Thus musing and talking aloud to himself, General Harero walked back and forth, and back and forth again in his apartment, until his orderly brought him the evening report of his division.  A far different scene was presented on the other side of the great square, in the centre of which stands the shrubbery and fountain of the Plaza.  Let the reader follow us now inside the massive stone walls of the Spanish barracks, to a dimly lighted room, where lay a wounded soldier upon his bed.  The apartment gave token in its furniture of a very peculiar combination of literary and military taste.  There were foils, long and short swords, pistols, hand pikes, flags, military boots and spurs; but there were also Shakspeare, Milton, the illustrated edition of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, and a voluminous history of Spain, with various other prose and poetic volumes, in different languages.  A guitar also lay carelessly in one corner, and a rich but faded bouquet of flowers filled a porcelain vase.

At the foot of the bed where the wounded soldier lay, stood a boy with a quivering lip and swimming eye, as he heard the sick man moan in his uneasy sleep.  Close by the head of the bed sat an assistant-surgeon of the regiment, watching what evidently seemed to be the turning point as to the sufferer’s chance for life or death.  As the boy and the surgeon watched him thus, gradually the opiate just administered began to affect him, and he seemed at last to fall into the deep and quiet sleep that is generally indicated by a low, regular and uninterrupted respiration.

The boy had not only watched the wounded man, but had seemed also to half read the surgeon’s thoughts, from time to time, and now marked the gleam of satisfaction upon his face as the medicine produced the desired effect upon the system of his patient.

“How do you think Captain Bezan is, to-day?” whispered the boy, anxiously, as the surgeon’s followed him noiselessly from the sick-room to the corridor without.

“Very low, master Ruez, very low indeed; it is the most critical period of his sickness; but he has gone finely into that last nap, thanks to the medicine, and if he will but continue under its influence thus for a few hours, we may look for an abatement of this burning thirst and fever, and then—­”

“What, sir?” said the boy, eagerly, “what then?”

“Why, he may get over those wounds, but it’s a severe case, and would be little less than a miracle.  I’ve seen sicker men live, and I’ve seen those who seemed less sick die.”

“Alas! then there is no way yet of deciding upon his case,” said the boy.

“None, Master Ruez; but we’ll hope for the best; that is all that can be done.”

Ruez Gonzales walked out of the barracks and by the guard with a sad countenance, and whistling for Carlo, who had crouched by the parapet until his young master should come out, he turned his steps up the Calla de Mercaderes to his home.  Ruez sought his sister’s apartment, and throwing himself upon a lounge, seemed moody and unhappy.  As he reclined thus, Isabella regarded him intently, as though she would read his thoughts without asking for them.  There seemed to be some reason why she did not speak to him sooner, but at last she asked: