s enormous carriage. The black coachman
who had sat aloft, unmoved through all the tumult, in his white
stockings and three-cornered hat, glanced down from his high box. And
the two parts of the gate came together with a clang of ironwork and a
heavy crash that seemed as loud as thunder under that vault.

CHAPTER SIX

Not even in memory am I willing to live over again those three days when
Father Antonio, the old major-domo, and myself would meet each other
in the galleries, in the _patio_, in the empty rooms, moving in the
stillness of the house with heavy hearts and desolate eyes, which seemed
to demand, "What is there to do?"

Of course, precautions were taken against the Lugarenos. They were
besieging the Casa from afar. They had established a sort of camp at the
end of the street, and they prowled about amongst the old, barricaded
houses in their pointed hats, in their rags and finery; women, with
food, passed constantly between the villages and the panic-stricken
town; there were groups on the beach; and one of the schooners had been
towed down the bay, and was lying, now, moored stem and stern opposite
the great gate. They did nothing whatever active against us. They lay
around and watched, as if in pursuance of a plan traced by a superior
authority. They were watching for me. But when, by some mischance, they
burnt the roof off the outbuildings that were at some distance from the
Casa, their chiefs sent up a deputation of three, with apologies.
Those men came unarmed, and, as it were, under Castro's protection,
and absolutely whimpered with regrets before Father Antonio. "Would his
reverence kindly intercede with the most noble senorita?..."

"Silence! Dare not pronounce her name!" thundered the good priest,
snatching away his hand, which they attempted to grab and kiss.

I, in the background, noted their black looks at me even as they
cringed. The man who had fired the shot, they said, had expired of his
wounds after great torments. Their other dead had been thrust out of
the gate before. A long fellow, with slanting eyebrows and a scar on his
cheek, called El Rechado, tried to inform Cesar, confidentially, that
Manuel, his friend, had been opposed to any encroachment of the Casa's
offices, only: "That Domingo------"

As soon as we discovered what was their object (their apparent object,
at any rate), they were pushed out of the gate unceremoniously,--still
protesting their love and respect--by the