l Bambos
should construe such action on my part as unfriendly?"

"Surely he cannot do so, unless you enter his territory, and that I am
sure you have no thought of doing."

"You know not the perfidy of that man," was the commentary of the
Dictator, his words inspired by jealousy.

When the Castle of Rest was reached it justified all that Senorita
Estacardo had said of it, though it lacked moat and drawbridge and the
other feudal accessories. It was of massive rock and stone, sixty or
more feet in length and almost as broad. The lowest floor consisted
of two large rooms, with broad openings instead of doors, rough and
unfurnished and with walls several feet in thickness. At the time of
its building, it would have resisted any armament that could have been
brought to bear against it. The crevices between the stones throughout
the structure had been filled with clay or adobe, which in the course
of centuries had hardened to the consistency of rock itself. The
second and third stories contained each four apartments, whose walls
were of less thickness, but the whole constituted a veritable
Gibraltar. Sloping stone steps connected each story, but only the
rooms of the second contained anything in the nature of furniture.

It was evident that General Yozarro had given this portion recent
attention, for the windows, tall, narrow and paneless, had been
screened by netting with the finest of meshes, though none can be fine
enough to wholly exclude the infinitesimal insects like the
coloradilla, or red flea, whose bite is as the point of a red hot
needle, the sand fly, and other devilish insects beyond enumeration.
Matting was spread on the smooth stone floors, there were imported
chairs of costly make, stands, a bureau and much of what constitutes
the appointments of a modern residence in a tropical country. The
doors were made of a species of wood, beautifully carved, but showing
no effects of the tooth of time, except in the gray faded color, for
paint had never touched them. They were powerful enough to defy a
battering ram, fitted with enormous locks and heavy bars that could be
slipped into the massive iron receptacles.

"Had that old buccaneer been given notice of the attack by his men,"
said Miss Starland, when the building had been inspected from top to
bottom, "he might have shut himself in one of these rooms and bade
them do their worst."

"Perhaps he did," suggested General Yozarro.

"And yet the legend says h