ts us at a table giving full view of the sunny _patio_. We have
a quiet breakfast, boasting neither special cheer nor appetite, and it
is soon finished. We are beginning to wonder how we shall manage to
find our train if the Baron does not come for us, when the doorway is
darkened and a shadow falls across the table.

Without looking up, I am sure it is he.

"Gude-morning, Madame Steele. Gude-morning, Senorita. I hope you haf
slept well?"

"Good-morning," I say, observing how white and heavy-eyed he looks in
the sunlight.

"Yes, thank you, _we've_ slept well," says Mrs. Steele, "too well, I'm
afraid."

"Oh, no, belief me, dthis extra train ees better."

"You look ill, Baron; how did you sleep?"

"Dthank you, I sleep not at all till yust dthe time to
rise--dtherefore am I late. If your dthings air ready ve vill start at
once." He sends a servant upstairs after our various purchases and
wraps, etc., and we find them all stowed in the carriage waiting at
the entrance, when we come down a few minutes later. The Baron stands
by the landau, waiting to help us in. On our drive to the station he
points out this and that bit of interest, quite in his usual way.

"You zee dthat, Madame?" He points to a circular roof supported on
stone pillars sheltering water-tanks and primitive laundry essentials
"Dthat ees a 'pila,' a place vhere dthe vomans vash dthe garments." It
is surrounded by buxom young girls with dripping linen in their hands
which they seemed to be beating on stone slabs. "Dthat tree dthat grow
beside ees palma cristi."

"Why, it's only what we call the castor-bean, only this is larger," I
venture to say.

"Of course, my dear! 'A palma cristi by the pila' is the Baron's way
of saying a castor-oil bean by the wash-house."

My laugh is a little forced, I'm afraid, and the Baron seems not to
have heard.

"What is growing inside that fence?" I ask, with a stern
determination to keep up appearances.

"A kind off cactus," says the Baron, "vhat cochineal bugs lif
on--dthey--how you say it?--'raise' much cochineal bugs in Guatemala."

* * * * *

The three volcanoes loom up mightily. The smoke is denser and darker
to-day, the "spirits" of Air, Fire and Water look down with menacing
aspect on the white city in the plain.

"You must notice after you leaf Acajulta dthe volcano 'Yzalco'; it ees
_acteef_, as you say; it ees all fire by dthe dark of dthe night. And
in dthose bay of