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Evidently the gate-keeper was not unprepared, for the first wild note caused him to raise his head sleepily, and at the second he staggered from his alcove, muttering an imprecation, and fumbling in his girdle for the key of the postern. He glanced around warily, even going softly to places where the shadows fell most darkly; but finding no one, returned, and with deft fingers proceeded to push back noiselessly the bolts of the small door set in a panel of the massive one which closed the wide entrance. It creaked slowly upon its hinges, so lightly that even a bird would not have stirred in its slumbers, and a man cautiously entered. He had spurs upon his heels, and after effecting his entrance stooped to remove them, and Planillos had time and opportunity to see that he was not one of Pedro Gomez’s associates,—not one of the common people.

The midnight visitor was tall and slender, the latter though, it would seem, from the incomplete development of youth, rather than from delicacy of race. The long white hand that unbuckled his spurs was supple and large; his whole frame was modelled in more generous proportions than are usually seen in the descendants of the Aztecs or their conquerors.