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CHAPTER XXX.

DEATH OF PAQUITA.

ET us pass hurriedly over those dread ful events; but remember I kept my promise like a man. There are a thousand things you will condemn and denounce, but if you endure what I endured to keep faith with your captors, I for one will pronounce you not wholly bad, whatever you may do.

I was surrendered to the sheriff and taken before a judge. I feared an investigation, lest something might be revealed which would connect the pale- faced boy in black with the long-haired renegade living with the Indians, and thus throw me into the hands of the military, which I had just escaped.

The Prince was in Nicaragua battling for the esta blishment of an order of things even more impossible than my Indian Republic, and I had not a friend with whom I dared communicate. I pleaded not guilty, declined an examination, and was taken to prison. And what a prison ! A box, ten feet by ten ; a little window with iron grates looking to the east