a cool
head.

It was, after all, Tomas Castro to whom all the credit of the thing
belonged. Just after it had fallen very dark, he brought me the black
robes, a pair of heavy pistols to gird on under them, and the heavy
staff topped by a crucifix. He had an air of sarcastic protest in the
dim light of my room, and he explained with exaggeratedly plain words
precisely what I was to do--which, as a matter of fact, was neither more
nor less than merely following in his own footsteps.

"And, oh, Senor," he said sardonically, "if you desire again to pillow
your head upon the breast of your mother; if you would again see your
sister, who, alas! by bewitching my Carlos, is at the heart of all our
troubles; if you desire again to see that dismal land of yours, which
politeness forbids me to curse, I would beg of you not to let the
mad fury of your nation break loose in the midst of these thieves and
scoundrels."

He peered intently into the spectacled eyeholes of my cowl, and laid
his hand on his sword-hilt. His small figure, tightly clothed in black
velvet from chin to knee, swayed gently backwards and forwards in the
light of the dim candle, and his grotesque shadow flitted over the
ghostly walls of the great room. He stood gazing silently for a minute,
then turned smartly on his heels, and, with a gesture of sardonic
respect, threw open the door for me.

"Pray, Senor," he said, "that the moon may not rise too soon."

We went swiftly down the colonnades for the last time, in the pitch
darkness and into the blackness of the vast archway. The clumping staff
of my heavy crucifix drew hollow echoes from the flagstones. In the deep
sort of cave behind us, lit by a dim lanthorn, the negroes waited to
unbar the doors. Castro himself began to mutter over his beads. Suddenly
he said:

"It is the last time I shall stand here. Now, there is not any more a
place for me on the earth."

Great flashes of light began to make suddenly visible the tall pillars
of the immense mournful palace, and after a long time, absolutely
without a sound, save the sputter of enormous torches, an incredibly
ghostly body of figures, black-robed from head to foot, with large
eyeholes peering fantastically, swayed into the great arch of the hall.
Above them was the enormous black coffin. It was a sight so appalling
and unexpected that I stood gazing at them without any power to move,
until I remembered that I, too, was such a figure. And then, with an