ranger. "I have my own
safety to consider."

"That you need not fear. My offer of reward also carries pardon to the
informant. If you are even a member of the confederation itself you will
be safe in speaking freely."

"I understand you offer an additional reward, a rich one, for the
discovery of Captain Marti, the chief of the smugglers?"

"I do. You may fully trust in my promise to reward and protect any one who
puts me on the track of that leader of the villains."

"Your Excellency, I must have special assurance of this. Do you give me
your knightly word that you will grant me a free pardon for all offences
against the customs, if I tell all you wish to know, even to the most
secret hiding-places of the rovers?"

"I pledge you my full word of honor for that," said the governor, now
deeply interested.

"You will grant me full pardon, under the king's seal, no matter how great
my offences or crimes, if you call them so, may have been?"

"If what you reveal is to the purpose," said Tacon, wondering why his
visitor was so unduly cautious.

"Even if I were a leader among the rovers myself?"

Tacon hesitated a moment, looking closely at the stalwart stranger, while
considering the purport of his words.

"Yes," he said, at length. "If you will lead our ships to the haunts of
Marti and his followers, you can fully depend on the reward and the
pardon."

"Excellency, I know you well enough to trust your word, or I should never
have put myself in your power."

"You can trust my word," said Tacon, impatiently. "Now come to the point;
I have no time to waste."

"Your Excellency, the man for whom you have offered the largest reward,
dead or alive, stands before you."

"Ha! you are

"Captain Marti."

The governor started in surprise, and laid his hand hastily on a pistol
that lay before him. But he regained his self-possession in a moment, and
solemnly said,--

"I shall keep my promise, if you keep yours. You have offended deeply, but
my word is my law. But to insure your faithfulness, I must put you for the
present under guard."

"As you will, your Excellency," said Marti.

Tacon rang a bell by his side, an attendant entered, and soon after Marti
was safely locked up, orders being given to make him comfortable until he
was sent for. And so this strange interview ended.

During the next day there was a commotion in the harbor of Havana. An
armed revenue cutter, which for weeks had lain idly under the guns