"Certainly, Isabella, my pass will serve for you with a trifling disguise."
"But our difference in size; besides, you know that my voice—"
"Will not be noticed by those stiff sentries, or the turnkey," interrupted the boy. "They do not know me at all, and would not suspect you."
"Ah! but I can see many impediments in the way of one of my sex," added Isabella Gonzales, with a deep sigh.
Captain Lorenzo Bezan awoke on the day previous to that appointed for his execution, with cheerful spirit. He found no guilt in his heart, he felt that he had committed no crime, that his soul was free and untrammelled. His coarse breakfast of rude cassava root and water was brought to him at a late hour, and having partaken of sufficient of this miserable food to prevent the gnawings of hunger, he now sat musing over his past life, and thinking seriously of that morrow which was to end his career upon earth forever. A strange reverie for a man to be engaged in a most critical period-the winding up of his earthly career.
"I wonder," said he to himself, somewhat curiously, "why Ruez does not come to-day? it is his hour-ay, must be even past the time, and the boy loves me too well to neglect me now, when I am so near my end. Hark! is that his step? No; and yet it must be; it is too light for the guard or turnkey. O yes, that is my door, certainly, and here he is, sure enough. I knew he would come."
As the prisoner said this, the door slowly opened on its rusty and creaking hinges, and the turnkey immediately closed it after the new comer, who was somewhat closely wrapped in the profuse folds of a long Spanish cloak.
Well, Ruez," said Captain Bezan, quite leisurely, and without turning his head towards the door, "I had begun to fear that you would not come to-day. You know you are the only being I see, except the turnkey, and I'm quite sensitive about your visits, my dear boy. However, you are here, at last; sit down."
"Captain Bezan, it appears to me that you do not welcome me very cordially," said Isabella Gonzales, in reply, and a little archly.
"Lady!" said the prisoner, springing to his feet as though he had been struck by an electric shock, "Senorita Isabella Gonzales, is it possible that you have remembered me at such a time-me, who am so soon to die?"