your passage in the `Halcyon,' if he can bear it," said
the skipper, the tears standing in his eyes as he pressed the
missionary's hand. "An hour of the fresh breeze of the Indian ocean
would do more to cooper up yonder craft than all the rubbish in the
world. He's on his beam ends now, that's sure; but may be he'll be all
a-tanto soon."

A knock at the door, and Don Francisco Maxara entered; an elderly,
grey-haired man, tall in stature, and stately in bearing.

"I cannot say it is a pleasure, Senhor," began the old noble, as he
bowed to the missionary, and made room for the merchant captain to pass,
"but at all events it is a duty to place myself and all I have at your
command."

Boiling restlessly from side to side, his handsome features, bronzed by
the sun, now flushed with fever, Hughes was unconscious of their
presence. He was with his corps cheering on his men as he had cheered
them on the plains of Chillianwallah, the day the gallant 10th Regiment
melted away before the masked fire from the Sikh artillery, when gliding
through the open door and passing her arm through her father's, Dona
Isabel de Maxara looked down on him.

Tall and graceful in figure, the girl's face, was of that beautiful
clear brown tint, found only in the sunny south, but one of the
peculiarities which distinguished her was the network of blue veins,
tracing themselves under the transparent olive of the skin; the eyes
were large and intensely brilliant, shaded now by the long black lashes,
which, with the slightly arched and beautifully pencilled eyebrow, told
of Moorish blood. The mouth was small and beautifully cut, the lips
parted now and showing the white teeth; and if there was a fault in the
features, it was that the forehead, with all its lace-work of blue veins
glancing under the clear olive skin, was too high and massive for a
female face. The hair was brushed backwards, fastened behind by a large
comb, tipped with gold, from which hung the long mantilla of Spain.

The sick man saw nothing of all this, he was busy among the guns at
Chillianwallah.

"How long, Senhor," said the girl, looking up at the missionary, and the
large eyes filling as she did so with tears, which rolled one by one
unheeded down her cheeks,--"how long has your friend been ill?"

"This is the third day, mademoiselle," replied he, speaking in French,
both father and daughter having used that language. "Have you any
quinine, Senhor?" he continued, ad