"Hold--para--detenedos!" cried a breathless voice, and a man mounted on horseback, and armed with a long gun, dashed his jennet at full speed through the laurel bushes into the midst of the free company. "Who cries hold?" demanded Fabrique, almost choking with passion, while turning his pistol against the intruder; and all his people cocked or clubbed their muskets in high alarm. "I do--I, your brother Pedro the contrabandista." "Oho, and what seek you here?" "The safety of these two Caballeros, who at Gibraltar saved me from the guarda costa of Hernan de Lucena in the first place, and from the chain and the scourge in Her Majesty's galleys in the second place." "How! was it you, brother Pedro, whose felucca was concerned in this business?" asked Fabrique, with an altered voice. "Yes, Fabrique, it was my little craft, La Buena Fortuna, which the Lieutenant De Lucena pursued till a shot from the Mole fort shortened him by two feet. I claim their lives, for they are my friends and patrons, and would have supped with me to-night at Trohniona had not your devilish fellows came upon us like a herd of wild cats, just when I was kicking and cuffing yonder rascally raterillo, who has made off with all my dollars. So I fled from the wayside-well, for I knew not whose free company your lads had the honour to be, and feared they might relieve me alike of life and all care for my packages." Jack and I now began to breathe a little more freely; for as all this took place in less time than I have taken to write it, there was some difficulty in realising the conviction that we had been waylaid, doomed to death and saved, with such rapidity: yet so it was, and so ended the scene of that night to which I can never recur without a chill of awe and horror, blended with a very decided sensation of anger and just indignation. Notwithstanding the alleged solemnity with which his word was plighted to the malevolent major of the sainted regiment of Lagos, "in the kingdom of Algarve," Fabrique relinquished his cruel purpose, unbound us at his brother's request, and restored to us our arms, horses, and little baggage--everything, in short, not even excepting the letter of poor Paulina. He gave us cigars, a hearty quaff from his bota, and then a bow so low that his black velvet sombrero almost swept the dewy sward. He then drew off with all his band towards the Sierra de Honda, and in two hours afterwards we were comfortably seated by the kitchen fire in the posada of Trohniona, at supper with his brother the contrabandista, who was en route for San Lucar. For some time after, throughout the night in which these startling events occurred, in fancy I saw before me the cold, stern visage and fierce glaring eyes of Urquija, and above all other sounds I seemed to hear the deep hoarse rush of the subterranean Rio de Muerte. CHAPTER XIV. THE SPANISH STEAMER.