The keen eyes of the daughter of Joseph Saltonstall were not deceived.

She walked directly towards the figure, and said, sharply, "Pereo!" The figure came hesitatingly forward into the light of the grated window.

It was that of an old man, still tall and erect, though the hair had disappeared from his temples, and hung in two or three straight, long dark elf-locks on his neck.

His face, over which one of the bars threw a sinister shadow, was the yellow of a dried tobacco-leaf, and veined as strongly.

His garb was a strange mingling of the vaquero and the ecclesiastic--velvet trousers, open from the knee down, and fringed with bullion buttons; a broad red sash around his waist, partly hidden by a long, straight chaqueta; with a circular sacerdotal cape of black broadcloth slipped over his head through a slit-like opening braided with gold.