A LIST OF CHAPTERS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | The Blue Envelope | [9] |
| II. | Valcour | [16] |
| III. | A Good Republican | [29] |
| IV. | The Chieftain | [42] |
| V. | Madam Izabel | [61] |
| VI. | The Secret Vault | [77] |
| VII. | General Fonseca | [92] |
| VIII. | A Terrible Crime | [102] |
| IX. | The Missing Finger | [118] |
| X. | “For To-morrow We Die!” | [127] |
| XI. | Lesba’s Bright Eyes | [135] |
| XII. | The Man in the Shrubbery | [144] |
| XIII. | Dom Pedro de Alcantara | [152] |
| XIV. | The Man with the Ring | [162] |
| XV. | A Dangerous Moment | [173] |
| XVI. | Traitor to the Cause | [181] |
| XVII. | The Torch of Rebellion | [192] |
| XVIII. | A Narrow Escape | [202] |
| XIX. | The Wayside Inn | [215] |
| XX. | “Arise and Strike!” | [226] |
| XXI. | One Mystery Solved | [239] |
| XXII. | The Death Sentence | [252] |
| XXIII. | At the Eleventh Hour | [262] |
| XXIV. | The Emperor’s Spy | [271] |
| XXV. | The Girl I Love | [282] |
CHAPTER I
THE BLUE ENVELOPE
Leaning back in my chair, I smoked my morning cigar and watched Uncle Nelson open his mail. He had an old-fashioned way of doing this: holding the envelope in his left hand, clipping its right edge with his desk shears, and then removing the inclosure and carefully reading it before he returned it to its original envelope. Across one end he would make a memorandum of the contents, after which the letters were placed in a neat pile.
As I watched him methodically working, Uncle Nelson raised a large blue envelope, clipped its end, and read the inclosure with an appearance of unusual interest. Then, instead of adding it to the letters before him, he laid it aside; and a few minutes later reverted to it again, giving the letter a second careful perusal. Deeply musing, for a time he sat motionless in his chair. Then, arousing himself from his deep abstraction, he cast a fleeting glance in my direction and composedly resumed his task.
I knew Uncle Nelson’s habits so well that this affair of the blue envelope told me plainly the communication was of unusual importance. Yet the old gentleman calmly continued his work until every letter the mail contained was laid in a pile before him and fully docketed. With the last he suddenly swung around in his chair and faced me.
“Robert,” said he, “how would you like to go to Brazil?”
Lacking a ready answer to this blunt question I simply stared at him.
“De Pintra has written me,” he continued—“do you know of Dom Miguel de Pintra?” I shook my head. “He is one of the oldest customers of the house. His patronage assisted us in getting established. We are under deep obligations to de Pintra.”
“I do not remember seeing his name upon the books,” I said, thoughtfully.