torm should burst, when a vivid flash of lightning, green
and baleful, quickly succeeded by a most deafening peal of thunder,
decided us to remain where we were. Another flash and another rapidly
followed, and then down came the rain in a perfect deluge. It fell, not
in drops but in regular _sheets_ of water, lashing the surface of the
lake into a plain of milky foam, and so completely flooding the ground
that in five minutes the water everywhere, as far as we could see from
the window at which we had taken our stand, must have been ankle-deep.
The storm gained in intensity with startling rapidity, the lightning
blazing and flashing about us so uninterruptedly that the whole
atmosphere seemed a-quiver with the greenish-blue glare; whilst the
rattling crash and roar of the thunder went on absolutely without any
intermission, filling the firmament with one continuous chaos of
deafening sound and causing the very earth beneath our feet to tremble.
This had been going on for some eight or ten minutes, perhaps, when we
caught sight, through the streaming deluge outside, of a couple of
white-clad flying figures making their way down the path from the rustic
bridge toward the workshop. I sprang to the door and threw it open; and
in another moment two young women plunged through the doorway--their
light flimsy garments streaming with water and clinging about their
limbs--and flung themselves breathlessly down upon a bench, the taller
and darker of the two panting out:

"A thousand thanks, senors! Madre de Dios, what a storm!"

"It is indeed terrible," I replied in my best Spanish, as I closed the
door again. "And you have been fairly caught in it. Have you come from
a distance?"

"Only from the castle. I am Inez de Guzman, the commandant's daughter,
and this," pointing to her companion, "is Eugenia Gonzalez, my foster-
sister. We left home about two hours ago to walk through the park as
far as the beach; and it was not until we had emerged from among the
trees near the shore that we noticed the gathering storm. Then we
hastened back homeward as quickly as possible, but were overtaken before
we could gain shelter anywhere. I hope you will excuse our bursting in
so unceremoniously upon you. You are the young English officers who
have come to assist my father, I presume?"

Courtenay and I bowed our affirmatives with all the grace we could
muster.

"Poor papa!" she continued. "Are you not amused at his having taken