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let us see them discharge their cannon into the house, let us see!"

"Don Abrahan is to be hung for the murder of John Toberman before the sun goes down. Now, Doña Carlota, return to your prayers."

Helena opened the door as she spoke, extending her hand in expressive invitation to be gone.

"They will not dare touch Don Abrahan!" Doña Carlota said, flaming in a fresh sweep of anger, rising with such speed as was her best from the chair where she had sat in defiance. "For every drop of his blood——"

"There is no blood when they hang a man, Doña Carlota. You shall see."

"I am going directly to Don Abrahan to tell him of this threatened indignity to his person. This moment I am going."

"Pass close along the wall, Doña Carlota, and you will hear him groan," Helena said. If there was something of malicious satisfaction, of un-tempered cruelty, in her voice, in the triumphant brightness of her eyes, it was only her Castilian blood speaking, as it will assert itself on occasion unfailingly as a congenital taint.

"If these savages have laid a hand on him——"

"Is it possible you have not heard, Doña Carlota? He is in his own prison, where——"

"In prison! I will send at once to General Garvanza——"

"He has been commanded already to attend the American general, Doña Carlota."