"
He passed out of the cabin as Hurlstone glanced, half mechanically, at
the package before him. Suddenly his cheek reddened; he stopped, looked
hurriedly at the retreating form of Perkins, and picked up a manuscript
from the packet. It was in his wife's handwriting. A sudden idea flashed
across his mind, and seemed to illuminate the obscure monotony of the
story he had just heard. He turned hurriedly to the morocco case, and
opened it with trembling fingers. It was a daguerreotype, faded and
silvered; but the features were those of his wife!
CHAPTER VIII.
HOSTAGE.
The revolution of Todos Santos had to all appearances been effected as
peacefully as the gentle Liberator of Quinquinambo could have wished.
Two pronunciamientos, rudely printed and posted in the Plaza, and
saluted by the fickle garrison of one hundred men, who had, however,
immediately reappointed their old commander as Generalissimo under the
new regime, seemed to leave nothing to be desired. A surging mob of
vacant and wondering peons, bearing a singular resemblance to the wild
cattle and horses which intermingled with them in blind and unceasing
movement across the Plaza and up the hilly street, and seemingly as
incapable of self-government, were alternately dispersed and stampeded
or allowed to gather again as occasion required.
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