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On the 18th of January in that year, M. Thome discovered at Cordoba a comet reproducing with curious fidelity the lineaments of that observed in the same latitudes seven years previously.

For some mysterious reason, passengers from the four quarters of the compass that is to say, from Cordoba, Granada, Algeciras, or Sevilla are required to alight here, and eat, and change their trains. I remember Bobadilla as the place where you spend your counterfeit money. Many of the current coins of southern Spain are made of silver; and the rest are made of lead.

In Cordoba, the Argentine seat of learning a city so old that university degrees were being given there when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the shores of New England charms, amulets and miniature images of the Virgin are manufactured in large numbers. These are worn around the neck, and are supposed to work great wonders.

Facing the square of Nueva Cordoba was a goodly house, built by the Church for the Church, but now sacrilegiously turned to other uses and become the quarters of Sir John Nevil and Sir Mortimer Ferne, who held the town and menaced the fortress, while Baptist Manwood and Robert Baldry kept the fleet and conquered battery.

In February the gold was returned to the Bank of Durban because the ultimate destination of the consignment did not warrant the presumption that it was enemy's property. In November a French steamer, the Cordoba, was hailed by the British cruiser Magicienne. The Cordoba refused to recognize the signal to halt seventy miles out from Lorenzo Marques and was brought to by a blank shot.

The patriots now made their first important move. A force of 1,200 volunteers, commanded by Ocampo and Balcarce, marched against Córdoba, where Liniers and Concha were in command of the Royalist forces. These latter were defeated and their leaders executed. Flushed by its success, the Argentine army then invaded Peru.

"Raze every house in Nueva Cordoba," went on the Spaniard, "play the earthquake and the wave then sail away, sail away, marauders! and leave the fortress virgin, and the treasure no lighter by one piece, and Luiz de Guardiola to find a day when English dogs shall cringe before him!" He had risen from his place, and at that movement sprang also to their feet his ten cavaliers.

Nueva Cordoba lay in the hollow of his hand, and at his disposal were some Spanish lives perhaps not altogether valueless in the eyes of Don Luiz de Guardiola, since their kindred and friends and Spain herself might hold him responsible for their sudden and piteous taking off. When an hour had dragged itself away the fortress spoke again, and its speech was of a piece with the Governor's mind.

Mexia was displaying profound skill in the nice balancement of his tankard as the servant behind him refilled the measure. "Ha, Don Pedro!" cried Drake, with his bluff laugh, "art on that four-years-gone matter of Nueva Cordoba? Methinks Sir John Nevil brought off a knightly sufficiency of credit " "Sir John Nevil Oh!

Thus spake the guns, but the hearts of the men behind were wrung for the living and the dead. The shores slipped by, the fortress hill of Nueva Cordoba lessened to a silver speck against the mountains; swift-sailing ships they feared no chase by those galleons of Spain. Islands were passed, behind them fell bold coasts, before them spread the waste of waters.