ere to-day, attending my uncle in
this affair of delivering up the pirates. My uncle loves him very much.
O'Brien was at first my uncle's clerk, and my uncle made him a _juez_,
and he is also the intendant of my uncle's estates, and he has a great
influence in my uncle's town of Rio Medio. I tell you, if you come to
visit us, it will be as well to be on good terms with the Senor Juez
O'Brien. My uncle is a very old man, and if I die before him, this
O'Brien, I think, will end by marrying my cousin, because my poor uncle
is very much in his hands. There are other pretenders, but they have
little chance, because it is so very dangerous to come to my uncle's
town of Rio Medio, on account of this man's intrigues and of his power
with the populace."

I looked at Carlos intently. The name of the town had seemed to be
familiar to me. Now I suddenly remembered that it was where Nicolas
el Demonio, the pirate who was so famous as to be almost mythical, had
beaten off Admiral Rowley's boats.

"Come, you had better see this Irish hidalgo who wants to do us so much
honour,"--he gave an inscrutable glance at me,--"but do not talk loudly
till my uncle wakes."

He threw the door open. I followed him into the room, where the vision
of the ancient Don and the charming apparition of the young girl had
retreated only a few moments before.

CHAPTER THREE

The room was very lofty and coldly dim; there were great bars in front
of the begrimed windows. It was very bare, containing only a long black
table, some packing cases, and half a dozen rocking chairs. Of these,
five were very new and one very old, black and heavy, with a green
leather seat and a coat of arms worked on its back cushions. There
were little heaps of mahogany sawdust here and there on the dirty tiled
floor, and a pile of sacking in one corner. Beneath a window the flap
of an open trap-door half hid a large green damp-stain; a deep recess
in the wall yawned like a cavern, and had two or three tubs in the
right corner; a man with a blond head, slightly bald as if he had been
tonsured, was rocking gently in one of the new chairs.

Opposite him, with his aged face towards us, sat the old Don asleep in
the high chair. His delicate white hands lay along the arms, one of them
holding a gold vinaigrette; his black, silver-headed cane was between
his silk-stockinged legs. The diamond buckles of his shoes shot out
little vivid rays, even in that gloomy place. The young g