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“A mere fancy on your part,” answered Vicente; “just such a fancy as makes me glance at him sometimes as he rides silent at my side, and with a sudden start clap my hand upon my sword. I have an instinctive dread of him,—not a fear, but such a dread as I have of a deadly reptile. I wonder,” he added gloomily, “if it is to be my fate to take his life.”

Feliz shuddered. Chinita’s eyes flashed.

“And yet once I saved him, when we were fighting against the guerillas of Ortiz. He was caught in a defile of the mountains; four assailants dashed upon him at once with exultant cries; and though he fought gallantly, had I not rushed to the rescue he must have been killed there. Together we beat the villains off, and he fancies he owes me some thanks; and perhaps too I have some kindness for the man I saved,—and yet there are times when I cannot trust myself to look upon him.”

“Strange! strange indeed!” said Doña Feliz, musingly. “I have heard his name before. Is he not the man who stopped the train of wagons by which the merchants of Guanapila were despatching funds to make their foreign payments, and who took fifty thousand dollars or more to pay his troops?”