returned to the veranda. Nevertheless, he resolved not to occupy
the cell of the reverend Padre; not from any personal fear of his
disreputable neighbors, though he was fully alive to their
peculiarities, but from the nomadic instinct which was still strong
in his blood. He felt he could not yet bear the confinement of a
close room or the propinquity of his fellow-man. He would rest on
the veranda until the moon was fairly up, and then he would again
take to the road.

He was half reclining on the bench, with the slowly closing and
opening lids of some tired but watchful animal, when the sound of
wheels, voices, and clatter of hoofs on the highway arrested his
attention, and he sat upright. The moon was slowly lifting itself
over the limitless stretch of grain-fields before him on the other
side of the road, and dazzling him with its level lustre. He could
barely discern a cavalcade of dark figures and a large vehicle
rapidly approaching, before it drew up tumultuously in front of the
fonda.

It was a pleasure party of ladies and gentlemen on horseback and in
a four-horsed char-a-bancs returning to La Mision Perdida.
Buchanan, Raymond, and Garnier were there; Amita and Dorotea in the
body of the char-a-bancs, and Maruja seated on the box. Much to
his own astonishment and that of some others of the party, Captain
Carroll was among the riders. Only Maruja and her mother knew that
he was recalled to refute a repetition of the gossip already
circulated regarding his sudden withdrawal; only Maruja alone knew
the subtle words which made that call so potent yet so hopeless.

Maruja's quick eyes, observant of everything, even under the double