riage cushions--and his hat
hanging on its elbow. Not a thing more except a bottle, greasy around
the neck, from a tallow candle that had guttered and burnt out, standing
on the uncarpeted stone floor beside his own boots, just as he had drawn
them off.

Why he had not noticed these surroundings on the night before was due to
extreme fatigue and want of sleep. Possibly, the Burgundy, mixed with
the Madeira and Old Pedro Ximenes, had something to do with it. In any
case he had dropped down upon the mat of palm, and became oblivious,
almost on the moment of his entering this strange sleeping chamber, to
which the mayor-domo had conducted him.

"Queer crib it is," he continued to soliloquise, after making survey of
the room and its containings, "for a bedroom. I don't remember ever
having slept in so small a one, except aboard ship, or in a prison-cell.
How like the last it looks!"

It did somewhat, though not altogether. There were points of
difference, as a niche in the wall, with a plaster cast on a plinth,
apparently the image of some saint, with carvings in the woodwork,
crosses, and other emblems of piety.

"It must be an old convent or monastery," he thought, after noticing
these. "Here in Mexico they often have them in odd, out-of-the-way
places, I've heard. Out of the way this place surely is, considering
the climb we've had to reach it. Monks in it, too?" he added, recalling
the two men he had seen on the preceding night, and how they where
habited. "A strange sort they seem, with a _captain_ at their head--my
prison companion! Well, if it give us sanctuary, as he appears to think
it will, I shall be but too glad to join the holy brotherhood."

He lay a little longer, his eyes running around the room, to note that
the rough lime-wash on its walls had not been renewed for years; green
moss had grown upon them, and there were seams at the corners, stains
showing were rainwater had run down. If a monastery, it was evidently
not one in the enjoyment of present prosperity, whatever it might have
been in the past.

While still dreamily conjecturing about it, the door of his room was
gently pushed ajar, and so held by whoever had opened it. Turning his
head round, Kearney saw a man in long loose robes, with sandalled feet
and shaven crown, girdle of beads, crucifix, cowl, and scapular--in
short, the garb of the monk with all its insignia.

"I have come to inquire how you have slept, my son," said the