r solicitations for me in the next; and as for
San Joachim," added I, "no witness can be received as evidence who will
not appear in court."

"It is a pleasure to see your Excellency in the perfect enjoyment of
your faculties," said the Fra, with a deceitful smile; but I paid little
attention to his sneer, and turned willingly to Don Estaban, whose
grateful acknowledgments were beyond all bounds. He vowed that he owed
his daughter's life to my heroism, and that he and she, and all that
were theirs, were mine.

"Very gratifying tidings these," thought I, "for a man who only asks for
an 'instalment of his debt,' and will be satisfied with the lady."

"Maria shall tell you so herself," added Don Estaban, in a perfect
paroxysm of grateful emotion. "Don Lopez y Cuesta y Goloso can never
forget your noble conduct." Not caring much how retentive the memory of
the aforesaid hidalgo might prove,--whom I at once set down as an uncle
or a godfather,--I hastened after the host to where his daughter sat at
the table. I had but time to see that she was dressed in black, with a
profusion of diamonds scattered, not only through her hair, but over her
dress, when she arose, and, ere I could prevent it, fell at my feet and
covered my hands with kisses, calling me her "Salvador," in a voice of
the wildest enthusiasm,--an emotion which seemed most electrically to
seize upon the whole company; for I was now laid hold of by every
limb, and hugged, kissed, and embraced by a score of people, the large
majority of whom, I grieve to say, were the very hardest specimens of
what is called the softer sex.

[Illustration: 484-135]

One member of the company maintained a look of cold distrust towards me,
the very opposite of all this cordiality. This was Don Lopez, who did
not need this air of dislike to appear to my eyes the ugliest mortal I
had ever beheld. He was exceedingly short of stature, but of an immense
breadth; and yet, even with this, his head was far too big for his body.
A huge spherical mass, party-colored with habits of debauch, looked like
a terrestrial globe, of which the mouth represented the equator. His
attempts at embellishment had even made him more horrible; for he wore
a great wig, with long curls flowing upon his shoulders, and his immense
moustachios were curled into a series of circles, like a ram's horn. His
nose had been divided across the middle by what seemed the slash of a
cutlass, the cicatrix remaining of an an