asp the crunch of velvet and the cold facets
of the glittering gems. The next instant, the bedecked caballero
turned in his hands to a shrunken, leather-visaged, white-bearded,
old, old, screaming mummy, sandalled, ragged, and four hundred and
three. The Mexican woman was crawling to her feet, and laughing. She
shook her brown hand in the face of the whining _viejo_.

"Go, now," she cried, "and seek your senorita. It was I, Ramoncito,
who brought you to this. Within each moon you eat of the life-giving
_chili_. It was I that kept the wrong time for you. You should have
eaten _yesterday_ instead of _to-morrow_. It is too late. Off with
you, _hombre_! You are too old for me!"

"This," decided Tansey, releasing his hold of the gray-beard, "is a
private family matter concerning age, and no business of mine."

With one of the table knives he hastened to saw asunder the fetters
of the fair captive; and then, for the second time that night he
kissed Katie Peek--tasted again the sweetness, the wonder, the
thrill of it, attained once more the maximum of his incessant
dreams.

The next instant an icy blade was driven deep between his shoulders;
he felt his blood slowly congeal; heard the senile cackle of the
perennial Spaniard; saw the Plaza rise and reel till the zenith
crashed into the horizon--and knew no more.

When Tansey opened his eyes again he was sitting upon those
self-same steps gazing upon the dark bulk of the sleeping convent.
In the middle of his back was still the acute, chilling pain. How
had he been conveyed back there again? He got stiffly to his feet
and stretched his cramped limbs. Supporting himself against the
stonework he revolved in his mind the extravagant adventures that
had befallen him each time he had strayed from the steps that night.
In reviewing them certain features strained his credulity. Had he
really met Captain Peek or Katie or the unparalleled Mexican in
his wanderings--had he really encountered them under commonplace
conditions and his over-stimulated brain had supplied the
incongruities? However that might be, a sudden, elating thought
caused him an intense joy. Nearly all of us have, at some point in
our lives--either to excuse our own stupidity or to placate our
consciences--promulgated some theory of fatalism. We have set up
an intelligent Fate that works by codes and signals. Tansey had
done likewise; and now he read, through the night's incidents, the
finger-prints of destiny. E