and he is to command a regiment. I wish I
were a man to go and fight."

Her eyes were flashing and she looked very warlike, but the only thing
that poor Ned could think of to say just then was:

"Senora Tassara, if you are not careful, somebody will get in some day
and steal your beautiful coffee-urn."

"Ah me!" sighed the senora. "This has been attempted, my young friend.
Thieves have been killed, too, in trying to carry off the Tassara plate.
There would be more like it, in some places, if so much had not been
made plunder of and melted up in our dreadful revolutions. Some of them
were only great robberies. I understand that you must go to your
business now, but we shall see you again this evening."

"Good morning, Senora Tassara," said Ned, as he bowed and tried to walk
backward toward the outer door. "Good morning, Senorita Tassara. You
would feel very badly this morning if you had been drowned last night."

The last thing he heard, as he reached the piazza, was a ringing peal of
laughter from the senora, but he believed that he had answered politely.

He knew his way to the office of the American consul, and the distance
was not great in so small a town, but as he drew near it, he saw that
there was a strong guard of soldiers in front of the building. They
were handsomely uniformed regulars from the garrison of San Juan de
Ulua, and there was cause enough for their being on duty. All up and
down the street were scattered groups of sullen-looking men, talking and
gesticulating. None of them carried guns, but every man of them had a
knife at his belt, and not a few of them were also armed with machetes
of one form or another. They would have made a decidedly dangerous mob
against anything but the well-drilled and fine-looking guards who were
protecting the consulate. Ned remembered what Felicia had said about her
soldiers, and he did not know how very different were these disciplined
regulars from the great mass of the levies which were to be encountered
by the troops of the United States. He was admiring them and he was
thinking of battles and generals, when one of the most ferocious-looking
members of the mob came jauntily sauntering along beside him. He was a
powerfully built man, almost black with natural color and sunburn. He
was not exactly ragged, but he was barefooted, and his broad-brimmed
sombrero was by no means new. A heavy machete hung from his belt, and he
appeared to be altogether an undesirable n