"I'd like to see him try it," Bernardi exclaimed, with a volley of oaths. "I guess two could play at the game of swearing out warrants, and when the account was balanced, his imprisonment would be twenty times as long as mine. No, no; I have no fear that he will attempt such a thing." "I merely spoke of it as a possibility," said Newton, "in order that you should be on your guard. A man with wealth and position might succeed in crushing a friendless poor man in spite of the latter's protestations. However, if any such thing should happen, you can depend upon it that I will work for you until you are released." "That's right, my friend," replied Bernardi, as he called for another drink of brandy. "If I should suddenly disappear without warning to you, don't fail to search for me everywhere, and I will see that you are handsomely rewarded. If Don Juan should attempt any treachery, I should have him at my mercy as soon as I should get free, and, together, we could squeeze a large sum out of him." Newton spent the day with Bernardi, and they became quite inseparable. After driving about the city for an hour or two, they attended a matinée performance at one of the theatres, and then had a long and sumptuous dinner at a fashionable restaurant. In the evening they went to the gambling-rooms where they had met the night before, and Bernardi was soon absorbed in the game of faro. His luck still clung to him, and, on leaving the place at midnight, he had won three hundred dollars more. As before, Bernardi went to enjoy the society of his New Orleans charmer, and Newton went to his own lodgings. After Newton had made his report to me, early the next morning, I told him to continue his intimacy with Bernardi, and to pump him as thoroughly as possible relative to Don Pedro's past history. Soon after his departure to meet Bernardi, Senator Muirhead and Judge Key entered, and we discussed the possibility of doing anything with this new witness, Pietro Bernardi. "Would it not be possible to frighten him into telling all he knows of Don Pedro?" asked the Senator. "I hardly think we could," I replied. "In the first place, you have no charge whatever against Bernardi, nor any reason to suppose that he has ever been a criminal anywhere; hence, how could we frighten him? Moreover, he is a man of considerable nerve, and he would see that, as against third parties, his interests would be best served by supporting, instead of attacking, Don Pedro. No, I don't see anything to be gained as yet by showing our hands. Our object is to recover possession of the money paid to the Don for those bogus diamond fields, and to do that, we must wait until we have a sure case against him for his crimes committed elsewhere."