‘My dear lady,’ replied Joaquin, ‘give me I beg of you, an opportunity to prove my gratitude in some more difficult shape than in riding a short distance on a fine evening.’
‘I will Joaquin. I desire this night, to have your aid in an enterprise full of difficulty; nay, of absolute danger,’ said Inez.
‘Danger!’ cried the robber, and his bright black eyes dilated and sparkled like those of a war-horse when the clangor of trumpets smites his ear. ‘Let the enterprise be full of danger and I will execute it for the danger’s sake—much more willingly however, if I also serve you, my dear, my noble young lady. Oh, never can be effaced from my heart your kindness to my poor, darling Carmencitto, after those fiends had—’ the robber paused, his swarthy visage became of ashy hue, and his strong frame trembled with some violent emotion. ‘Enough of this—I live but for two purposes—gratitude to you, and revenge on them hell-born villains—then welcome death in any shape; for what have I more to do in this world, when my poor Carmencitto lies in her cold grave?’
Inez, who knew how cruelly this man had been treated, waited ere she again addressed him. When he became somewhat calmer, she said:
‘Joaquin, some villains have seized the brave young man who saved my life, and carried him to the lone hut over among the sand-hills. I am determined to rescue him, and need your aid, and that of some of your friends.’
‘Most willingly,’ replied Joaquin, and placing a small silver bugle to his lips he blew two notes, so sharp and loud that their echoes could be heard reverberating from the distant hills. But awakening the echoes were not the only effect. In a few moments, coming from different directions, nearly a dozen horsemen could be seen drawing towards the spot where the sounds proceeded.
Meanwhile, Sanchez, in obedience to the directions of his mistress had saddled her favorite horse, and led him to the front of the house; when Inez, declining assistance, vaulted lightly into the richly mounted saddle en cavalier, and as the fiery animal bounded and curvetted, her full but exquisitely moulded limbs yielded gracefully to each movement of the animal she bestrode, while she tried to check his impatience by patting his coal black neck with her little hand, whiter than the pearls that zoned her taper fingers, and speaking to him in those soft endearing expressions of which the Spanish is so full.
No sooner had the horsemen, summoned by the bugle of Joaquin, all assembled, than they started at a brisk pace, led by Sanchez, through the bridle-path that led in the direction of the hut.
It was the approach of this party which induced the gang who had captured Monteagle, to leave the hut in such haste.
Monteagle was so exceeding weak when he reached the spot where the horses of the thieves were tied, that, even had he wished to do so, he could not have retained his seat, in the saddle a moment. So, after placing him astride a horse, they lashed him in his seat with one of those ever-present and ever-useful lariats.