on his coat and
the price of the exquisite lace which fell in snowy folds about his
hands. Oh, a rare mathematician was Don Ignacio! What greedy thoughts,
too, passed through that little Spaniard's brain! "Ah!" thought he,
"shall I take my debt in those priceless gems, each one the ransom of a
princess, which the old Captain General may one of these days reclaim?
Hola! no! Or shall I receive more negotiable commodities in gold,
cochineal, or silks? Well! _Veremos!_ we shall see!"

The effect produced upon the good Padre Ricardo was altogether
different. As the captain entered with all his glorious raiment upon
him, he started back, and, bowing before him as if he were Saint Paul
himself, he seized his superior's white hand, and kissed it with fervent
devotion. Not satisfied with this mark of respect, he raised his dingy
paws, holding his crucifix before him, and murmured, in a sort of
ecstasy,

"_Mi hico! mi capitano! que brillante!_"--"My son! my captain! what a
brilliant being you are!"

Singularly in contrast, however, was the effect produced upon the
doctor, who merely raised his dark eyes in an abstracted gaze, gave
a careless and rather contemptuous nod of recognition, and then turned
to examine one of the richly-inlaid cabinets which adorned the
saloon. All these various phases of sympathy, attraction, or contempt
flickered like a sunbeam into Captain Brand's reflecting brain, as, with
a delicately-perfumed handkerchief in one hand, and a gold-enameled
and diamond-incrusted snuff-box in the other, he bowed gracefully to
his visitors, and seated himself at table.

The table was now rolled out into the centre of the saloon, laid with a
snowy-white damask cloth, and covered with the equipage for a banquet.
At either corner were noble branches of solid silver candelabra, which
would have graced an altar, as perhaps they had, and holding clusters of
wax-lights, which shed their rays over the display below. In the centre
arose a huge epergne of silver, fashioned into the shape of a drooping
palm-tree, whose leaves were of frosted silver, and about the trunk
played a wilderness of monkeys. Beneath, around the board, were
cut-glass decanters, flat bulbous flasks of colored Bohemian glass,
crystal goblets, delicate and almost shadowy wine-cups from Venice,
silver wine-coolers, all mingled in with a heterogeneous collection of
rare china and silver dishes. Such wines, too, as filled those vessels!
not a prince or magn