Although the deadly conflict was raging all about us, I passed it by to regard a still more exciting tragedy. For with a roar like that from a mad bull Mazanovitch dashed aside his captors and sprang to the spot where Valcour lay.

“Oh, my darling, my darling!” he moaned, raising the delicate form that he might pillow the head upon his knee. “How dared they harm you, my precious one! How dared they!”

Paola, struggling madly with his bonds, succeeded in bursting them asunder, and now staggered up to kneel beside Valcour. His eyes were staring and full of a horror that his own near approach to death had never for an instant evoked.

Taking one of the spy’s slender hands in both his own he pressed it to his heart and said in trembling tones:

272“Look up, sweetheart! Look up, I beg of you. It is Francisco—do you not know me? Are you dead, Valcour? Are you dead?”

A gentle hand pushed him aside, and Lesba knelt in his place. With deft fingers she bared Valcour’s breast, tearing away the soft linen through which a crimson stain had already spread, and bending over a wound in the left shoulder to examine it closely. Standing beside the little group, I found myself regarding the actors in this remarkable drama with an interest almost equaling their own. The bared breast revealed nothing to me, however; for already I knew that Valcour was a woman.

Presently Lesba looked up into the little man’s drawn face and smiled.

“Fear nothing, Captain Mazanovitch,” said she softly; “the wound is not very dangerous, and—please God!—we will yet save your daughter’s life.”

His daughter! How much of the mystery that had puzzled me this simple word revealed!

Paola, still kneeling and covering his face with his hands, was sobbing like a child; 273Mazanovitch drew a long breath and allowed his lids to again droop slowly over his eyes; and then Lesba looked up and our eyes met.

“I am just in time, Robert,” she murmured happily, and bent over Valcour to hide the flush that dyed her sweet face.

I started, and looked around me. In the gathering twilight the forms of the slaughtered Uruguayans lay revealed where they had fallen, for not a single member of Dom Pedro’s band of mercenaries had escaped the vengeance of the patriots.

Those of our rescuers who survived were standing in a little group near by, leaning upon their long rifles, awaiting further commands.

Among them I recognized Pedro, and beckoning him to follow me I returned to the house and lifted a door from its hinges. Between us we bore it to the yard and very gently placed Valcour’s slight form upon the improvised stretcher.

She moaned at the movement, slowly unclosing her eyes. It was Paola’s face that bent over her and Paola that pressed her 274hand; so she smiled and closed her eyes again, like a tired child.

We carried her into the little chamber from whence Lesba had escaped, for in the outer room lay side by side the silent forms of the martyrs of the Republic.

Tenderly placing Valcour upon the couch, Pedro and I withdrew and closed the door behind us.

I had started to pass through the outer room into the yard when an exclamation from the station-master arrested me. Turning back I found that Pedro had knelt beside Dom Miguel and with broken sobs was pressing the master’s hand passionately to his lips. My own heart was heavy with sorrow as I leaned over the outstretched form of our beloved chief for a last look into his still face.

Even as I did so my pulse gave a bound of joy. The heavy eyelids trembled—ever so slightly—the chest expanded in a gentle sigh, and slowly—oh, so slowly!—the eyes of Dom Miguel unclosed and gazed upon us with their accustomed sweetness and intelligence.

275“Master! Master!” cried Pedro, bending over with trembling eagerness, “it is done! It is done, my master! The Revolution is accomplished—Fonseca is supreme in Rio—the army is ours! The country is ours! God bless the Republic of Brazil!”

My own heart swelled at the glad tidings, now heard for the first time. But over the face of the martyred chief swept an expression of joy so ecstatic—so like a dream of heaven fulfilled—that we scarcely breathed as we watched the light grow radiant in his eyes and linger there while an ashen pallor succeeded the flush upon his cheeks.

Painfully Dom Miguel reached out his arms to us, and Pedro and I each clasped a hand within our own.

“I am glad,” he whispered, softly. “Glad and content. God bless the Republic of Brazil!”

The head fell back; the light faded from his eyes and left them glazed and staring; a tremor passed through his body, communicating its agony even to us who held his hands, as by an electric current.

Pedro still kneeled and sobbed, but I 276contented myself with pressing the hand and laying it gently upon Dom Miguel’s breast.

Truly it was done, and well done. In Rio they were cheering the Republic, while here in this isolated cottage, surrounded by the only carnage the Revolution had involved, lay stilled............