Toward morning a tramping of feet aroused me; the door was thrust open long enough for another prisoner to be admitted, and then I heard the bolts shoot into their fastening and the soldiers march away.

It was not quite dark in the room, for the shutters were open and admitted a ray of moonlight through the window. So I lay still and strained my eyes to discover who my companion might be.

He stood motionless for a time in the place the soldiers had left him. I made out that he was tall and stooping, and exceedingly thin; but his face was in shadow. Presently, as he moved, I heard a chain clank, and knew he was hand-cuffed in the same manner as myself.

Slowly he turned his body, peering into every corner of the room, so that soon he discovered me lying where the moonlight 163was strongest. He gave a start, then, but spoke no word; and again an interval of absolute silence ensued.

His strange behavior began to render me uneasy. It is well to know something of a person confined with you in a small room at the dead of night, and I was about to address the fellow when he began stealthily approaching the bed. He might have been three yards distant when I arose to a sitting posture. This caused him to pause, his form well within the streak of light. Resting upon the edge of the bed and facing him, my own features were clearly disclosed, and we examined each other curiously.

I had never seen him before, and I had little pleasure in meeting him then. He appeared to be a man at least fifty years of age, with pallid, sunken cheeks, eyes bright, but shifting in their gaze, and scanty gray locks that now hung disordered over a low forehead. His form was thin and angular, his clothing of mean quality, and his hands, which dangled before him at the ends of the short chain, were large and hardened by toil.

164Not a Brazilian, I decided at once; but I could not then determine his probable nationality.

“Likewise a prisoner, se?or?” he inquired, in an indistinct, mumbling tone, and with a strong accent.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Ah, conspirator. I see; I see!” He nodded his head several times, and then growled sentences that I could not understand.

While I stared at him he turned away again, and with a soft and stealthy tread made the entire circuit of the room, feeling of each piece of furniture it contained, and often pausing for many moments in one spot as if occupied in deep thought.

At last he approached the bed again, dragging after him a chair in which he slowly seated himself opposite me.

“Retain your couch, se?or,” he muttered. “I shall not disturb you, and it will soon be morning. You may sleep.”

But I was now fully awake, and had no intention of sleeping while this strange individual occupied his seat beside me.

165“Who are you?” I demanded. “A patriot?”

“Not as you use the term,” he answered, at once. “I am Mexican.”

“Mexican!” I echoed, surprised. “Do you speak English?”

“Truly, se?or,” he answered, but his English was as bad as his Portuguese.

“Why are you here and a prisoner?” I asked.

“I had business with Se?or de Pintra. I came from afar to see him, but found the soldiers inhabiting his house. I am timid, se?or, and suspecting trouble I hid in an out-building, where the soldiers discovered me. Why I should be arrested I do not know. I am not conspirator; I am not even Brazilian. I do not care for your politics whatever. They tell me Miguel de Pintra is dead. Is it true?”

His tone did not seem sincere. But I replied it was true that Dom Miguel was dead.

“Then I should be allowed to depart. But not so. They tell me the great Emperor is here, their Dom Pedro, and he will speak to me in the morning. Is it true?”

166This time I detected an anxiety in his voice that told me he had not suspected the Emperor’s presence until his arrest.

But I answered that Dom Pedro was then occupying de Pintra’s mansion, together with many of his important ministers.

For a time he remained silent, probably considering the matter with care. But he was ill at ease, and shifted continually in his chair.

“You are Americano?” he asked at last.

“Yes,” said I.

“I knew, when you ask me for my English. But why does the Emperor arrest an American?”

I smiled; but there was no object in trying to deceive him.

“I was private secretary to Dom Miguel,” said I, “and they suspect my late master to have plotted against the Emperor.”

He laughed, unpleasantly.

“It is well your master is dead when they make that suspicion,” said he; then paused a moment and asked, abruptly, “Did he tell you of the vault?”

I stared at him. A Mexican, not a conspirator, 167yet aware of the secret vault! It occurred to me that it would be well to keep my own counsel, for a time, at least.

“A vault?” I asked, carelessly, and shook my head.

Again the fellow laughed disagreeably. But my answer seemed to have pleased him.

“He was sly! Ah, he was sly, the dear Se?or Miguel!” he chuckled, rocking his thin form back and forth upon the chair. “But never mind. It is nothing. I never pry into secrets, se?or. It is not my nature.”

I said nothing and another silent fit seized him. Perhaps five minutes had passed before he arose and made a second stealthy circuit of the room, this time examining the barred window with great care. Then he sighed heavil............