fresh himself by the sight of the chequered shadows on the prison floor.
"Don Roberto has made me your keeper, in due reward for my bravery in catching you alone, with only my naked arm," he said. "Sleep, then, Don Gabriel, Don Marinero, Don Yankee, happy to know that you are watched over by a man who is as strong and as vigilant as an angel. An ant could not pass me where I lie outside your door. And tomorrow, tomorrow!"
Simon made his appearance early next morning, bringing a plentiful breakfast. He did not stay to gossip, or to take away the few dishes. He was bristling with excitement as he pushed the board upon which he had carried the breakfast from the kitchen beneath the inner barred door.
"There is the devil to pay around this place today," he said. He locked the thick oak door and hurried off. Henderson heard him running through the empty room beyond.
Henderson had noted an unusual commotion around the patron's dwelling for that early hour. Horses had been ridden into the courtyard, where they stood stamping off the flies which clustered on their legs. After a time they had been ridden out again, rapidly. There had been much passing to and from between the patron's mansion and the direction of Don Felipe's office, the stables, the houses of the laborers on the estate; much talking when men met and paused, voices pitched in the undertone of guarded excitement.
