"Your information is to the point, and has its value. Well, whatever the disguise of our friend the captain, depend upon it that in time I shall have him at bay, and he will show his real traitorous face!"
"And now, may I just put one question to you, señor?"
"Go ahead."
"You know many things," she observed, very gravely, and lapsing into English unwittingly. "Pray tell me, have I parents, have I kinsfolk?"
"Yes. A mother, no; a father, yes—if he has not passed away during a year. A brother younger than you too!"
"A brother! Oh, tell me about him."
"I am sorry to say that I am quite ignorant of the fate of your brother Lewis."
"Lewis!"
"But you must not despair, señorita. Mark this, whatever mishap your brother ran, you have been watched by at least one friend of your father's, and had the villain who abducted you from your home attempted to suppress you by murder, an avenger, if not a defender, would have appeared by your side in the New Mexican gentleman named Don Gregorio Peralta."
"I know him, the grey headed gentleman who spoke to me when the school was out on promenade. He told me he was my friend. Where is he? Pray tell me."