For Tansey had sprung to his feet, upsetting the chair. The words of Katie reverberated in his ears: "They're going to eat me, Sam." This, then, was the monstrous fate to which she had been delivered by her unnatural parent. The carriage he had seen drive up from the Plaza was Captain Peek's. Where was Katie? Perhaps already-- Before he could decide what to do a loud scream came from the tent. The old Mexican woman ran out, a flashing knife in her hand. "I have released her," she cried. "You shall kill no more. They will hang you--_ingrato_--_encatador!_" Torres, with a hissing exclamation, sprang at her. "Ramoncito!" she shrieked; "once you loved me." The Mexican's arm raised and descended. "You are old," he cried; and she fell and lay motionless. Another scream; the flaps of the tent were flung aside, and there stood Katie, white with fear, her wrists still bound with a cruel cord. "Sam!" she cried, "save me again!" Tansey rounded the table, and flung himself, with superb nerve, upon the Mexican. Just then a clangour began; the clocks of the city were tolling the midnight hour. Tansey clutched at Torres, and, for a moment, felt in his grasp the crunch of velvet and the cold facets of the glittering gems. The next instant, the bedecked caballero turned in his hands to a shrunken, leather-visaged, white-bearded, old, old, screaming mummy, sandalled, ragged, and four hundred and three. The Mexican woman was crawling to her feet, and laughing. She shook her brown hand in the face of the whining _viejo_. "Go, now," she cried, "and seek your señorita. It was I, Ramoncito, who brought you to this. Within each moon you eat of the life-giving _chili_. It was I that kept the wrong time for you. You should have eaten _yesterday_ instead of _to-morrow_. It is too late. Off with you, _hombre_! You are too old for me!" "This," decided Tansey, releasing his hold of the gray-beard, "is a private family matter concerning age, and no business of mine." With one of the table knives he hastened to saw asunder the fetters of the fair captive; and then, for the second time that night he kissed Katie Peek--tasted again the sweetness, the wonder, the thrill of it, attained once more the maximum of his incessant dreams. The next instant an icy blade was driven deep between his shoulders; he felt his blood slowly congeal; heard the senile cackle of the perennial Spaniard; saw the Plaza rise and reel till the zenith crashed into the horizon--and knew no more.