“Lieutenant,” said the general, “I have sent for you to perform a somewhat delicate job for me.”

“What is it, general?”

“I will tell you presently; be not in such haste,” said the sick man.

“I am at your service.”

“Have I not always paid you well when employed by me, lieutenant?”

“Nobly, general, only too liberally.”

“Would you like to serve me again in a still more profitable job?”

“Nothing could be more agreeable.”

“But it is a matter that requires courage, skill, care and secrecy.  It is no boy’s play.”

“All the better for that, general.”

“Perhaps you will not say so when I have explained it to you more fully.”

“You have tried me before now!” answered the jailor, emphatically.

“True, and I will therefore trust you at once.  There is a life to be taken!”

“What! another?” said the man, with surprise depicted on his face.

“Yes, and one who may cost you some trouble to manage-a quick man and a swordsman.”

“Who is it?”

“Lorenzo Bezan!”

“The new lieutenant-general?”

“The same.”

“Why, now I think of it, that is the very officer whom you visited long ago by the secret passage in the prison.”

“Very true.”

“And now you would kill him?”

“Yes.”

“And for what?”

“That matters not.  You will be paid for your business, and must ask no questions.”

“O, very well; business is business.”

“You see this purse?”

“Yes.”

“It contains fifty doubloons.  Kill him before the set of to-morrow’s sun, and it is yours.”

“Fifty doubloons?”

“Is it not enough?”

“The risk is large; if he were but a private citizen, now-but the lieutenant-governor!”

“I will make it seventy-five.”

“Say one hundred, and it is a bargain,” urged the jailor, coolly.

“On your own terms, then,” was the general’s reply, as he groaned with pain.

“It is dangerous business, but it shall be done,” said the other, drawing a dagger from his bosom and feeling its point carefully.  “But I must have another day, as to-night it may be too late before I can arrange to meet him, and that will allow but one more night to pass.  I can do nothing in the daytime.”

“Very well.”

“Where shall I be most likely to meet him, think you?”

“Possibly after twilight, on the Plato, near the house of Don Gonzales.”

“I will be on the watch for him, and my trusty steel shall not fail me.”

Thus saying, and after a few other words of little importance, the jailor departed.