"
"But it is a matter that requires courage, skill, care and secrecy.
It is no boy's play."
"All the better for that, general."
"Perhaps you will not say so when I have explained it to you more
fully."
"You have tried me before now!" answered the jailor, emphatically.
"True, and I will therefore trust you at once. There is a life to be
taken!"
"What! another?" said the man, with surprise depicted on his face.
"Yes, and one who may cost you some trouble to manage-a quick man
and a swordsman."
"Who is it?"
"Lorenzo Bezan!"
"The new lieutenant-general?"
"The same."
"Why, now I think of it, that is the very officer whom you visited
long ago by the secret passage in the prison."
"Very true."
"And now you would kill him?"
"Yes."
"And for what?"
"That matters not. You will be paid for your business, and must ask
no questions."
"O, very well; business is business."
"You see this purse?"
"Yes."
"It contains fifty doubloons. Kill him before the set of to-morrow's
sun, and it is yours."
"Fifty doubloons?"
"Is it not enough?"
"The risk is large; if he were but a private citizen, now-but the
lieutenant-governor!"
"I will make it seventy-five.
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