signal to his men to fire on the sloop. The
arrows of the Indians and the muskets of the Spaniards had finally
compelled the _Three Brothers_ to weigh anchor and put out to sea.

CHAPTER IV.

Day after day dragged by. We grew aweary of discussing the possibilities
of our escape and fell gradually into silence.

It was on the first day of June that Don Pedro de Melinza arrived in the
galley from San Augustin, and our captivity took on a new phase.

He is a handsome man, this Spanish Don, and he bears himself with the
airs of a courtier--when it so pleases him. As he stood that day at the
open door of our hut prison, in the full glow of the summer morning, he
was a goodly sight. His thick black hair was worn in a fringe of wavy
locks that rested lightly on his flaring collar. His leathern doublet
fitted close to his slight, strong figure, and through its slashed
sleeves there was a shimmer of fine silk. In his right hand he held his
plumed sombrero against his breast; his left rested carelessly on the
hilt of his sword.

I could find no flaw in his courteous greetings; but I looked into his
countenance and liked it not.

The nose was straight and high, the keen dark eyes set deep in the olive
face; but beneath the short, curled moustache projected a full, red
under lip.

Show me, in a man, an open brow, a clear eye, a firm-set mouth, and a
chin that neither aims to meet the nose nor lags back upon the breast;
and I will dub him honest, and brave, and clean-minded. But if his
forehead skulks backward, his chin recedes, and his nether lip curls
over redly--though the other traits be handsome, and the figure full of
grace and strength controlled--trust that man I never could! Such an one
I saw once in my early childhood. My mother pointed him out to me and
bade me note him well.

"That man," she said, "was once your father's friend and close comrade;
yet now he walks free and lives in ease, while my poor husband is in
slavery. Why is it thus? Because he over yonder was false to his oath,
to his friends, and to his king. He sold them all, like Esau, for a mess
of pottage. Mark him well, my child, and beware of his like; for in
these days they are not a few, and woe to any who trust in them!"

I remembered those words of my mother when the Senor Don Pedro de
Melinza y de Colis made his bow to us that summer's day. The meaning of
his courtly phrases was lost upon me; but I gathered from his manner
that he ha