I had been about three hours in the cell, and was passing the weary, baffling, irritating time in speculating how long I was to be left like a forgotten dog in the dirty kennel of a cell, and how long it would take Mayhew to get to work to find me and procure my release, when the door of the cell was unlocked and a warder told me to follow him.
"Where to?" I asked.
"There's a visitor for you."
"Bring him here, then," I answered, determined that anyone from the Embassy should see the filthy place in which I had been caged.
"Come with me," he said again.
"I will not," I answered, and curled myself up on the bare bench. At this he growled out an oath, and after a moment banged the door and locked it again. It was probably a novel experience for him to find any prisoner unwilling to get out of such a kennel at the first opportunity, and, in truth, when some minutes elapsed and he did not return, I was disposed to regret my own obstinacy.
But I heard his returning steps later on, the door was once more opened, and the brute said, in a tone of deference:
"The prisoner is here, senorita," and I jumped to my feet in intense surprise to find Dolores Quesada, holding up her skirts, and looking in dismay at the disgusting condition of the cell, and then with distress, sympathy, and concern at me.
CHAPTER XXIX
QUESADA AGAIN