too well guarded. His exasperated enemies, having experienced the
difficulty of his capture, were not likely to leave him the slightest
chance of escape. Hope of pardon--of mercy--it never entered his
thoughts to entertain either.

But reflection returned.

It is natural for a captive to glance around the walls of his prison--to
assure himself that he is really a prisoner. It is his first act when
the bolt shoots from the lock, and he feels himself alone. Obedient to
this impulse, the eye of Carlos was raised to the walls, his cell was
not a dungeon--a small window, or embrasure, admitted light. It was
high up, but Carlos saw that, by standing upon the banqueta, he could
have looked out by it. He had no curiosity to do so, and he lay still.
He saw that the walls of his prison were not of stone. They were
_adobe_ bricks, and the embrasure enabled him to tell their thickness.
There was no great strength in them either. A determined man, with an
edge-tool and time to spare, could make his way through them easily
enough. So Carlos reflected: but he reflected, as well, that he had
neither the edge-tool nor the time. He was certain that in a few
hours--perhaps minutes--he would be led from that prison to the
scaffold.

Oh! he feared not death--not even torture, which he anticipated would be
his lot. His torture was the thought of eternal separation from mother,
sister, from the proud noble girl he loved--the thought that he would
never again behold them--one or other of them--this was the torture that
maddened his soul.

Could he not communicate with them? Had he no friend to carry to them a
last word?--to convey a dying thought? None.

The sunbeam that slanted across the cell was cut off at intervals, and
the room darkened. Something half covered the embrasure without. It
was the face of some idle lepero, who, curious to catch a glimpse of the
captive, had caused himself to be hoisted upon the shoulders of his
fellows. The embrasure was above the heads of the crowd. Carlos could
hear their brutal jests, directed not only against himself, but against
those dear to him--his mother and sister. While this pained him, he
began to wonder that they should be so much the subject of the
conversation. He could not tell what was said of them, but in the hum
of voices their names repeatedly reached his ear. He had lain about an
hour on the banqueta, when the door opened, and the two officers,
Vizcarra and Robl