"What matter the news?" said Doña Constancia; "I have my son again, let me look at him." She drew him into the sala, into the lamplight. "You look pale, my son," said she, "and weary. These cursed wars! But you are back again!" "We have been very anxious about you, Juan Carlos," said Don Roderigo. "Since the affair of the 20th January we could not tell what had become of you. I am glad you have come back again, it would have been useless to try to force your way into Monte Video." "I went to Monte Video, father," answered Juan Carlos sadly, "and I have come back again. That I am here at all I owe to----Ah! where is he? I thought he had come with me." He turned and looked out into the darkness. There, unnoticed by anyone, leaning in an attitude of careless grace against one of the iron pillars of the verandah, stood a tall man, with his hat thrust back from his forehead, while an amused smile flitted over his sallow features, lighting them up into a kind of stern beauty. "Evaña!" exclaimed Marcelino, who was the first to recognise him, and ran out at once to seize him by the hand and draw him forward. "You are glad to see me again, mother," said Juan Carlos. "Then thank him, for to him I probably owe my life, and certainly my escape from an English prison." "Don Carlos!" said Doña Constancia; "you are back? This is the second time that you have been the one who has given me happiness when I was anxious for my sons. Are you their guardian angel? God bless you for it, I can only give you the thanks of a grateful mother." "And that is reward sufficient, Señora," said Evaña, as he raised her hand to his lips in courtly salutation. "But I fear that the news we bring will not give equal pleasure to all of you." "What of Monte Video?" asked Don Roderigo. "What has been done?" Evaña turned away without answering, leaving Juan Carlos to answer for him. "You said you came from Monte Video; what has happened?" asked Marcelino of his brother. "Monte Video has fallen," answered Juan Carlos. "How? The English have taken the city already!" exclaimed Don Roderigo. "They opened a breach in the wall close to the sea, and stormed it under the fire of their ships. We had blocked up the gap in the night before the assault, and the defence was rude and cost them many men, but they carried everything before them at the point of the bayonet." "When was the assault?" "At dawn on the third." "And you had entered the city before that?" "Yes, three days before. We were not at the breach, but were posted near the citadel, and beat off a party that tried to scale the wall, but we were cut off and surrounded by the English before we knew that they had forced the breach. We fired on them, and they would have massacred us but for Don Carlos, who kept them back, and ran in through our fire waving a handkerchief. He told us that resistance was useless, as the English had already captured the Plaza, and had all our positions in reverse, so we surrendered."