"My Camillia," he cried; "my beloved, how is it that I find you here--here, in a gambling-house at this hour of the night?" "Ask me no questions," muttered the Spanish girl, "only take me from this place. My brain is bewildered by what I have undergone." "But this man--has he dared to insult you--to entrap you hither?" asked Paul, pointing to Augustus Horton, who stood at bay, while the Captain and the sailor threatened him with their drawn cutlasses. "He has." "You hear this fainting girl," exclaimed Paul, still holding Camillia clasped in his left arm, while with his right he felt for a pistol in the pocket of his waistcoat. "Prendergills--Joe!--you are witnesses of the place in which we have found the only daughter of Don Juan Moraquitos! There is some foul plot here, and that man, Augustus Horton, is the mover of it. To-morrow, sir, you shall account to me for this." The planter laughed mockingly. "Account to you, Mr. Paul Lisimon; to you--a thief! an escaped felon! The citizens of Louisiana do not cross swords with such as you. You would have done wiser to keep clear of New Orleans. Above all, it would have been better for you had you refrained from crossing my path." He touched a bell in the wall behind him, and it rang through the house with a shrill peal. "Now, Mr. Lisimon," he said, "we are quits." A party of about twenty men crowded into the room. The bell had summoned them from the gaming-table. "Gentlemen," cried Augustus Horton, "I call upon you as citizens of New Orleans to secure the persons of these three men who have this moment made a murderous attack upon my life, and endeavored to carry away this lady, who is here under my protection. One of them is an escaped felon from the jail of this city." The gamblers, who were almost all in some degree intoxicated, made a rush at Paul and his companions, but they were many of them unarmed, and those who had knives flourished them without aim or purpose. "Prendergills--Joe!" exclaimed Lisimon, "follow me. Remember, it is for life or death." Then flinging the slender form of Camillia across his shoulder, the young Mexican flung himself in the midst of the infuriated crowd, and, pistol in hand, boldly made for the door. This point gained, he stood upon the threshold with his back to the passage, defending the ground inch by inch, until joined by Prendergills and Joe. The rest was comparatively easy. The three men fought their way backward along the passage, down the winding staircase to the street door. Here they were for a moment baffled by the mystery of the spring which closed the entrance. But they were not to be so easily foiled; the Captain of the Amazon flung his gigantic frame against the door, the wooden panels cracked as if they had been made of glass, and the spring was burst asunder.