For some minutes the man beyond the door, drawing shallow breath, watched him closely as he struggled with the intricacies of the document. There was apparently a passage in it that completely baffled him. He turned the paper this way and that, examined it even upside down, but without success, and at last, in a burst of anger, dashed it down on to the table with an audible oath. The visitor took this as his cue for entry, and tapped gently at the door. "Adelante!" was the answer, after a distinct pause. He turned the handle and went in. The man had faced round towards the door, and the dim light of the candle disclosed the narrow features, low receding forehead, thin lips, and shifty eyes of Pablo Quintanar. The blue paper had disappeared. There was a momentary silence. The host was evidently waiting for his visitor to introduce himself. "Buenas noches, hombre!" said the stranger suavely, with a conciliatory bow. "I trust I don’t come at an unseasonable hour." The guerrillero scanned him from head to foot with a quick suspicious glance. "That depends, Señor, upon your business, who you are, and what you want with me." "As to who I am, hombre—may I take a chair? thank you!—my name is Miguel Priego. As to my business, that is not so simply stated; we must improve our acquaintance first." The man started at the mention of his visitor’s name; and the latter duly noted the fact. But as the guerrillero merely stood in an attitude of expectancy, Don Miguel, loosening his cloak and placing his hat on the table, continued: "I have been, my friend, as you may perhaps have heard, four days in Saragossa. During these four days I have been searching for you." The man’s hand went like a flash to his knife, and Miguel, quickening his measured tones, hastened to add: "No, my friend, not in that way, or, as you can imagine, I should not have come alone. I have been searching for you because I think we are both of one mind regarding, let us say, the policy of our brave commandant General Palafox." "Say what you have to say, and have done with it. I don’t understand your fine phrases." Don Miguel smiled indulgently. It was clear to him that his host fully grasped his meaning. "Well, to put the matter quite plainly, you—that is, you and I—regard all this," waving his hand in the direction of a cannon-shot from the ramparts, "as useless waste of life—sheer obstinacy; a noble enthusiasm, but misguided. Is it not so? Now, acting upon our convictions we—that is, you—have already done our little best to bring this distressing conflict to an end. We—that is, you—have endeavoured—unsuccessfully endeavoured—to relieve our commandant of certain plans which, if placed in proper hands might—I say might—" At this point the guerrillero, who had been standing facing his visitor, sank into a chair, his face blanched, his mouth twitching. On the blank wall before him his imagination was casting the grim shadow of a gibbet.