is part of raconteur, had a grim
smile. "There was one Don Luiz de Guardiola.... Oh, I will tell you what
you wish to know, senors! Be not so impatient. It was without the room
where lay his prisoner that he gathered from Desmond news indeed; and it
was from that room that he sent Desmond away, and wrote very swiftly
order after order to his lieutenants. Then he went to the other door and
called out Miguel, who says, 'Now and then he raves, but nothing to the
point!' to which Don Luiz: 'I am going to stand beside him. You are
skilful. Make him babble like a child, scarce knowing what he says.
What I wanted from him matters no longer; but make him speak--words,
broken sentences, cries!--I care not what. Make him aware that he holds
his tongue no longer, make him struggle for silence there beneath
my eyes.'

"'He calls on God at present,' answers Miguel. 'I thought these
Lutherans held with Satan.'

"'When I sign to you--thus,' goes on De Guardiola, 'bring him with
suddenness into a short swoon. Then at once dash water upon his face and
breast. When he cometh to himself, which (look you) must be shortly,
busy yourself with putting away your engines, or be officious to loosen
his bonds, keeping a smiling mien as of one whose day's work is done; in
short, in what subtle fashion you may, do you and your helpers add to
that assurance that I myself shall give him. Do your part well and there
will be reward, for I have at heart a whim that I would gratify.' So we
went into the next room."

"We!" said Nevil deeply, and "By God, this man was there!" breathed
Drake, and Arden ground his teeth. The silence which had spellbound the
company broke sharply here or there, then, breathless, men again bent
forward, waiting for the last word of the story whose ending they
already guessed. Alonzo Brava, a knightly soul enough, sat grim and red,
repentant that he had given loose rein to Mexia's tongue. Mexia,
undisturbed, genial with his wine, and of a retrospective turn of mind,
went smoothly, even dreamily on with his episode of a four-years-past
struggle. He had scarcely noticed the slip of the tongue by which he had
included himself with Luiz de Guardiola and his ministers.

"Well.... He lay there indeed, and called upon God; and now and then he
cried to men and women we knew not of. But when he saw that De Guardiola
was in the room, he fell silent--like that!

"'Tell me this--and this--and this,' says Don Luiz at his side. 'Then
s