the afternoon, and he ingenuously hoped that his naive intercession would induce that severe man to pardon some, at least, of those criminals.  In the revulsion of his feeling his interference stood revealed now as guilty and futile meddling.  It appeared to him obvious that the general would never even consent to listen to his petition.  He could never save those men, and he had only made himself responsible for the sufferings added to the cruelty of their fate.

“Then go at once and get the key from the adjutant,” said Lieutenant Santierra.

The sergeant shook his head with a sort of bashful smile, while his eyes glanced sideways at Gaspar Ruiz’s face, motionless and silent, staring through the bars at the bottom of a heap of other haggard, distorted, yelling faces.

His worship the adjutant de Plaza, the sergeant murmured, was having his siesta; and supposing that he, the sergeant, would be allowed access to him, the only result he expected would be to have his soul flogged out of his body for presuming to disturb his worship’s repose.  He made a deprecatory movement with his hands, and stood stock-still, looking down modestly upon his brown toes.

Lieutenant Santierra glared with indignation, but hesitated.  His handsome oval face, as smooth as a girl’s, flushed with the shame of his perplexity.  Its nature humiliated his spirit.  His hairless upper lip trembled; he seemed on the point of either bursting into a fit of rage or into tears of dismay.

Fifty years later, General Santierra, the venerable relic of revolutionary times, was well able to remember the feelings of the young lieutenant.  Since he had given up riding altogether, and found it difficult to walk beyond the limits of his garden, the general’s greatest delight was to entertain in his house the officers of the foreign men-of-war visiting the harbour.  For Englishmen he had a preference, as for old companions in arms.  English naval men of all ranks accepted his hospitality with curiosity, because he had known Lord Cochrane and had taken part, on board the patriot squadron commanded by that marvellous seaman, in the cutting out and blockading operations before Callao—­an episode of unalloyed glory in the wars of Independence and of endless honour in the fighting tradition of Englishmen.  He was a fair linguist, this ancient survivor of the Liberating armies.  A trick of smoothing his long white beard whenever he was short of a word in French or English imparted an air of leisurely dignity to the tone of his reminiscences.

III