When I awoke it was to find that my bonds had been loosed and that I lay on some sort of bed, while a woman bent over me, tending me with murmured words of pity and love.

The night had fallen, but there was light in the chamber, and by it I saw that the woman was none other than Otomie, no longer starved and wretched, but almost as lovely as before the days of siege and hunger.
'Otomie! you here!' I gasped through my wounded lips, for with my senses came the memory of de Garcia's threats.
'Yes, beloved, it is I,' she murmured; 'they have suffered that I nurse you, devils though they are.

Oh! that I must see you thus and yet be helpless to avenge you,' and she burst into weeping.
'Hush,' I said, 'hush.

Have we food ?' 'In plenty.

A woman brought it from Marina.' 'Give me to eat, Otomie.' Now for a while she fed me and the deadly sickness passed from me, though my poor flesh burned with a hundred agonies.
'Listen, Otomie: have you seen de Garcia ?' 'No, husband.