--you should have prepared me for this,
Manuela. I--I'm obliged to you, senhor, of course, for--for saving my
daughter; but--come, follow me!"

He turned and left the room with rapid strides, and would have dragged
Manuela after him, if that young lady had not been endued with a pace--
neat, active, and what is sometimes called "tripping,"--which kept her
easily alongside of the ancient man of war.

Lawrence followed mechanically.

Pedro, with an arm round Mariquita's waist, brought up the rear.

As they vanished through the doorway the people gave them a hearty
cheer, and resumed dancing.

The sportsman found himself so much overcome that he could only
ejaculate, "aw!" But presently he recovered so far as to say, "Let's go
an' have a ciga'," and he also melted from the scene.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

HOPES, FEARS, PERPLEXITIES, JOYS, AND EXPLANATIONS.

Two conversations took place shortly after the scene in the ballroom,
and to these we now draw attention. The first was in the hotel--in the
private apartment of Colonel Marchbanks.

Having got rid of the ladies, the fiery man of war led his victim--if we
may so style him--into the apartment referred to, and shut the door.
Without asking Lawrence to be seated, he stalked into the middle of the
room.

"Now, senhor," he said, wheeling round suddenly, and confronting
Lawrence with a tremendous frown, "what do you mean by this?"

The look and the tone were such as the youth would in ordinary
circumstances have resented, but he was far removed from ordinary
circumstances just then. He was a victim! As such he looked at his
questioner with perplexity in his countenance, and said--

"I beg pardon?"

"What do you mean by your conduct, I say?" repeated the colonel,
fiercely; for he mistook and was rendered more irritable by the youth's
apparent stupidity. "You have insulted my daughter in the ballroom--"

"Your daughter?" said Lawrence, with the air of a man whose eyes are
dazzled by some sudden burst of strong light which he does not quite
understand.

"Yes, sir. You know quite well what I mean," cried the colonel, waxing
angrier. "It may be true, for all I know or care, that you have saved
her life more than once, as Pedro tells me, but--"

"I saved the life of an Indian girl," interrupted Lawrence, gently, and
gazing wistfully in the colonel's angry face, as if he saw a distant
landscape of marvellous beauty through it, "the daughter of a great
ch