“He’s too ill, I should think, to be out in the night air.”

“One would certainly think so,” answered Isabella.

“His company was ordered out to-night,” said Ruez, “and though the surgeon told him to remain in, he said he must be with his command.”

“You seem to know his business almost as well as himself, Master Ruez,” said General Harero, who had overheard the remarks relating to Captain Bezan.

“The captain and I are great friends, famous friends,” replied Ruez, instantly.  “He’s a noble fellow, and just my idea of what a soldier should be.  Don’t you think him a fine soldier, General Harero?” asked the boy, most frankly.

“Humph!” ejaculated the general, “why, yes, he’s good enough for aught I know, professionally.  Not quite rough and tough enough for a thorough bred one, I think,” was the reply of his superior, who was plainly watching Isabella Gonzales’s eyes while he spoke to the boy, and who was anything but pleased to see how often she glanced at Captain Bezan.

“I don’t know what you may mean by rough and tough, general,” said Ruez, with evident feeling evinced in his voice; “but I know, very well, that Captain Bezan is as brave as a lion, and I don’t believe there is a man in your service who can swim with such weight as he can do.”

“May be not,” replied the general, with assumed indifference.

“Then why say that he’s not rough and tough? that means something,” continued the boy, with not a little pertinacity in defence of his new friend.

“There’s some difference, let me tell you, Master Ruez, between facing an enemy with blazing gunpowder before your eyes, and merely swimming a while in cold water.”

“The very wounds that came so near proving fatal to Captain Bezan, prove that he can fight, general, as well as swim,” said Ruez, rather smartly, in reply, while Isabella Gonzales glanced at her brother with evident tokens of satisfaction in her face.

“You are enthusiastic in your friend’s behalf,” said General Harero, coldly.

“And well I may be, since I not only owe him my own life, but that of my dear sister and father,” continued Ruez, quite equal to the general’s remark in any instance.

“Certainly, you are right, Master Ruez,” said General Harero, biting his lips, as he saw that Isabella was regarding him with more than ordinary attention.

In the meantime Lorenzo Bezan remained, as in duty bound, at his post, while many an admiring eye was resting upon his fine figure and martial bearing.  He was quite unconscious of being the subject of such particular remark and criticism within the bearing of her he so nearly worshipped-the beautiful Isabella Gonzales.  Though his heart was with her every moment, and his thoughts were never off the box, even where she sat, yet it was only now and then that he permitted himself to turn his eyes, as though by accident, towards Don Gonzales and his daughter.  He seemed