"I am no monster, Estella, only a desperate man; one who has sworn to make you his own, by fair means or foul. You can take your choice. But mine you shall be--I have sworn it! In twenty-four hours, willing or unwilling, you shall be my bride! Now I must leave you, but I warn you to think well over what I have said." Then he left her, and she sat there, dazed, stupefied, as one who has listened to a death sentence. He would doom her to a living death! "Merciful Heaven, protect me!" she moaned. "Oh, why was I not killed in that dreadful battle that separated me from Howard?" She had heard a report that Howard had been slain, and she was more than half inclined to believe it. She had seen him surrounded by his enemies, and escape seemed impossible. "Father would have killed him by the sword! Oh, papa, papa, if you but knew! If you could feel what is in your only child's heart at this moment, you would not be so cruel!" Presently she heard a noise below, and looking out of the barred window she saw that several bodies of Spanish troops were arriving--some on foot and others on horseback. The fortress began to fill up, and she heard loud voices, songs and blasphemous utterances, the soldiers venting their feelings as pleased them. After a while the sounds below ceased, and from the next room she heard the murmur of earnest voices. She recognized the tones of Lieutenant Mazenas, and crept to the closed door between the apartments, that she might hear what was being said. "It was a bold stroke, Mazenas," she heard, in a resonant voice. "As a lawyer, I never heard of anything more brilliant or daring." "Oh, I have a good head on my shoulders, Barker," was the reply of the conceited Spanish officer. "I saw that I must do something, and I did it. But it was a master stroke to induce old Corona to place his property in my care, and subject to my control." "It was, indeed, a master stroke," replied Samuel Barker. "But that wasn't half as brilliant as to hire two Spanish guerillas to follow Nocolo and the old general, and strike them down when they least expected it. Now you say both are dead, and their fate will be considered due to the chances of war." As she listened Estella's blood seemed to freeze in her veins. Her father dead, too! She was alone in the world! A low moan escaped her lips, and she sank down upon her knees. Oh, what a fearful monster this being in the next room was! Her husband! Never! She would die a hundred deaths ere that should occur. "So you see this leaves the game entirely in our hands," said Lieutenant Mazenas to the lawyer. "Now the question is, how are we to divide when we come to settle up?" "Half and half would be fair, Mazenas," was the cool answer. "Half and half! Do you think I am an idiot, Barker, to do all the work, and then share evenly?" burst out the lieutenant, angrily. "I will allow you your original share of the Sherwood estate, and that is all." "I won't accept." "No?"