knew, for he was not over communicative, but
he had been very well educated, and I often
fancied from his manners and appearance that
he had once occupied a much higher social
position than that which he filled when I knew
him. As it was, he was poor, and lived by the
exercise of his talents as an artist. I believe
he had considerable merits as a painter, but
from constitutional shyness, or some feeling of,
perhaps, morbid sensitiveness, he did not carry
his powers to the best market. He was an
excellent draughtsman, and had a fertile fancy and
a correct taste, and he got his living partly as a
drawing-master, partly by executing designs for
Perez Brothers, the richest manufacturers in
Malaga.

The Tudor paid periodical visits to the port
of Malaga, and during one of these I had
accidentally formed the acquaintance of Mr. Croft,
for whom I willingly undertook to execute some
trifling commission in England. I suppose we
were mutually pleased with each other, for I
perceived at once that he was a very superior
man, and that in spite of the cynical tone that
he sometimes affected, he was really of a
generous and kindly disposition, a little warped by
the world's rough usage. On his part, he showed
his regard for me by inviting me to his house, a
compliment which he paid to but few of our
wandering countrymen. I saw Alice, and soon
learned to love her, and after a while I was
overjoyed to find that her innocent heart was given
to me. But old Mr. Croft, who had been
accustomed to think of his daughter as a child,
set his face against our marriage, and behaved,
as I thought, very cruelly in the matter. It
would have been a hard thing for him, I am
sure, to part with Alice to any one, a not
uncommon case of half-unconscious parental
selfishness. But, to do him justice, I am sure he
thought that he was merely showing a prudent
forethought for his child's interests in forbidding
her to marry. He not unreasonably objected
that my profession was hazardous, and my
income small, and that though youth was apt to be
sanguine, experience must be cautious. There
was no hurry. Alice was very young, and I was
young too, for that matter. Probably we should
both of us see cause to change our minds, but
if not, some years hence, &c. &c.

Though I chafed against the sentence,
and Alice grieved at her father's decision,
she was a good, obedient girl, and submitted
to her parent's will. She would never marry
any one else, she said, but she would not marry
me in spite of her father's prohibition, never,
never, though her heart should break for the
loss of me. And with this qualified engagement
and troth-plight I was forced to be content,
though I looked eagerly forward to
promotion, hoping that as captain of the Tudor I
might appear to the old artist as a more eligible
son-in-law. And now here was Alice suddenly
appearing in my room at the hotel, and sobbing
piteously as she tried to tell me what had
happened.

At last I learned the truth: Mr. Croft had the
habit of taking a morning walk outside the
landward gate of the city, and in the direction of the
mountains. He was an early riser, and had an
artist's fondness for the face of nature when
the earth seems to awaken, fresh and young, at
the first kiss of the sunshine. He was used,
then, to stroll out beyond the walls as soon as
the gates were opened for the ingress of the
peasants coming to the market, and many of his
best sketches were made in these rambles. In
one of these strolls, that very morning, Mr.
Croft had by ill luck stumbled into an ambush
of the banditti, from whom the wild sierras
neighbouring on Malaga are seldom free. These
robbers, under a noted chief named Moreno,
had of late been very audacious and troublesome,
and it was conjectured that a party of the
gang, lying in wait for the chance of kidnapping
some wealthy townsman or landed proprietor,
had pounced on Mr. Croft for lack of loftier
game.

It is probable that the bandits may at first
have been deceived as to the value of their
captive. An Englishman is always considered
a wealthy man in virtue of his nationality, and,
besides, the sight of broadcloth produces on
Spaniards nearly the same talismanic effect that
the Neapolitan lazzaroni experience when
confronted by a "vestito di panno," whose rank is
inferred from the material of his coat. But at
any rate they had made a hasty retreat to their
fastness in the hills, bearing their captive with
them. And when Alice, after waiting for her
father's return, first in surprise, then in uneasiness,
and lastly in alarm, went out to seek him,
and came home baffled and tired, deep in the
afternoon—old Seraphina gave her a letter,
hastily pencilled on a scrap of folded paper,
which an unknown peasant woman had left at
the house.

The letter was from Mr. Croft. It ran thus:

"My dearest, dear Alice,—To give you pain
is worse than pain to me, but the truth must be
told. I am a prisoner in the hands of Moreno,
at a place high up in the sierra. I write this at
a halting-place, and I am told we shall instantly
resume our journey, whither I do not know. I
am in the hands of desperate men, who sell
blood, or shed it, for money. They demand a
ransom from me. As I have succeeded in
convincing them that I am poor, they have fixed
my price at five thousand reals. But unless
this money is paid by noon on Wednesday, the
chief assures me that—but why torture you,
my child, by repeating a barbarian's threats?—at
any rate, you will no longer have a father. I
must die, Alice, dear, for well I know that to
raise even that small sum is impossible. And we
have no friends in Malaga. Perez Brothers might
perhaps be induced to—but no. My employers
would refuse. It is possible, however, that the
British consul might take up the case. At any
rate, Alice, love, I am sure he will assist you in
getting home to England, and it is my earnest
wish that you should leave Spain as soon as you
can, and seek out those relatives of your mother