ng a simple note for repayment, or, when the sum was a heavy one,
mortgaging their share in the next prize they should capture. Other
contracts, it was rumored, were occasionally resorted to, but of such we
shall speak anon.

At a short distance from the table, but sufficiently near to observe the
game, stood one on whom nothing short of the passion of play could
have prevented every eye being bent. But so it was; she stood alone and
unmarked, while all the interest was concentrated upon the game. Dressed
in a white tunic, or chemise, fastened round the waist by a gold girdle,
stood Maritana Rica, her large and lustrous black eyes eagerly turned to
where two youths were standing intensely occupied by the play. Her neck,
arms, and shoulders were bare, in Mexican fashion, and even the mantilla
she wore over her head was less as a protection than as a necessary
accompaniment of a costume which certainly is of the simplest kind.
Except the chemise, she had no other garment, save a jupe of thin
lama-wool, beautifully embroidered and studded with precious stones;
this terminated below the middle of the leg, displaying an ankle and
foot no Grecian statue ever surpassed in beauty.

If the deep brown of her skin almost conveyed the reproach--and such
it is--of Indian blood, a passing glance at the delicate outline of her
features, and, in particular, of her mouth, at once contradicted the
suspicion. The lips were beautifully arched, and, although plump and
rounded, had none of the fulness of the degraded race. These were now
slightly parted, displaying teeth of surprising whiteness, and imparting
in the whole expression a character of speaking animation. Although not
yet sixteen, her figure had all the graceful development of womanhood,
without having entirely lost a certain air of fawn-like elasticity,
which, from time to time, her gestures of impatience displayed.

The two young men on whom her interest seemed fixed, were playing in
partnership, and, in their highly wrought passion, never once looked up
from the board. One, somewhat taller and older by a few years, appeared
to exercise the guidance of their play; and it was easy to see, in the
swollen and knotted veins of his forehead, in the clinched hands, and
in the tremulous lip, the passionate nature of a confirmed gambler. The
younger, whose dress of green velvet, slashed and braided in Mexican
taste, and whose wide-leaved sombrero was decorated with a long sash
of lig