As he spoke a crowd of shadowy men surged about them, but he called out angrily in Castilian, and before she quite realized what he was doing drew the girl’s hand beneath his arm. Then there was laughter and a shout: “Excuses, Don Bernardino. Pass on, comrades!” Nettie would have snatched her hand free, but the man held it fast with a little warning pressure, and she went on with him, partly because his voice had been deferential and puzzlingly familiar, and also because it was evident that she could not get away. They went up a calle, where another band of roysterers came clamoring to meet them, until the man led her under an archway where a lamp was burning. Then he gravely dropped her hand, and Nettie gasped as she stared at him. He was burned to the color of coffee, his shoes were burst, and his garments, which had evidently never been intended to fit him, were mostly rags, but his face reminded her of the man she had met on board the “Aurania.” “It is perhaps not astonishing that you don’t seem to recognize me, Miss Harding,” he said. “You have no idea where your father can have gone to?” “No,” said the girl, with a little tremor of relief. “He must be in the town, and I would be very grateful if you could take me to him. Of course, I know you now.” “Is your father Cyrus Harding—Sugar Harding—of New York?” the other man broke in. “Yes,” said the girl, and the man drew his comrade aside. “You and I have got to see her through, and your quarters would be the safest place,” he said. Appleby stared at him as he asked, “Have you taken leave of your senses, Harper?” “No,” said his companion dryly. “I guess they’re where they are of most use to me. Everybody’s entitled to what he can pick up to‐night, and there are not many of the Sin Verguenza would dispute your claim. It’s beginning to strike you?” “I hope it will not strike Miss Harding too,” said Appleby, whose face flushed. “Still, I can think of nothing else.” Then he went back slowly to where the girl was standing. “I fancy I can find you shelter if you will trust yourself to me; and when your father asks any of my men about you they will send him to you,” he said. “It is, however, necessary that you should take my arm.” Nettie flashed a swift glance at him, but the man was regarding her steadily with gravely sympathetic eyes, and it was with a curious intuitive confidence she moved away with him. They passed bands of roysterers and houses with shattered doors, and finally entered a patio littered with furniture. An olive‐faced man with a rifle stood on guard in it, and the color swept into the girl’s face as she saw his grin; but he let them pass, and Appleby went on, moving stiffly, and very grim in face, up a stairway that led to a veranda. There he took down a lantern that hung on a lattice, and gave it the girl as he pointed to a door.