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 weight of sand. Sheets of gr rse, official paper bestrewed the floor. It must have been a room occupied by some higher official of the customs, because a qge leathern arm-chair stood behind the table, with other high-backed chairs scattered about. A net hammock was swung under one of the beams for the official's afternoon siesta, no doubt. A couple of candles stuck into tall iron candlesticks gave a dim, reddish light. The colonel's hat, sword, and revolver lay berween them, and a couple of his more trusty officers lounged gloomily against the table. The colonel threw himself into the arm-chair, and a big negro with a sergeant's stripes on his ragged sleeve, kneeling down, pulled off his boots. Sotillo's ebony mustache contrasted violently with the livid coloring of his cheeks. His eyes were sombre and as if sunk very far into his head. He seemed exhausted by his perplexities, languid with disappointment; but when the sentry on the landing thrust his head in to announce the arrival of a prisoner he revived at once.

"Let him be brought in," he shouted, fiercely. The door flew open and Captain Mitchell, bareheaded, his waistcoat open, the bow of his tie under his ear, was hustled into the room.

Sotillo recognized him at once. He could not have hoped for a more precious capture. Here was a man who could tell him, if he chose, everything he wished to know; and, directly, the problem of how best to make him talk to the point presented itself to his mind. The resentment of a foreign nation had no terrors for Sotillo. The might of the whole armed Europe would not have protected Captain Mitchell from insults and ill-usage so