"Yes," took up her friend, "of his true faithfulness I have ample evidence. It is a secret which I have promised to keep. Please do not doubt him any more."
"Here's another mystery! They talk of the plain, straight men of the wild frontier life, and, on the contrary, every other man seems to be a hero of romance or of the Newgate Calendar. This Joe makes me uneasy, like the gentleman, spruce, trim, quiet, with a sharp eye, whom one sees as a boy about one's father's house, and whom one imagines fearfully to be a detective to arrest the butler for stealing spoons; or a sheriff's officer to arrest papa, and who turns out to be a picture dealer come to see if the smoky old picture, so long our target for puffballs, in the library is a genuine Snyders or not. It is clear for me that your lieutenant wears a mask, and no pretty one either!"
"Perhaps the better to suit the faces around us, sir," replied Ulla, forcing a laugh. "These are white men's, but, really, the red Indian's, painted for war, is not more intolerable!"
"¡Dios mío!" interjected Rosario, "What's the odds! Are we not all other than what we seem here? Is not every one of us wearing a mask from Captain Kidd down?"
"In his case, it has slipped aside a minute," broke in a deep voice.
The girls started back in alarm.
"Who's that?" cried Ranald, turning round, and putting his hand to his belt, none too swiftly if there had been danger.
It was the subject of their former conversation, the Carcajieu.
"I mean to say," continued he, in a cold, stern voice, more authoritative than they had ever heard before, "that though your disguise and my own still preserve our identity, it is no longer so with our good Captain Kidd. I have succeeded in having an unimpeded look at his phiz."
"Can it be true?" ejaculated Rosario, clasping her hands.