was rather slack at Mother Charcoal's,
she seized a chance of visiting the hut-town.

"Any work?" she asked, in Spanish, of Valetta Joe himself, whom she
met at the door of his shanty.

"What can you do? Where do you come from? Spain?" replied the baker in
the same tongue.

"Yes, from Malaga. I can do anything--try me."

"Can you sell bread through the camp? I am a man short, and could take
you on, perhaps, until he is better. Come down below, and I will give
you a basketful to hawk about."

"I shall have to tell them at the canteen--Mother Charcoal's--that I
am going to leave."

"That won't do. You must come at once if you come at all. Which will
you do?"

While she still hesitated, a voice from the subterranean regions at
the end of the shop fell upon her ear. Her heart gave a great jump at
the sound--it was Benito's. "Joe! Joe!" he was crying, in feeble
accents.

"It's take it or leave it. There are plenty of your sort about. Well,
what do you say?"

"I accept," said Mariquita, eagerly. "When shall I begin work?"

"Now, this minute. Come down and help me to get a batch of bread out
of the oven."

They passed down into the cellar by a short ladder, and Mariquita
found herself in a dimly-lighted cavernous den, hot and stifling, at
one end of which glowed the grate below the oven.

"Joe! Joe!" repeated Benito's voice, and Mariquita, with difficulty,
made out his figure lying on a heap of rags in a corner of the cellar.

"Well?" answered Joe, roughly, as soon as he had pointed out the
bread-trays and desired her to get them in order. "What's wrong with
you now? You are always groaning and calling out."

"Water!" asked Benito, piteously. "This place is like a furnace. I am
suffering torments from raging thirst and this cruel wound. Accursed
Englishman! may I live to repay him!"

"You will have to hurry and get well, or the Russians will save you
the trouble," remarked Joe.

"That is my only consolation. It was I who gave him to them."

Although bending busily over her task, Mariquita felt her heart beat
faster and faster. These words, which she now overheard through such a
strange chance, clearly referred to her lover.

"Will they hang him, do you think?" asked Benito.

"As sure as the sun breeds flies. We have done our business too well
to give him a chance of escape."

"Would that I might hold the rope, that I might see his agony, his
last convulsions! That I might myself revenge the tortures