“Do you mind if I light a cigarette?” asked the officer.  “You can see that my hands and the cigarettes alike are on the table.”

“Go ahead,” said Obed hospitably, “but don’t waste time.”

The officer lighted the cigarette and took a satisfied whiff.  Ned searched among the papers, turning them over rapidly.

“Yes, here is a pass!” exclaimed he joyfully, “and here is another and here are two more!”

“Two will be enough,” said Obed.

“I’ll take this one made out to Joaquin de la Barra for you and one to Diego Fernandez for me.  Ah, what are these?”

He held up four papers, looking at them in succession.

“What are they?” asked Obed White.

“Death warrants.  They are all for men with Mexican names, and they are signed with the name of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, General-in-chief and President of the Mexican Republic.”

The officer took the cigarette from his mouth and sent out a little smoke through his nostrils.

“Yes, they are death warrants,” he said.  “I was looking over them when you came in, and I was troubled.  The men were to have been executed to-morrow.”

“Were to have been?” said Ned.  Then a look passed between him and the officer.  The boy held the death warrants one by one in the flame of the lamp and burned them to ashes.

“I cannot execute a man without a warrant duly signed,” said the officer.

“Which being the case, we’d better go or we might have to help at our own executions,” said Obed White.  “Now you just sit where you are and have a peaceful and happy mind, while we go out and fight with the storm.”

The officer said nothing and the two passed swiftly through the far door, stepping into a paved court, and reaching a few yards further a gate of the castle.  It was quite dark when they stepped once more into the open world, and both wind and rain lashed them.  But wind and rain themselves were a delight to the two who had come from under the sea.  Besides, the darker the better.

Two sentinels were at the gate and Ned thrust the passes before their eyes.  They merely glanced at the signatures, opened the gate, and in an instant the two were outside the castle of San Juan de Ulua.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BLACK JAGUAR

It was so dark that the two could see but a narrow stretch of masonry on which they stood and a tossing sea beyond.  Behind them heaved up the mass of the castle, mighty and somber.  A fierce wind was blowing in from the gulf, and it whistled and screamed about the great walls.  The rain, bitter and cold, lashed against them like hail.  Shut off so long from the outer air they shivered now, but the shiver was merely of the air.  Their spirit was as high as ever and they faced their crisis with undaunted souls.

Yet they were far from escape.  The wind was of uncommon strength, seeming to increase steadily in power, and a half mile of wild waters raced between them and the town.  Weaker wills would have yielded and turned back to prison, but not they.  They ran eagerly along the edge of the masonry, pelted by rain and wind.