like. I wonder if this Spanish cur likes music. I'll sing you a song,
if you like, and I'll bet ten cents you never heard it before."

And Brooke sang, to a most extraordinary tune, these most extraordinary
words:

"Oh, a raggedy gang to the piper danced,
Of tatterdemalions all,
Till the corpulent butler drove them off
Beyond the manor wall.
The raggedy piper shook his fist:
'A minstrel's curse on thee,
Thou lubberly, duck-legg'd son of a gun,
For settin' dorgs on we!'"

"Brooke," said Talbot, with her usual calm, sad face, "I'm glad that you
are singing, though your song is certainly slightly vulgar."

"Oh, I know it," said Brooke; "but then vulgarity is sometimes a very good
thing. It don't do for people to be too fastidious. The fact is, this age
is over-refined, and I'm bound to reform it, or perish."

CHAPTER XLIX.

HOW LOPEZ INVITES HARRY TO HIS WEDDING, AND HOW HARRY MAKES A DISTURBANCE.

On the following day the prisoners were roused at dawn. First of all,
Ashby was taken to the room in which the marriage ceremony was to be
performed, which was the same room where the Russell party had been
confined. Half a dozen soldiers came for him, and went through the solemn
mockery of treating him as an invited guest. He had scarcely arrived here
when Harry also reached the place. A special invitation from Lopez to be
present at a wedding had attracted him, and filled him with wonder and
curiosity. His anxiety about Katie, and his longing to see her, were as
strong as ever, and the effect of these feelings was manifest in his pale
face and agitated manner; but his desire to please Lopez and retain his
good-will had drawn him here to be a spectator, though his abstracted air
showed that his thoughts were elsewhere. Thus, silent and preoccupied,
Harry stood apart; and Ashby, mindful of their recent hostile meeting,
kept to himself, and made no motion toward holding any communication
whatever.

As they stood thus, a third comer appeared upon the scene.

This was Russell. He still wore his woman's dress, having a vague idea
that it might prove of service in some new attempt to escape, though quite
unable to imagine any way in which such escape could be possible. Harry,
attracted by this singular figure, looked at him, and recognized him at
once, and the effect upon him was so strong that, in spite of his
melancholy, he burst into a roar of laughter.

Russell, at this, threw t