rose petals. Among all those frightened people, she alone was without fear. As she stood there, looking calmly about her, she seemed altogether the innocent and trustful child; to all appearances she should have been still in some Spanish convent, sequestered and secure—not abroad in the world where there are bandoleros and even men of worse sorts.

Her husband, the foreign-looking man, was about to be put to the search when, aroused by something more than curiosity, Jacinto Quesada stepped forward and asked brusquely, "You are a Frenchman?"

"I am a Frenchman, monseñor."

"And why, Frenchman, do you make signs with your hands to me?"

With good reason Jacinto Quesada asked that question. Ever since he had been singled out for the search, the Frenchman, looking everywhere but at his hands, had been persistently making covert signals with those hands. First he drew two fingers down across his left cheek; then he made certain finger movements very like the word-spelling finger movements of the deaf and dumb; and finally he stroked his throat and Adam's apple with a certain lingering wistful care!