"I heard you!" he cried. "Pascual, they must not!"
But Pascual laid a fierce hand upon his breast and pinned him to the wall.
It was a terrible scene—that which followed—terrible in the tense quiet of its enactment—terrible in its outcome!
With Riego pinned against the wall where he needs must listen, Pascual poured forth such a torrent of abuse, of falsehood, against the "gringos" that at length the old hate blood leapt in the younger boy's veins and went beating through his brain.
The gringos were their enemies—enemies! The men who were coming down upon them with the dawn were of their own blood, of their native country! What if the invaders were "revolutionists"? Were they not Mexican? Talk of "loyalty"—one must be loyal to one's own!
When Pascual loosed his grip upon the slight form it was after he had stirred to the very dregs all that was passionate, all that was ignorant and prejudiced and violent, in the boy's nature.
That afternoon Riego did not report at Miss Arden's class, but long after class hour he was obliged to pass her house on the mission to deliver a mended harness to a farmer living near the American camp.
Miss Arden and her mother, Riego knew, were the only members of the big captain's family. They lived in a large house in the woods, half-way between the town and the camp. He knew also that the big captain stayed in camp.
As Riego emerged from the long stretch of lonely woods which separated Miss Arden's house from the town, and as he faced the other long stretch of woods which lay between him and the camp, the boy was struck by the isolation of the señorita's home.
He reflected, however, that Alva's men were to attack the gringo soldiers by way of the ford, and that the ford lay to the right yonder, far out of connection with the captain's house. He was glad—glad that Alva's men would not come that way!