Your hand! your hand!" I ejaculated.

"You would kiss my hand? Do so!" The little hand was thrust through,
and I could see it in the dim light, flashing with brilliants. I caught
it in mine, covering it with kisses. It seemed to yield to the fervid
pressure of my lips.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, in the transport of my feelings, "let us not part;
let us fly together! I was wronging you, loveliest, dearest
Guadalupe--!"

A slight exclamation, as if from some painful emotion, and the hand was
plucked away, leaving one of the diamonds in my fingers. The next
moment the voice whispered, with a strange sadness of tone, as I
thought:

"Adieu, Capitan! adieu! _In this world of life we never know who best
loves us_!"

I was puzzled, bewildered. I called out, but there was no answer. I
listened until the patience of my comrades was well-nigh exhausted, but
still there was no voice from without; and with a strange feeling of
uneasiness and wonderment I commenced cutting the thongs from my ankles.

Having set Raoul at liberty, I handed him the knife, and proceeded to
open the note. Inside I found a cocuyo; and, using it as I had been
already instructed, I read:

"_The walls are adobe. You have a knife. The side with the loop-hole
fronts outward. There is a field of magueys, and beyond this you will
find the forest. You may then trust to yourselves. I can help you no
farther_. Carissimo caballero, adios!"

I had no time to reflect upon the peculiarities of the note, though the
boldness of the style struck me as corresponding with the other. I
flung down the firefly, crushing the paper into my bosom; and, seizing
the knife, was about to attack the adobe wall, when voices reached me
from without. I sprang forward, and placed my ear to listen. It was an
altercation--a woman--a man! "By heaven! it is Lincoln's voice!"

"Yer cussed whelp! ye'd see the cap'n hung, would yer?--a man that's
good vally for the full of a pararer of green-gutted greasers; but I
ain't a-gwine to let _you_ look at his hangin'. If yer don't show me
which of these hyur pigeon-holes is his'n, an' help me to get him outer
it, I'll skin yer like a mink!"

"I tell you, Mister Lincoln," replied a voice which I recognised as the
one whose owner had just left me, "I have this minute given the captain
the means of escape, through that loophole."

"Whar!"

"This one," answered the female voice.

"Wal, that's easy to circumstantiate.