lth. The singularly handsome face,
however, lighted up with an expression of delighted surprise as its
owner turned sharply round and answered heartily:

"Why, Carlos, my dear old chap, this is indeed an unexpected pleasure!
We were talking about you only last night--Letchmere, Woolaston,
Poltimore, and I, all old Alleynians who had foregathered to dine at the
Holborn. Where in the world have you sprung from?"

"Plymouth last, where I arrived yesterday, _en route_ to London from
Cuba," was the answer. "And you are the second old Alleynian whom I
have already met. Lancaster--you remember him, of course--came up in
the same compartment with me all the way. He is an engineer now in the
dockyard at Devonport, and was on his way to join his people, who are
off to Switzerland, I think he said."

"Yes, of course I remember him," was the answer, "but I have not seen
him since we all left Dulwich together. And what are you doing over
here, now--if it is not an indiscreet question to ask; and how long do
you propose to stay?"

The sallow-complexioned, foreign-looking youth glanced keenly about him
before replying, looked at his watch, and then remarked:

"Close upon half-past one--lunch-time; and this London air of yours has
given me a most voracious appetite. Suppose we go in somewhere and get
some lunch, to start with; afterwards we can take a stroll in the Park,
and have a yarn together--that is to say, if you are not otherwise
engaged."

"Right you are, my boy; that will suit me admirably, for I have no other
engagement, and, truth to tell, was feeling somewhat at a loss as to how
to dispose of myself for the next hour or two. Here you are, let us go
into Prince's," answered Singleton. The two young men entered the
restaurant, found a table, called a waiter, and ordered lunch; and while
they are taking the meal the opportunity may be seized to make the
reader somewhat better acquainted with them.

There is not much that need be said by way of introduction to either of
them. Carlos Montijo was the only son of Don Hermoso Montijo, a native
of Cuba, and the most extensive and wealthy tobacco planter in the
Vuelta de Abajo district of that island. He was also intensely
patriotic, and was very strongly suspected by the Spanish rulers of Cuba
of regarding with something more than mere passive sympathy the efforts
that had been made by the Cubans from time to time, ever since '68, to
throw off the Spanish yoke. H