"Good, good," pursued she, gently motioning them aside, "let me continue; I have sworn to save you, and I will save you, come what may, my dear creatures. It would be marvellous, indeed," added she, smiling, "if three women, aided by a Frenchman, could not be clever enough to deceive these yellow men, who have made this disastrous revolution, and who believe themselves eagles of intelligence, and the thunderbolts of war."

"The more I reflect on this enterprise, the more I fear the consequences of it for you; I tremble, for these men are without pity," sadly murmured the marchioness.

"Poltroon!" gaily cried the superior; "Have we not the caballero with us?"

"With you, ladies, until the last gasp!" cried he, carried away by emotion.

The truth is, that the beauty of Doña Eva, joined to the romance of the situation, had completely subjugated the artist. He had forgotten everything, and only experienced one desire – that of sacrificing himself for the safety of these women, so beautiful and so unfortunate.

"I knew well that I could not be deceived!" cried the abbess, holding out to him her hand, which the painter respectfully raised to his lips.

"Yes, ladies," pursued he, "God is my witness, that all that is humanly possible to do to assure your flight, I will attempt; but, doubtless you have not addressed yourselves to me without concerting a plan. This plan it is indispensable that you make me acquainted with."

"Mon dieu, Sir!" answered the marchioness, "This plan is very simple, one such as women alone are capable of concocting."

"I am all attention, Madame."

"We have no acquaintance in this town, where we are strangers, and where, without our knowing why, it appears we have many enemies, without reckoning one single friend."

"That is pretty well my position also," said the young man, shaking his head.

"Yours, Sir!" said she, with surprise.

"Yes, yes, mine, Madame; but continue, I beg."

"Our good superior can do but one single thing for us, but that is immense – it is to open for us the gates of the convent."

"That is much, indeed!"

"Unhappily, on the other side of this gate her power ceases completely, and she is constrained to leave us to ourselves."

"Alas! Yes," said the superior.

"Hum!" murmured the painter, like an echo.

"You understand how critical would be our position, wandering alone at hazard in a town which is completely unknown to us."

"Then you thought of me!"

"Yes, Sir," she simply answered.

"And you have done well, Madame," answered the painter, with animation. "I am, perhaps, the only man incapable of betraying you in the whole town."

"Thank you for my mother and myself, Sir," gently said the young girl, who, up to that moment, had kept silence.

The painter was half dazed; the sweet and plaintive accents of that harmonious voice had made his heart beat rapidly.

"Unhappily, I am very weak myself to protect you, ladies," he resumed; "I am alone, a foreigner, suspected – more than suspected even, since I am threatened with being shortly placed on my trial."

"Oh!" said they, joining their hands in their grief, "We are lost then."

"Mon dieu!" cried the abbess, "We have placed all our hope in you."

"Wait," pursued he; "all is perhaps not so desperate as we suppose. As for me, I am preparing a plan of escape; I can only offer you one thing."

"What?" cried they, eagerly.

"To share my flight."

"Oh, willingly!" cried the young girl, clapping her hands with joy.

Then, ashamed at having allowed herself to give way to a thoughtless movement, she lowered her eyes, and concealed in the bosom of her mother her charming face, suffused with tears.

"My daughter has answered you for herself and for me, Sir," said the marchioness, proudly.

"I thank you for this confidence, of which I shall try to prove myself worthy, Madame; only I want a few days to prepare everything. I have only with me one man on whom I can rely, and I must act with the greatest prudence."

"That is right, Sir; but what do you mean by a few days?"

"Three at the least – four at the most."

"Well, we will wait. Now, can you explain to us what is the plan you have adopted?"

"I do not know it myself, Madame. I find myself in a country which is totally unknown to me, and in which I naturally want the commonest experience. I must trust to the direction of the servant of whom I have had the honour to speak to you."

"Are you quite sure of this man, Sir? Pardon me for saying this, but you know one word might ruin us."

"I am as sure of the person in question as one man can be of another. It is he who has furnished me with the means of appearing before you without awakening suspicion. I rely not only on his devotion, but also on his skill, on his courage, and especially on his experience."

"Is he a Spaniard, a foreigner, or a half-caste?"

"He does not come in any of the categories you have mentioned, Madame; he is simply an Indian Guaraní, to whom I have been fortunate enough to render some slight services, and who has vowed an eternal gratitude."

"You are right, Sir; you can no doubt reckon on this man. The Indians are brave and faithful; when they are devoted, it is to the death. Pardon me all these questions, which, without doubt, must appear very extraordinary on my part; but you know this affair does not only concern myself – it concerns also my daughter, my poor dear child."

"I think it is very natural, Madame, that you should desire to be completely informed as to my plans for our common safety. Be thoroughly persuaded that when I shall positively know what must be done, I will hasten to inform you of it, in order that if the plan formed by my servant and myself should appear to you to be defective, I may modify it according to your advice."

"Thank you, Sir; will you permit me to ask you one question more?"

"Speak, Madame. In coming here, I place myself entirely at your orders."

"Are you rich?"

The painter blushed; his eyebrows knitted.

The marchioness perceived it.

"Oh, you do not understand me, Sir," she eagerly cried; "far from me be the thought of offering you a reward. The service that you consent to render us is one of those that no treasure could pay for, and the heart alone can requite."

"Madame – " he murmured.

"Permit me to finish. We are associates now," said she, with a charming smile. "Now, in an association each one ought to take a share of the common expenses. A project like ours must be conducted with skill and celerity; a miserable question of money might mar its success or retard its execution. It is in that sense that I have spoken to you, and in which I repeat my words – are you rich?"

"In any other position but that in which fate has temporarily placed me, I should answer you – yes, Madame, for I am an artist – my tastes are simple, and I live almost on nothing, only finding joys and happiness in the ever-fresh surprises that the art which I cultivate procures me, and which I madly love. But at this moment, in the perilous position in which you and I find ourselves – when it is necessary to undertake a desperate struggle against a whole population – I must be frank with you, and admit that money, the sinews of war, almost wholly fails me. I must assure you, in a word, that I am poor."

"So much the better!" cried the marchioness, with a movement of joy.

"Upon my word," pursued he, gaily, "I never complain; it is only now that I begin to regret those riches for which I have always so little cared, for they would have facilitated the means of being useful to you; but we must try and do without them."

"Do not distress yourself about that, Sir. In this affair you bring courage and devotion; leave me to bring that money which you have not."

"On my word, Madame," answered the artist, "since you so frankly put the question, I do not see why I should give way, in refusing you, to a ridiculous susceptibility perfectly out of place, since it is your interests that are at stake in this matter. I accept, then, the money that you shall consider fitting to place at my disposal; but, of course, I shall render you an account of it."

"Pardon, Sir; it is not a loan that I offer to make you; it is my part in the association that I bring – that is all."

"I understand it so, Madame; only if I spend your money, will it not be necessary that you should know in what way?"

"Well and good!" exclaimed the marchioness, going to a piece of furniture, of which she opened a drawer, from whence she took a rather long purse, through the meshes of which glittered a considerable quantity of onces.

After having carefully closed the drawer, she presented the purse to the young man.

"There are there two hundred and fifty onces² in gold," said she; "I hope that that sum will suffice; but if it is insufficient, let me know, and I will immediately place a larger sum at your disposal."

"Oh, oh! Madame, I hope not only that it will suffice, but that I shall have to give you back a part of this sum," answered he, respectfully taking the purse, and placing it carefully in his girdle. "I have now a restitution to make you."

"To me, Sir?"

"Yes, Madame," said he, drawing off the ring that he had placed on his little finger, "this ring."

"It is mine, that I wrapped up in the letter," eagerly exclaimed the young girl, with a charming heedlessness.

The young man bowed, quite confounded.

"Keep that ring, Sir," answered the marchioness, smiling, "my daughter would be vexed if you were to return it."

"I will keep it, then," said he, with secret joy, and suddenly changing the conversation; "I will only come once more, ladies," said he, "in order not to arouse suspicion; that will be to tell you when all is ready; only every day, at my usual hour, I will pass before this house. When, in the evening, on my return towards home, you shall see me holding a súchil flower or a white rose in my hand, that will be a sign that our business proceeds well; if; on the contrary, I remove my hat and wipe my forehead, then pray to God, ladies, because new embarrassments will have risen before me. In the last place, if you see me pulling asunder the flower that I hold in my hand, you must hasten your preparations for departure; the very day of my visit we shall quit the town. You will remember all these recommendations?"

"We are too much interested in remembering them," said the marchioness; "never fear, we shall forget nothing."

"Now, not another word on this subject, and give your music lesson," said the abbess, opening an instruction book, and handing it to the young man.

The painter seated himself at a table between the two ladies, and began to explain to them as well as he could the mysteries of black, of white, of crotchets, and of minims.

When, some minutes afterwards, the portress entered, her serpent-like look gliding from under her half closed eyelids, perceived three persons apparently very seriously occupied in estimating the value of notes, and the difference between the key of F and the key of G.

"My holy mother," hypocritically said the portress, "a horseman, saying that he is sent by the governor of the town, asks the favour of an interview with you."

"Very good, my sister. When you have reconducted this gentleman, you will introduce this caballero to me. Beg him to wait a few minutes."

The painter rose, bowed respectfully to the ladies, and followed the portress. The door of the room closed behind him.

Without uttering a word, the portress guided him through the corridors that he had already traversed, as far as the gate of the convent, before which several horsemen, enveloped in long mantles, had stopped, to the general astonishment of the neighbours, who could scarcely believe their eyes, and who had come out to their doors, the better to see them.

The painter, thanks to his looking like an old man, his little dry cough, and his trembling walk, passed in the midst of them without attracting their attention, and went away in the direction of the river.

The portress made a sign to one of the horsemen, that she was ready to conduct him to the superior.

Just at that moment, the painter, who had gone some little distance, turned to give a last look at the convent.

He suppressed a gesture of fright on recognising the horseman of whom we are speaking.

"Zeno Cabral!" murmured he. "What does this man do in the convent?"