The man, attempting to rise, fell helplessly back again.
“Vas you hurt?” asked Carl solicitously.
“Hurt?” echoed the man, speaking good English, although with a very perceptible foreign accent. “Not at all, señor; only my limbs—they are so cramped from confinement that I cannot stand. Soon they will be all right. But who are you?” Suspicion suddenly flamed in his dark eyes. “How does it happen that you know of my trouble and have come here? Are you a confederate of the rascally Don Carlos?”
“Don Garlos?” repeated Carl. “I don’d know dot feller from Adam. I vas a shdranger in dis blace, und all I know is der Amerigan consul, Misder Hays Chordan, und Doctor Armsdrong, und——”
“You are American?” interrupted the other eagerly. “How do you happen to be here?”
“Id vas a blunder, dot’s all,” answered Carl. “A pulltog chased me und pooty near caught me, too. I got ofer der vall from der odder side und couldn’t get back some more. Vat a high vall is aboudt der place! Und so smoot’ und shlippery as I can’t dell.”
“What were you doing in the other yard?”
Carl did not want to mention that part of it, but it seemed necessary in order to convince the man of his harmless intentions.
“Vell,” he answered diffidently, “I vent der mit meinself to serenate a young laty py der name of Miss Sixdy——”
“Miss Ysabel Sixty?” the other again interrupted, even more eagerly than he had done before.