at once like the wall of a factory. Not a soul chal-

lenged his approach, and his curiosity became excited as he passed cautiously towards the front by the un- expected sight of two lighted windows.

They had the fascination of a lonely vigil kept by some mysterious watcher up there, those two windows shining dimly upon the harbor in the whole vast ex- ti'tit of the abandoned building. The solitude could almost be felt. A strong smell of wood smoke hung about in a thin haze, which was faintly perceptible to his raised eyes against the glitter of the stars. As he advanced in the profound silence, the shrilling of in- numerable cicalas in the dry grass seemed positively deafening to his strained ears. Slowly, step by step, he found himself in the great hall, sombre and full of acrid smoke.

A fire built against the staircase had burned down im potently to a low heap of embers. The hard wood hal failed to catch; only a few steps at the bottom smouldered, with a creeping glow of sparks defining tlu-ir charred edges. At the top he saw a streak of light from an open door. It fell upon the vast land- ing, all foggy with a slow drift of smoke. That was the room. He climbed the stairs, then checked him- self, because he had seen within the shadow of a man cast upon one of the walls. It was a shapeless, high- shouldered shadow of somebody standing still, with a lowered head out of his line of sight. The capataz, remembering that he was totally unarmed, stepped aside, and effacing himself upright in a dark corner, waited with his eyes fixed on the door.

The whole enormous ruined barrack of a place, un-