Jose listened attentively to every word, and then asked Santiago innumerable questions. Like myself, he displayed great excitement, but I judged from his expression that he entertained little hope of my father being still alive. "The truth is," said he, "Don Eduardo had made numerous powerful enemies both in public and private life; and as we all know, any stick is good enough to beat a dog with. Besides, he owned vast estates, and--" "Go on!" laughed Santiago as Jose hesitated; "the king's party put him to death in order to seize them!" "No, no," said Jose hotly; "I don't tar all Spaniards with the same brush. Still, they aren't all saints either, and I say some of them killed him under cloak of the government. And some day," he added, "I will prove it. As to his being alive, I think there is small chance of it.--And Jack, my boy, I would not mention the matter to your mother." "But," said I, clinging to my shred of hope, "he was not killed in the mountains, and we have heard nothing since." Jose let me talk, and listened kindly to my arguments, but I noticed that none of them made any impression. At the best, he said, my father had been thrown into prison seriously hurt, and it was not likely that he had survived the confinement. "Have you ever seen the casemates at Callao, major?" he asked. "Yes," said Santiago, "and very unhealthy places they are. But there are more prisons than those in Peru." It would be wearisome to repeat our conversation, for, after all, we were arguing in the dark, having only the major's imperfect story to go by. Besides, as Jose said, many events had happened during the last two years, and my father was by no means the only noted man in Peru to disappear. So our talk travelled in a circle, leaving off at the starting-point, and for sole effect it extinguished the gleam of hope which the major's story had kindled. In the evening, at Jose's suggestion, I went into the streets to pick up any information concerning the governor's doings. Everything seemed quiet; the sentries were at their posts as usual, while the soldiers off duty wandered about the town. They greeted me respectfully, raising their hands in salute and standing at attention, as if I had been an officer of high degree. Recognizing a sergeant who had been in the governor's room, I stopped to ask a few questions. Greatly to my relief, I learned that, with the exception of a few Spanish officers, the troops in the town were all Indians from the mountains. As the man seemed smart and intelligent, I told him how matters stood, and that we depended entirely upon him and his comrades until the coming of the English colonel. "You can trust us, master," he replied, and indeed his talk made it quite clear that the friend of Raymon Sorillo and the holder of the Silver Key might rely on the Indians in Moquegua even against Miller himself.