.

THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER.
In a small room of Count Redondo's palace, a room that had been set apart for cards, sat three men about a card-table.

They were Count Samoval, the elderly Marquis of Minas, lean, bald and vulturine of aspect, with a deep-set eye that glared fiercely through a single eyeglass rimmed in tortoise-shell, and a gentleman still on the fair side of middle age, with a clear-cut face and iron-grey hair, who wore the dark green uniform of a major of Cacadores.
Considering his Portuguese uniform, it is odd that the low-toned, earnest conversation amongst them should have been conducted in French.
There were cards on the table; but there was no pretence of play.

You might have conceived them a group of players who, wearied of their game, had relinquished it for conversation.

They were the only tenants of the room, which was small, cedar-panelled and lighted by a girandole of sparkling crystal.