I stood for a while as if rooted to the spot, overwhelmed by my insignificance. O’Brien never once looked my way. Then, hanging my head, I went slowly up the white staircase towards my room. Cesar, going his rounds along the gallery, shuffled his silk-clad shanks smartly between two young negroes balancing lanthorns suspended on the shafts of their halberds. That little group had a mediaeval and outlandish aspect. Cesar carried a bunch of keys in one hand, his staff of office in the other. He stood aside, in his maroon velvet and gold lace, holding the three-cornered hat under his arm, bowing his gray, woolly head--the most venerable and deferential of majordomos. His attendants, backing against the wall, grounded their halberds heavily at my approach. He stepped out to intercept me, and, with great discretion, “Señor, a word,” he said in his subdued voice. “A moment ago I have been called within the door of our senorita’s apartments. She has given me this for your worship, together with many compliments. It is a seal. The Señor will understand.” I took it; it was a tiny seal with her monogram on it. “Yes,” I said. “And Señorita Dona Seraphina has charged me to repeat”--he made a stealthy sign, as if to counteract an evil influence--“the words, ‘Two lives--one death.’ The Señor will understand.” “Yes,” I said, looking away with a pang at my heart. He touched my elbow. “And to trust Cesar. Señor, I dandled her when she was quite little. Let me most earnestly urge upon your worship not to go near the windows, especially if there is light in your worship’s room. Evil men are gazing upon the house, and I have seen myself the glint of a musket at the end of the street. The moon grows fast, too. The senorita begs you to trust Cesar.” “Are there many men?” I asked. “Not many in sight; I have seen only one. But by signs, open to a man of my experience, I suspect many more to be about.” Then, as I looked down on the ground, he added parenthetically, “They are poor shots, one and all, lacking the very firmness of manhood necessary to discharge a piece with a good aim. Still, Señor, I am ordered to entreat you to be cautious. Strange it is that to-night, from the great revelry at the Aldea Bajo, one might think they had just visited an English ship outside.” A ship! a ship! of any sort. But how to get out of the Casa? Murder forbade me even as much as to look out of the windows. Was there a ship outside? Cesar was positive there was not--not since I had arrived. Besides, the empty sea itself was unattainable, it seemed. I pressed the seal to my lips. “Tell the senorita how I received her gift,” I said; and the old negro inclined his head lower still. “Tell her that as the letters of her name are graved on this, so are all the words she has spoken graven on my heart.” They went away busily, the lanthorns swinging about the ax-heads of the halberds, Cesar’s staff tapping the stones.