ing my arm; and the first words which he spoke to me
were, "The Padre is not here!"

As I roused myself fully, and sat up and looked into his face, I saw by
the look that he gave me how fully he shared the dread that was in my
heart. Young still was sleeping, and we waited to rouse him until we
should make sure that what we feared must be the truth really was true.
Together we went out quietly into the court-yard and so to the main
entrance of the building, where a guard was stationed. But this man was
asleep; and when I wakened him, and questioned him as to whether the
monk had gone forth, he could give me no answer. Therefore we went on to
the gate of the Citadel--which gate, being a vastly heavy grating,
raised and lowered by chains, was not usually closed even at night--in
the hope that there we might gain some certain knowledge. And here also
we found all of the half-dozen men on guard slumbering, saving only one
man, who seemed to have been aroused by the sound of our footsteps, and
who raised himself on one elbow and looked at us with a sleepy
curiosity.

[Illustration: IN THE GATE-WAY OF THE CITADEL]

Even the urgency of the quest that we were upon did not suffice to
distract our attention from the peril that we all were in because of the
slumbering of these sentries. "If this is a specimen of the way all the
watches are kept," Rayburn said, angrily, "we stand a pretty good chance
of being murdered in our beds. It all comes of trying to make soldiers
out of savages. These Tlahuicos will fight well enough, I never doubted
that, but to put such men on guard is simple idiocy. They have been
slaves all their lives, and they haven't the least notion in the world
of personal responsibility. It's a lucky thing that we have found out
their methods, for I shall give the Colonel a talking to about putting
on guard some of his own men who can be trusted. It's clear that these
fellows cannot tell us anything. We'd better keep on down to the
landing; if the Padre has gone"--there was a sudden break in Rayburn's
voice as he said these words--"it's pretty certain that he has gone by
water, and we may come across somebody down there who happened to be
awake and saw him start."

There were slight signs of wakefulness beginning to show themselves as
we went down towards the water-side; a few doors already were open; here
and there thin threads of smoke curled upward through the still air;
around a fountain a half-dozen women