March, the 9th day.

DoÑa Orosia sent for me at noon to-day. There was news to tell, and she chose to be the one to tell it.

I found her in her favourite seat,—a great soft couch, covered with rich Moorish stuffs, and placed under the shadow of the balcony that overlooks the sunny garden. Up each of the light pillars from which spring the graceful arches that support this balcony climbs a mass of blooming vines that weave their delicate tendrils round the railing above and then trail downward again in festoons of swaying colour. Behind, in the luminous shadow, she lay coiled and half asleep; with a large fan of bronze turkey-feathers in one lazy hand, the other teasing the tawny hound which was stretched out at her feet.

She opened her great eyes as I came near.

"Ah! the little blue-eyed Margarita, the little saint who frowns when men worship at her shrine," she said slowly. "There is news for you. The Virgen de la Mar arrived last night from Habana, bringing the commands of the Council of Spain that the English prisoners here detained be liberated forthwith. For it seems that there has been presented to the Council, through our ambassador to the English Court, a memorial, which clearly proves that these persons have given no provocation to any subject of his Catholic Majesty, Charles the Second of Spain, and are therefore unlawfully imprisoned. How like you that?" The waving fan was suddenly stilled, and the brilliant eyes half veiled.

"Is this true?" I asked, for my heart misgave me.

She laughed. "It is true that the Virgen de la Mar has brought those orders to the Governor of San Augustin—and that my husband has received them."

"Will he obey them, seÑora?"

"Will who obey them?" she asked; and there was a gleam of white teeth under the red, curling lip. "My husband, or the Governor of San Augustin?"

"Are they not the same?"

"If you think so, little fool," she cried, half rising from her couch; "if you think so still, you would better go back to your chamber and pray yourself and your lover out of prison!"

I made no answer; I waited, without much hope, for what she would say next. My heart was very full, but I would not pleasure her by weeping.

"Child," she continued, sinking back among the cushions and speaking in a slow, impressive manner, "there are two Governors in San Augustin—and they take their commands neither from the child-King, the Queen-mother, nor any of the Spanish Council. My husband is not one; he obeys them both by turns. His Excellency Don Pedro Melinza decrees that these orders from Spain shall be carried out except in the case of one SeÑor Rivers, who will be held here to answer for an unprovoked assault on one of his Majesty's subjects, whom he severely wounded; also for inciting others of his fellow prisoners to break their parole, and for various other offences against the peace of this garrison,—all of which charges Melinza will swear to be true."

"Is he so lost to honour? And will your husband uphold him in the lie?"

"Hear me out," she continued in the same tone. "Melinza also decides that these orders do not include the English seÑorita, DoÑa Margaret, whom he intends to detain here for——for reasons best known to himself; although the other Governor of San Augustin decrees"——she started up from her nest of pillows and continued in a wholly different tone: "I say—I say—that you shall quit this place with the other prisoners, and my husband dares not oppose me! I am sick of your white face and your saintly blue eyes; I am wearied to death of your company; but I swear Melinza shall not have you! Therefore go you must, and speedily."

"And leave my betrothed at Don Pedro's mercy?"

"What is that to me? Let him rot in his dungeon. I care not—so I am rid of your white face."

She shut her eyes angrily and thrust out her slippered foot at the sleeping hound. He lifted his great head and yawned; then, gathering up his huge bulk from the ground, he drew closer to his mistress's side and sniffed the air with solicitude, as though seeking a cause for her displeasure. There was a dish of cakes beside her, and she took one in her white fingers and threw it to the dog. He let it fall to the ground, and nosed it doubtfully, putting forth an experimental tongue,—till, finding it to his taste, he swallowed it at a gulp. His mistress laughed, and tossed him another, which disappeared in his great jaws. A third met the same fate; but the fourth she extended to him in her pink palm, and, as he would have taken it she snatched the hand away. Again and again the poor brute strove to seize the proffered morsel, but each time it was lifted out of his reach; till finally his lithe body was launched upward, and he snapped both the cake and the hand that teased him.

'Twas the merest scratch, and truly the dog meant it not in anger; but on the instant DoÑa Orosia flushed crimson to her very brow, and, drawing up her silken skirt, she snatched a jewelled dagger from her garter and plunged it to the hilt in the poor beast's throat. The red blood spouted, and the huge body dropped in a tawny heap.

I rushed forward and lifted the great head; but the eyes were glazed.

"SeÑora!" I cried, "seÑora! the poor brute loved you!"

She spurned the limp body with a careless foot, saying,—

"So did—once—the man who gave it me."

Then she clapped her hands, and the negro servant came and at her command dragged away the carcass, wiped the bloody floor, and brought a basin of clear water and a linen cloth to bathe the scratch on her hand. When he had gone she made me bind it up with her broidered kerchief and stamped her foot because I drew the knot over-tight.

"DoÑa Orosia," I said, when I had done it to her liking. "If all you care for, in this other matter, is to get rid of my white face, I pray you kill me with your dagger and ask your lord to let my love go free."

She looked up curiously. "Would you die for him?" she asked.

"Most willingly, an it please you to make my death his ransom."

Still she gazed at me and seemed strangely stirred. "Once I loved like that," she said in musing tones. "I will tell thee a tale, child, for I like not the reproach in those blue eyes. Five years ago, when I was as young as thou art now, I lived with my parents in Valencia, where the flowers are even sweeter and the skies bluer than here in sunny Florida. I had a lover in those days, who followed me like my shadow, and, in spite of my old duenna, found many a moment to pour his passion in my ears. He was a brave man and a handsome, and he won my heart from me. Though he had no great fortune I would have wed him willingly and followed him over land and sea. I never doubted him for a day; and when he came to my father's house with an old nobleman, his uncle and the head of his family, I was well content; for my mother told me they had asked for my hand and it had been promised. But when my father called me in at last to see my future husband, it was the old man who met me with a simper on his wrinkled face. I turned to the nephew; but he was gazing out of the window——"

She broke off with a fierce laugh and then added bitterly,—"And so I came to marry my husband, the Governor of San Augustin!"

"The other was Don Pedro?"

"Has thy baby wit compassed that much? Yes, the other was Melinza."

"But if you once loved him why should there be hate between you now?"

"Why? thou little fool! Why?"—she put out one hand and drew me closer, so that she could look deep into my eyes. "Why does a woman ever hate a man? Canst tell me that?"

We gazed at each other so until I saw—I scarce know what I saw! My head swam, and of a sudden it came over me that when the angels fell from heaven there must have been an awful beauty in their eyes!