trying to wake from a nightmare. He felt that his brow was cold.

"Decide!" repeated Simoun.

"And what--what would I have to do?" asked the youth in a weak and
broken voice.

"A very simple thing," replied Simoun, his face lighting up with a
ray of hope. "As I have to direct the movement, I cannot get away from
the scene of action. I want you, while the attention of the whole city
is directed elsewhere, at the head of a company to force the doors of
the nunnery of St. Clara and take from there a person whom only you,
besides myself and Capitan Tiago, can recognize. You'll run no risk
at all."

"Maria Clara!" exclaimed Basilio.

"Yes, Maria Clara," repeated Simoun, and for the first time his voice
became human and compassionate. "I want to save her; to save her I
have wished to live, I have returned. I am starting the revolution,
because only a revolution can open the doors of the nunneries."

"Ay!" sighed Basilio, clasping his hands. "You've come late, too late!"

"Why?" inquired Simoun with a frown.

"Maria Clara is dead!"

Simoun arose with a bound and stood over the youth. "She's dead?" he
demanded in a terrible voice.

"This afternoon, at six. By now she must be--"

"It's a lie!" roared Simoun, pale and beside himself. "It's
false! Maria Clara lives, Maria Clara must live! It's a cowardly
excuse! She's not dead, and this night I'll free her or tomorrow
you die!"

Basilio shrugged his shoulders. "Several days ago she was taken ill
and I went to the nunnery for news of her. Look, here is Padre Salvi's
letter, brought by Padre Irene. Capitan Tiago wept all the evening,
kissing his daughter's picture and begging her forgiveness, until at
last he smoked an enormous quantity of opium. This evening her knell
was tolled."

"Ah!" exclaimed Simoun, pressing his hands to his head and standing
motionless. He remembered to have actually heard the knell while he
was pacing about in the vicinity of the nunnery.

"Dead!" he murmured in a voice so low that it seemed to be a ghost
whispering. "Dead! Dead without my having seen her, dead without
knowing that I lived for her--dead!"

Feeling a terrible storm, a tempest of whirlwind and thunder without
a drop of water, sobs without tears, cries without words, rage in his
breast and threaten to burst out like burning lava long repressed,
he rushed precipitately from the room. Basilio heard him descend the
stairs with unsteady tread, stepping heavily, he heard a stif