the castle, a small postern leading out
upon the jetty was opened, and an officer and six soldiers issued forth.
Four men, who had been lying on their oars in a boat at the jetty stairs,
sprang up.

The soldiers jumped in, and the rowers pulled in the direction of the
schooner.

"_Jesus Maria y Jose!_" exclaimed the lady.

"_Madre de Dios!_" groaned her husband.

At this moment the fort made a signal.

"Up with the helm!" shouted Captain Ready.

The schooner rounded to; the boat came flying over the water, and in a few
moments was alongside. The soldiers and their commander stepped on board.

The latter was a very young man, possessed of a true Spanish
countenance--grave and stern. In few words he desired the captain to
produce his ship's papers, and parade his seamen and passengers. The
papers were handed to him without an observation; he glanced his eye over
them, inspected the sailors one after the other, and then looked in the
direction of the passengers, who at length came on deck, the stranger
carrying one of the children and his wife the other. The Spanish officer
started.

"Do you know that you have a state-criminal on board?" thundered he to the
captain. "What is the meaning of this?"

"_Santa Virgen!_" exclaimed the lady, and fell fainting into her husband's
arms. There was a moment's deep silence. All present seemed touched by the
misfortunes of this youthful pair. The young officer sprang to the
assistance of the husband, and relieving him of the child, enabled him to
give his attention to his wife, whom he laid gently down upon the deck.

"I am grieved at the necessity," said the officer, "but you must return
with me."

The American captain, who had been contemplating this scene apparently
quite unmoved, now ejected from his mouth a huge quid of tobacco, replaced
it by another, and then stepping up to the officer, touched him on the
arm, and offered him the pass he had received from his passengers. The
Spaniard waved him back almost with disgust. There was, in fact, something
very unpleasant in the apathy and indifference with which the Yankee
contemplated the scene of despair and misery before him. Such
cold-bloodedness appeared premature and unnatural in a man who could not
yet have seen more than five-and-twenty summers. A close observer,
however, would have remarked that the muscles of his face were beginning
to be agitated by a slight convulsive twitching, when, at that moment,
his mate s