onversation outside--both better comprehending it.

"_Bueno_, indeed!" cried the dwarf, echoing the gaol-governor's
exclamation. "It shall be done. Which means that before this time
to-morrow, we'll all four of us be up to our middle in mud. Won't that
be nice? Ha! ha! ha!"

And the imp laughed, as though, instead of something repulsive, he
expected a pleasure of the most enjoyable kind.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

ON THE AZOTEA.

In the city of Mexico the houses are flat-roofed, the roof bearing the
name of _azotea_. A parapetted wall, some three or four feet in height,
runs all round to separate those of the adjacent houses from one another
when they chance to be on the same level, and also prevent falling off.
Privacy, besides, has to do with this protective screen; the azotea
being a place of almost daily resort, if the weather be fine, and a
favourite lounging place, where visitors are frequently received. This
peculiarity in dwelling-house architecture has an oriental origin, and
is still common among the Moors, as all round the Mediterranean.
Strange enough, the Conquistadors found something very similar in the
New World--conspicuously among the Mexicans--where the Aztecan houses
were flat or terrace-topped. Examples yet exist in Northern and New
Mexico, in the towns of the Pecos Zunis, and Moquis. It is but natural,
therefore, that the people who now call themselves Mexicans should have
followed a pattern thus furnished them by their ancestry in both
hemispheres.

Climate has much to do with this sort of roof, as regards its
durability; no sharp frosts or heavy snows being there to affect it.
Besides, in no country in the world is out-door life more enjoyable than
in Mexico, the rainy months excepted; and in them the evenings are dry.
Still another cause contributes to make the roof of a Mexican house a
pleasant place of resort. Sea-coal and its smoke are things there
unknown; indeed chimneys, if not altogether absent, are few and far
between; such as there are being inconspicuous. In the _siempre-verano_
(eternal spring) of Anahuac there is no call for them; a wood fire here
and there kindled in some sitting-room being a luxury of a special kind,
indulged in only by the very delicate or very rich. In the kitchens,
charcoal is the commodity employed, and as this yields no visible sign,
the outside atmosphere is preserved pure and cloudless as that which
overhung the Hesperides.

A well-appointed