Here we waited nearly half-an-hour, at the conclusion of which a door at the upper end of the chamber opened, and a tall, rather good-looking man, dressed entirely in white, entered.  At his appearance Carlos sprang to his feet and, saluting, handed over the note which Mateo had scrawled.  The stranger, who was none other than "Don" Victor Fernandez, Captain Manuel Garcia's second-in-command, took the note, read it, glanced at me curiously, and then nodded curtly to Carlos and his companions.