We neared the last balcony. Upon it were only three ladies, one of whom held back behind the others, so much of her head and shoulders as showed being muffled in a silk _reboza_, the Mexican head-drape or shawl. The other two leaned eagerly forward over the balustrade, and the younger, a plump beauty with the blackest and most brilliant of eyes, flashed at Malgares a look that told me she was his wife, even before he called to her in terms of extravagant endearment. Unlike so many of the Spanish marriages, his had been a love match. The senora and her yet plumper companion at the rail called down a welcome to _los Americanos_. Pike and I swept off our hats and bowed our handsomest. I straightened and looked up. Malgares had not checked his horse for an instant, so that we were now opposite the balcony, and I, being on the right, was almost directly beneath it. My heart gave a great leap. Smiling down upon me, over the rail, I saw the lovely face of my lady. I started to cry out her name: "Al--" But already her finger was on her scarlet lips. I checked myself so quickly that my exclamation sounded more like an "Ah!" My lady let fall her _reboza_ over her face and drew back out of view. When at last I gave over craning my head about, Malgares met me with a smile. "So you have discovered her already, Don Juan!" he remarked in French. "My senorita!" I murmured. "She is the loveliest lady in the world!" "The most beautiful--that is true, but I cannot admit that she is the loveliest," he returned, with the loyalty of a true gentleman. "I trust soon to repeat that last to your senora!" I exclaimed. "She was the one to whom you called." He bowed in confirmation of my surmise. "It is the house of Senor Vallois. That other was Senora Marguerite Vallois, his wife. The house of my wife's father is on the cross-street. She came to the house of her friends to see me pass, for she knew I could not turn out of my direct way to the _palacio_." "What! Not a few moments to greet your lady after an absence of almost a year?" I cried. "This is not a free republic as is your country. Our ruler--" He checked himself, and looked from me to Pike with an anxious glance. "Friends, I have not darkened your journey with sombre anticipations. But now is the time for warning. Do not be surprised if a few hours hence you find yourselves in the _calabozo_." "No!" said Pike, without raising his voice, but speaking in a tone of indomitable resolution. "Your people may kill us, Don Faciendo, but they shall neither disarm nor imprison us so long as there is breath left in our bodies. My men have their orders."