I am forgetting
that this is only important to myself," he added, with a sigh. "I only
intended to ask your advice in regard to the disposition of certain
manuscripts and effects of hers, which are unconnected with our
acquaintance. I thought, perhaps, I might entrust them to your delicacy
and consideration. They are here, if you choose to look them over; and
here is also what I believe to be a daguerreotype of the lady herself,
but in which I fail to recognize her soul and genius."

He laid a bundle of letters and a morocco case on the table with a
carelessness that was intended to hide a slight shade of disappointment
in his face--and rose.

"I beg your pardon," said Hurlstone, in confused and remorseful apology;
"but I frankly confess that my thoughts WERE preoccupied. Pray forgive
me. If you will leave these papers with me, I promise to devote myself
to them another time."

"As you please," said the Senor, with a slight return of his old
affability. "But don't bore yourself now. Let us go on deck."

He passed out of the cabin as Hurlstone glanced, half mechanically, at
the package before him. Suddenly his cheek reddened; he stopped, looked
hurriedly at the retreating form of Perkins, and picked up a manuscript
from the packet. It was in his wife's handwriting. A sudden idea flashed
across his mind, and seemed to illuminate the obscure monotony of the
story he had just heard. He turned hurriedly to the morocco case, and
opened it with trembling fingers. It was a daguerreotype, faded and
silvered; but the features were those of his wife!

CHAPTER VIII.

HOSTAGE.

The revolution of Todos Santos had to all appearances been effected as
peacefully as the gentle Liberator of Quinquinambo could have wished.
Two pronunciamientos, rudely printed and posted in the Plaza, and
saluted by the fickle garrison of one hundred men, who had, however,
immediately reappointed their old commander as Generalissimo under the
new regime, seemed to leave nothing to be desired. A surging mob of
vacant and wondering peons, bearing a singular resemblance to the wild
cattle and horses which intermingled with them in blind and unceasing
movement across the Plaza and up the hilly street, and seemingly as
incapable of self-government, were alternately dispersed and stampeded
or allowed to gather again as occasion required. Some of these
heterogeneous bands were afterwards found--the revolution
accomplished--gazing stupidly on the