ring him to me. I
cannot, you see, go to him."

"Is this very urgent?"

"A matter of life and death, I assure you."

"I will order a horse at once. It is all very mysterious and
extraordinary; but then you have been a mystery, Rupert Hyde, a riddle
and a puzzle, ever since I have known you."

"It will all be unravelled some day, colonel, never fear; but lose no
time, let me beg;" and, thus adjured, the colonel presently mounted
his horse and galloped over to headquarters.

He arrived there the day after McKay's excursion into the Russian
lines. The young staff-officer was still absent, and fears were
already entertained as to his safety, although it was not positively
known as yet that he had come to harm.

Let us leave Colonel Blythe and other friends exchanging anxious
conjectures as to McKay's fate and return to Mariquita, whose
misgivings had steadily increased from the day she had last seen Hyde.

He had promised she should see him again, and, perhaps, Stanislas,
without delay. Yet this was more than a week since. What had become of
the old soldier? Had he fulfilled his mission of warning, or had he
been involved in the dire intrigues that threatened her lover?

Her lover, too; her Stanislas--to save whom she had come so far,
braving so many dangers, and at the peril of her maidenly
self-respect--had anything happened to him?

The terrible uncertainty was crushing her. She must know something,
even the worst, or her apprehensions, ever present and hourly
increasing, would kill her.

To whom could she turn in this time of cruel suspense? Hyde had
deserted her, seemingly; in spite of her heartfelt anxiety she could
not bring herself to approach McKay.

One other man there was; that villain, Benito Villegas--the source, in
truth, of all her trouble--might give her news. Bad news, possibly,
but still news, if only she could lay hands on him. Where and how was
he hiding? Every effort to find him had been fruitless hitherto.

At Valetta Joe's they knew no such name, so they told her when she
inquired cautiously for Benito from some of the loafers hanging about
the shop.

Yet that was the place to which he was to proceed on arrival. The
letter she had picked up in Bombardier Lane said so. He must be
hiding, or in disguise; and now, when her anxiety for her beloved
Stanislas was at its highest pitch, she was more than ever resolved to
find out somehow what Benito was doing.

One afternoon, when business