estion. With extreme cunning, and an
almost fiendish delicacy, she managed to remind me of my failure in
saving the lives of the prisoners in the guard-room, without wounding
my pride. She knew, of course, the whole story. Gaspar Ruiz, she said,
entreated me to procure for him a safe-conduce from General San
Martin himself. He had an important communication to make to the
Commander-in-Chief.

"Por Dios, senores, she made me swallow all that, pretending to be only
the mouthpiece of that poor man. Overcome by injustice, he expected to
find, she said, as much generosity in me as had been shown to him by the
Royalist family which had given him a refuge.

"Hal It was well and nobly said to a youngster like me. I thought her
great. Alas! she was only implacable.

"In the end I rode away very enthusiastic about the business, without
demanding even to see Gaspar Ruiz, who I was confident was in the house.

"But on calm reflection I began to see some difficulties which I had not
confidence enough in myself to encounter. It was not easy to approach
a commander-in-chief with such a story. I feared failure. At last I
thought it better to lay the matter before my general-of-division,
Robles, a friend of my family, who had appointed me his aide-de-camp
lately.

"He took it out of my hands at once without any ceremony.

"'In the house! of course he is in the house,' he said contemptuously.
'You ought to have gone sword in hand inside and demanded his surrender,
instead of chatting with a Royalist girl in the porch. Those people
should have been hunted out of that long ago. Who knows how many spies
they have harboured right in the very midst of our camps? A safe-conduct
from the Commander-in-Chief! The audacity of the fellow! Ha! ha! Now
we shall catch him to-night, and then we shall find out, without any
safe-conduct, what he has got to say, that is so very important. Ha! ha!
ha!'

"General Robles, peace to his soul, was a short, thick man, with round,
staring eyes, fierce and jovial. Seeing my distress he added:

"'Come, come, chico. I promise you his life if he does not resist. And
that is not likely. We are not going to break up a good soldier if it
can be helped. I tell you what! I am curious to see your strong man.
Nothing but a general will do for the picaro--well, he shall have a
general to talk to. Ha! ha! I shall go myself to the catching, and you
are coming with me, of course.'

"And it was done that same night. E