Senor Hirsch, merchant, after
swaying imperceptibly, made a half turn, and came to a rest in the midst
of awed murmurs and uneasy shuffling.

A voice remarked loudly, "Behold a man who will never speak again." And
another, from the back row of faces, timid and pressing, cried out--

"Why did you kill him, mi colonel?"

"Because he has confessed everything," answered Sotillo, with the
hardihood of desperation. He felt himself cornered. He brazened it out
on the strength of his reputation with very fair success. His hearers
thought him very capable of such an act. They were disposed to believe
his flattering tale. There is no credulity so eager and blind as the
credulity of covetousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the
moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind. Ah! he had
confessed everything, this fractious Jew, this bribon. Good! Then he
was no longer wanted. A sudden dense guffaw was heard from the senior
captain--a big-headed man, with little round eyes and monstrously fat
cheeks which never moved. The old major, tall and fantastically ragged
like a scarecrow, walked round the body of the late Senor Hirsch,
muttering to himself with ineffable complacency that like this there was
no need to guard against any future treacheries of that scoundrel. The
others stared, shifting from foot to foot, and whispering short remarks
to each other.

Sotillo buckled on his sword and gave curt, peremptory orders to hasten
the retirement decided upon in the afternoon. Sinister, impressive, his
sombrero pulled right down upon his eyebrows, he marched first through
the door in such disorder of mind that he forgot utterly to provide for
Dr. Monygham's possible return. As the officers trooped out after him,
one or two looked back hastily at the late Senor Hirsch, merchant from
Esmeralda, left swinging rigidly at rest, alone with the two burning
candles. In the emptiness of the room the burly shadow of head and
shoulders on the wall had an air of life.

Below, the troops fell in silently and moved off by companies without
drum or trumpet. The old scarecrow major commanded the rearguard; but
the party he left behind with orders to fire the Custom House (and "burn
the carc