Chapter Twenty Nine.
Don Samuel Bruno.
Before separating from Don Eusebio I received from him a detailed account of the coach robbery, with all the allied incidents. It was necessary I should know everything; and everything was made known to me.
In addition to what he had already communicated, there was one fact of a curious, if not comical, character. Before permitting him to depart in the diligencia, the brigands had taken his bond for ten thousand dollars—as collateral security against the ransom of his daughters!
They had even gone so far as to require it in the shape of a written acceptance—to be cancelled and sent back along with the señoritas, whenever the cash should be forthcoming!
Such were the quaint stipulations of the salteadores!
Though sounding strange to English ears, no Mexican would be at all surprised at them. Oft and again have similar bargains been made—and kept—among the mountains of Mexico!
There was something that still perplexed me. How was this queer contract to be carried out?
I had been told that the usual mode is by a messenger; some one acquainted with the neutral ground—if there be such—lying between robber-land and the precincts of the police. This messenger meets an envoy—deputed by the brigands; the acceptance is honoured; the captives given up, and permitted to depart without further molestation!
In some cases even a cheque has been taken in exchange; afterwards presented at the bank by one of the robbers themselves—and paid!
Who was to be Don Eusebio’s deputy? This was a question that interested me.
The answer gave me great satisfaction. It was the driver of the diligencia that had been stopped—known to his passengers by the name of “Don Samuel Bruno.”
When it is said, that the stage-coaches of Mexico are a modern importation from the United States, I need scarcely add that their drivers have been imported along with them. They are all, or nearly all, States’ men; and “Don Samuel,” despite his sobriquet, was not an exception. He was simply Sam Brown.
Though the intended envoy of Don Eusebio, he had been nominated by the bandits themselves; no doubt for the reason that he knew where to carry the cash, and that it could be safely entrusted in his keeping. Any treachery on his part would put an end to his stage driving—at least, upon the roads of Mexico—and ten chances to one whether he should survive to handle the “ribbons” elsewhere.
Sam knew all this, on consenting to become a “go-between;” though it was scarcely by his own consent: since the office had been assigned to him, not by request, but command.
It was a fortunate circumstance for me—the very thing I would have wished for. My chief difficulty—I had seen it from the first—would be to obtain an interview with the knights of the road. With the stage-driver as a guide, the difficulty seemed more than half removed.
As good luck would have it, I knew something of Don Samuel. I knew him to be intelligent—and notwithstanding the ambiguous rôle he was oft compelled to play—honest.
I was not long in placing myself en rapport with him. As I had expected, I found him ready and right willing to “co-operate.”
There was at this time much talk of our permanently occupying the country. In that case he would have nothing to fear for his future; but in any case he was too gallant to regard consequences where a señorita was concerned.
There was yet another difficulty. Sam’s appointment with the robbers had been made for an early hour of the next morning—the place of rendezvous a treeless plain lying under the shadow of forest-clad hills—not far from the noted inn of Cordova.
Alone he might easily meet the parlamentarios of the other party; but it would be quite a different thing if he should go accompanied by a score of mounted men.
How was the difficulty to be got over?
I put the question to himself.
The intelligent Yankee soon bethought him of a scheme; and one that appeared feasible.
My party should make approach in the night; go into covert under the pine-forest that shrouded the slopes above the place of rendezvous; and leave Sam himself to come on in the morning—carrying the ransom-money along with him. That night he could go with us to a certain distance—as a guide all the way—returning, to return again, at the hour of daybreak.
The plan seemed excellent. There was but one drawback. Our ambuscade could only affect the envoy of the robbers, not the robbers themselves—whose den might be at a distance, among the passes of the mountains.
“Don Samuel” did not see it in this light. With the bandit emissary in our power, and the dollars of Don Eusebio at our disposal, he did not apprehend any difficulty. If there were a salteador in all Mexico proof against gold, Sam Brown did not believe it.
I was satisfied with his reasoning; and consented to act under his guidance.
But little time was required for preparation. The commander-in-chief—not so ungenerous after all, and always liberal in the cause of humanity—had given me carte, blanche. I only drew a score of my own men—Mounted Rifles—with a small supplementary force of the dare-devils already alluded to.