ning myself to the utmost, I was enabled to "duck" my head.
In this painful position I contrived to get a couple of swallows; but I
should think I took in quite as much at my nose and ears.

Clayley and Chane followed our example, the Irishman swearing loudly
that it was a "burnin' shame to make a dacent Christyin dhrink like a
horse in winkers."

Our guards now commenced driving our mules out of the water. As we were
climbing the bank, someone touched me lightly upon the arm; and at the
same instant a voice whispered in my ear, "Courage, Captain!"

I started--it was the voice of a female. I was about to reply, when a
soft, small hand was thrust under the tapojo, and pushed something
between my lips. The hand was immediately withdrawn, and I heard the
voice urging a horse onward.

The clatter of hoofs, as of a horse passing me in a gallop, convinced me
that this mysterious agent was gone, and I remained silent.

"Who can it be Jack? No. Jack has a soft voice--a small hand; but how
could he be here, and with his hands free? No--no--no! Who then? It
was certainly the voice of a woman--the hand, too. What other should
have made this demonstration? I know no other--it must--it must have
been--."

I continued my analysis of probabilities, always arriving at the same
result. It was both pleasant and painful: pleasant to believe _she_ was
thus, like an angel, watching over me--painful to think that she might
be in the power of my fiendish enemy.

But is she so? Lincoln's blow may have ended him. We have heard
nothing of him since. Would to heaven--!

It was an impious wish, but I could not control it.

"What have I got between my lips? A slip of paper! Why was it placed
there, and not in my bosom or my button-hole? Ha! there is more
providence in the manner of the act than at first thought appears. How
could I have taken it from either the one or the other, bound as I am?
Moreover it may contain what would destroy the writer, if known to--.
Cunning thought--for one so young and innocent, too--but love--."

I pressed the paper against the tapojo, covering it with my lips, so as
to conceal it in case the blind should be removed.

"Halted again?"

"It is the ruin, Captain--the old convent of Santa Bernardina."

"But why do they halt here?"

"Likely to noon and breakfast--that on the ridge was only their
_desayuna_. The Mexicans of the _tierra caliente_ never travel during
mid-day. They will do