s
the general's willing to hear almost anything. But you will have to see
some member of the staff. Hullo! I say! Captain Lee! Here's a kind of
spy. I think you'd better hear him. I can't leave my post."

"Spy?" exclaimed Ned. "No, I'm not any such thing, but my name is Edward
Crawford, and I'm from New York. I got stuck in Mexico and I couldn't
get out. I've been all around everywhere. Things are mixed--"

"Grant," said Captain Lee, "he may have something worth while. I'll take
him in to see Schuyler Hamilton. Let the captain pump him."

Captain Robert E. Lee was not exactly off duty at that hour, for he and
other engineer officers had been ordered to make a survey of the
fortifications, but he was there to receive instructions and he could
take Ned in with him. He was a taller, handsomer fellow than Grant, and
he was all of three times as polite in his treatment of Ned. Perhaps,
however, Grant's first manners had been damaged by being addressed in
such a style, in Spanish, by an excited young Mexican.

In went Ned and Lee, and there was no difficulty in obtaining an
interview with Captain Hamilton. Ned had never heard of him before, but
he was now aware, from Captain Lee, that he was a descendant of General
Philip Schuyler and General Alexander Hamilton of the Revolutionary War.
Ned thought of Senora Tassara's great ancestors for a moment, and then
he did not really care a cent for pedigree. He even startled Hamilton
himself by the energy and rapidity with which he told what he knew of
the condition of things throughout the country, the movements of Santa
Anna, and the political plots and conspiracies. Hamilton was a slender,
graceful young man, handsomer than even Lee, and with piercing black
eyes.

"Lee," he said, "the cub is a genuine curiosity. I can't imagine how on
earth he learned so much. He isn't a fool, by any means. General Scott
will be at liberty in a few minutes, and Crawford must see him."

"All right," said Lee. "I have my instructions now, and I'll leave him
with you. They say the old castle's badly knocked in pieces."

If, as Lee intimated, the fortress of San Juan de Ulua was just then in
bad condition, so was Ned when he heard what they were going to do with
him. He had supposed that his errand had been completely done to the
sharp-eyed staff officer, but now they threatened to bring him before
the general, whom he considered the most tremendous man on the earth. It
was a little too much, bu