General Harero pressed hard upon the young officer; but his coolness was more than a match for his antagonist’s impetuosity; and after inflicting a severe blow upon his cheek with the flat of his sword, Lorenzo Bezan easily disarmed him, and breaking his sword in twain, threw it upon the steps of the Plato, and quietly walked away leaving General Harero to settle matters between his own rage, his wounds and the surgeon, as best he might, while he sought his own quarters within the palace walls.

General Harero was more seriously wounded than he had at first deemed himself to be, and gathering up the fragments of his sword, he sought the assistance of his surgeon, in a state of anger and excitement that bid fair, in connection with his wounds, to lead him into a raging fever.  Inventing some plausible story of being attacked by some unknown ruffian, and desiring the surgeon to observe his wishes as to secrecy, for certain reasons, the wounded man submitted to have his wounds dressed, and taking some cooling medicine by way of precaution, lay himself down to sleep just as the gray of morning tinged the western horizon.

That morning Isabella Gonzales awoke with pleasant memories of her dream, little knowing that the sweet music she had attributed to the creations of her own fancy, was real, and that voice and instrument actually sounded beneath her own chamber window.

“Ah, sister,” said Ruez, “how well you are looking this morning.”

“Am I, brother?”

“Yes, better than I have seen you this many a long day.”

“I rested well last night, and had pleasant dreams, Ruez.”

“Last night,” said the boy, “that reminds me of some music I heard.”

“Music?”

“Yes, a serenade; a manly voice and guitar, I should judge.”

“It is strange; I dreamed that I heard it, too, but on waking I thought it was but a dream.  It might have been real,” mused Isabella, thoughtfully.

“I am sure of it, and though I, too, was but half awake, I thought that I recognized the voice, and cannot say why I did not rise to see if my surmise was correct, but I dropped quickly to sleep again.”

“And who did, you think it was, brother?” asked Isabella Gonzales.

“General Bezan, our new lieutenant-governor,” said the boy, regarding his sister closely.

“It must have been so, then,” mused Isabella, to herself; “we could not both have been thus mistaken.  Lorenzo Bezan must have been on the Plato last night; would that I could have seen him, if but for one moment.”

“I should like to speak to General Bezan,” said Ruez; “but he’s so high an officer now that I suppose he would not feel so much interest in me as he did when I used to visit him in the government prison.”

Isabella made no reply to this remark, but still mused to herself.

Ruez gazed thoughtfully upon his sister; there seemed to be much going on in his own mind relative to the subject of which they had spoken.  At one moment you might read a tinge of anxious solicitude in the boy’s handsome face, as he gazed thus, and anon a look of pride, too, at the surpassing beauty and dignity of his sister.