subdued voice. "A moment ago I have been called
within the door of our senorita's apartments. She has given me this for
your worship, together with many compliments. It is a seal. The Senor
will understand."

I took it; it was a tiny seal with her monogram on it. "Yes," I said.

"And Senorita Dona Seraphina has charged me to repeat"--he made a
stealthy sign, as if to counteract an evil influence--"the words, 'Two
lives--one death.' The Senor will understand."

"Yes," I said, looking away with a pang at my heart. He touched my
elbow. "And to trust Cesar. Senor, I dandled her when she was quite
little. Let me most earnestly urge upon your worship not to go near the
windows, especially if there is light in your worship's room. Evil men
are gazing upon the house, and I have seen myself the glint of a musket
at the end of the street. The moon grows fast, too. The senorita begs
you to trust Cesar."

"Are there many men?" I asked.

"Not many in sight; I have seen only one. But by signs, open to a man of
my experience, I suspect many more to be about." Then, as I looked down
on the ground, he added parenthetically, "They are poor shots, one and
all, lacking the very firmness of manhood necessary to discharge a
piece with a good aim. Still, Senor, I am ordered to entreat you to be
cautious. Strange it is that to-night, from the great revelry at the
Aldea Bajo, one might think they had just visited an English ship
outside."

A ship! a ship! of any sort. But how to get out of the Casa? Murder
forbade me even as much as to look out of the windows. Was there a ship
outside? Cesar was positive there was not--not since I had arrived.
Besides, the empty sea itself was unattainable, it seemed. I pressed the
seal to my lips. "Tell the senorita how I received her gift," I said;
and the old negro inclined his head lower still. "Tell her that as the
letters of her name are graved on this, so are all the words she has
spoken graven on my heart."

They went away busily, the lanthorns swinging about the ax-heads of the
halberds, Cesar's staff tapping the stones.

I shut my door, and buried my face in the pillows of the state bed. My
mental anguish was excessive; action, alone, could relieve it. I had
been battling with my thoughts like a man fighting with shadows. I could
see no issue to such a struggle, and I prayed for something tangible to
encounter--something that one could overcome or go under to. I must
have fallen suddenly asl