Old Pedro's statement, though less circumstantial, was, to the soldiers and citizens especially, quite as convincing.

He gave a wordy narrative of Senor Stanley's unnatural state of excitement from the very evening he had become his lodger--that he had frequently heard him muttering to himself such words as "blood" and "vengeance." He constantly appeared longing for something; never eat half the meals provided for him--a sure proof, in old Pedro's imagination, of a disordered mind, and that the night of the murder he had heard him leave the house, with every symptom of agitation.

Old Juana, with very evident reluctance, confirmed this account; but Father Francis was evidently not satisfied.

"Amongst these incoherent ravings of the prisoner, did you ever distinguish the word 'murder ?'" he demanded--a question which would be strange, indeed, in the court of justice of the present day, but of importance in an age when such words as blood and vengeance, amongst warriors, simply signified a determination to fight out their quarrel in (so-called) honorable combat.

The answer, after some hesitation, was in the negative.