.

TORRES.
AT FIVE O'CLOCK in the evening Fragoso was still there, and was asking himself if he would have to pass the night on the spot to satisfy the expectant crowd, when a stranger arrived in the square, and seeing all this native gathering, advanced toward the inn.
For some minutes the stranger eyed Fragoso attentively with some circumspection.

The examination was obviously satisfactory, for he entered the loja.
He was a man about thirty-five years of age.

He was dressed in a somewhat elegant traveling costume, which added much to his personal appearance.

But his strong black beard, which the scissors had not touched for some time, and his hair, a trifle long, imperiously required the good offices of a barber.
"Good-day, friend, good-day!" said he, lightly striking Fragoso on the shoulder.
Fragoso turned round when he heard the words pronounced in pure Brazilian, and not in the mixed idiom of the natives.
"A compatriot ?" he asked, without stopping the twisting of the refractory mouth of a Mayouma head.
"Yes," answered the stranger.