ties, love and fear.

Night had fallen before Palafox reached the southern edge of the bayou
at the point opposite his only house and home, and it was pitchy dark,
when, having swam across the stagnant channel, he trudged, wet and
weary, to the barred door of Cacosotte's Tavern, and knocked. Mex
undid the bolts and let her master in, her sagacious eyes swiftly
taking note of his bodily plight and desperate mood. To her
demonstration of savage tenderness he returned a ferocious growl, and
shoved her from him roughly.

"Fetch me the brandy, quick! Don't you see I'm drowned?"

He swallowed at a gulp the potation she poured out, and stepping into
a dark recess christened "The Captain's Corner," where hung various
stolen articles of men's apparel, he exchanged his soaked garments for
dry ones.

Meanwhile, Mex sullenly placed upon a table such food as her cupboard
could supply. Palafox emerged, mollified in temper, but still
irascible. In his hand he held the long leathern pocket-book
containing the alleged evidence of Wilkinson's complicity with the
Spanish government. It was creased and dripping, and before eating he
opened it, carefully took out the papers, and spread them on the
counter of the bar to dry.

"You wouldn't guess there might be a fortune in these, would you,
Blackey?"

"_Not_ Blackey! No negar-wool!" She shook her long black hair, and her
blacker eyes glittered. "No Mexicano, no red squaw--your woman."

Palafox was wont to amuse himself by provoking the pride and jealousy
of this caged creature of untamed affections.

"Where is Sott? Did he come home? He ought to be burnt alive for
letting my game escape. Where is he?"

Mex, standing behind her lord and watching him as he ate and drank,
explained that Nine Eyes had been badly hurt in a fight with one of
the band; a bullet had shivered the bones of his arm; the sufferer had
groaned and howled, but she soothed him, she said, by a charm, and he
at last slept.

Sott's nondescript nurse had in fact, administered an opiate. In
addition to the arts of the hoodoo and medicine man, she possessed
unusual knowledge of the virtue of wild plants, including those of
dangerous quality. There was never race or tribe so primitive as to be
ignorant of deadly herbs. This scarcely half-civilized daughter of
miscegenation was a Hecate in the skilful decoction of potent leaves,
roots and berries.

"You _charmed_ him to sleep?" sneered Palafox, glancing back
threate