up -in. I outside the dim parallelogram of light fall-

ing on, the road through the open door. With Sotillo < from one side, and Pedro Montero from the other, the engineer-in-chiefs only anxiety now was to avoid a collision with either. Sulaco, for him, was a railway station, a terminus, workshops, a great accumulation of stores. As against the mob the railway defended its property, but politically the railway was neutral. He was a brave man, and in that spirit of neutrality he had carried proposals of truce to the self-appointed chiefs of the popular party, the deputies Fuentes and Ga- macho. Bullets were still flying about when he had crossed the plaza on that mission, waving above his head a white napkin belonging to the table-linen of the Amarilla Club. He was rather proud of this exploit; and reflecting that the doctor, busy all day with the wounded in the patio of the Casa Gould, had not had time to hear the news, he began a succinct narrative. He had com- municated to them the intelligence from the construc- tion-camp as to Pedro Montero. The brother of the rious general, he had assured them, could be ex- pected at Sulaco at any time now. This news (as he anticipated), when shouted out of the window by Sefior Gamacho, induced a rush of the mob along the Campo road towards Rincon. The two deputies, also, after shaking hands with him effusively, mounted and galloped off to meet the great man. " I have misled them a little as to the time," the chief-engineer confessed. " However hard he rides, he

can scarcely get here before the morning. But my