to espouse their countryman's quarrel to the death--for such had
been the meaning of the mysterious fumbling under the cloaks--no sooner
perceived that the cards had changed masters, than they called to the
Mexican with one voice--

"_Por el amor de Dios, senor_--leave us in peace, and God be with your
senoria!"

"Ay, go, and the devil take you!" growled the Spaniards.

The young man gazed in turn at his countrymen and at the sergeants; and
then, as if struck by the curious contrast between the courtesy of the
former and the rudeness of the latter, he laughed right out, swept
together his winnings, and walked away from the table, whistling a
bolero.

The sort of ramble which the masked cavalier now commenced through the
adjoining saloons, seemed for some time to have no particular object. He
strutted across one, paused for a moment in the next to take a sip out
of a friend's liqueur glass, dipped a biscuit into the chocolate of one
acquaintance, and helped another to finish his sangaree; and so lounged
and loitered about, till he found himself in the last of the suite of
rooms, which was then unoccupied. Stepping up to a door at the further
end of the apartment, he knocked at it, at the same time uttering the
words, "_Ave Maria purissima!_"

The door was opened.

"_Sin peccado concebida!_" added the Mexican, when he saw that the
occupants of the room did not make the usual reply to his pious but
customary salutation. "For God's sake, senores, is there neither piety
nor politeness among ye? Could you not say, '_Sin peccado concebida?_'"

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

"Verdades dire en camisa,
Poco menos que desnuda."

QUEVEDO.

The company assembled in the room which the masked cavalier entered
consisted of some five-and-twenty young men, in whose picturesque
Spanish-Mexican costume, velvets, silk, and gold embroidery had been
employed with lavish profusion. The air of scornful superciliousness
with which they glanced at the intruder, and the indifference with which
they seemed to regard the heaps of gold that lay glittering on the
table, denoted them to be practised gamblers, or, which in Mexico is the
same thing, noblemen of the highest rank. The saloon was richly
furnished; chairs, sofas, and tables of the most costly woods, and
splendidly gilt, cushions, drapery, and chandeliers, after the newest
fashion.

"Sixteen to the doubloon!" cried the new-comer, apparently noways
abashed by the contemptuous man