"You mean that you will detain me?" said Paul in surprise.

The Spaniard delicately stroked his pointed beard.

"Perhaps that is the word," he replied. "As I said, you have trespassed
upon our domain, and I must hold you, for a time, at least. I know not
what plot is afoot"

"As a prisoner?"

"If you wish to call it so."

"And yet there is no war between your country and mine!"

The Spaniard delicately stroked his pointed beard again.

Paul looked at him accusingly, and Francisco Alvarez unable to sustain his
straight gaze, turned his eyes aside. But Braxton Wyatt's face was full of
triumph, although he kept silent.

Paul thought rapidly. It seemed to him a traitorous design and he did not
doubt that Wyatt had instigated it, but he must submit at present. He was
powerless inside a ring of fifty soldiers. Without a word, he sat down
again on the little grassy knoll and it pleased Alvarez to affect a great
politeness, and to play with his prisoner as a cat with a mouse. He
insisted that he eat and he made his men bring him the tenderest of food,
deer meat and wild turkey, and fish, freshly caught. Finally he opened a
flask and poured wine in a small silver cup.

"It is the wine of Xeres, Señor Cotter," he said, "and you can judge how