CHAPTER IV.
Florencio Planillas, the Mexican Miner.
Left alone in the midst of the desert plain of Cazadero, I remained, I must confess, a considerable time in a state of great uncertainty. Being far distant from any habitation, I was debating within my own mind whether I should not turn bridle and regain the hacienda of Arroyo Zarco; but the sun shone so cheerily upon the plain, and the morning air was so refreshing, that my discouragement and hesitation disappeared like the mist upon the hills, which had now put on their usual bluish appearance. I continued my route. A gallop of barely two leagues would take me to the venta of the Soledad, where I had ordered Cecilio to await my coming. The landlord, on seeing me come in with a guitar slung across my shoulder, took me for a music-mad tourist that had come in the very nick of time to amuse him, and spoke of his love for music with the air of a man who was desirous to hear my performance. I refused, however, point blank, and hastened to take possession of the most retired room in the venta. Cecilio did not make his appearance till nightfall. He had nothing new to tell me. At midday, when he escaped from the hacienda, there was not the slightest stir. This information calmed me about the fugitives, and freed me from anxiety on their account. I resolved to pass the night in the inn. My poor valet, who had traveled on foot a distance of thirty miles, was hardly able to stand upright; and, for my own part, I needed to husband my strength, that I might resume on the following day that pursuit which seemed to be getting interminable.
Next morning, at an early hour, we were in the saddle and on the road to Celaya, where we expected to meet Don Tomas. It was a two days' journey, and these two days were marked with as many odd occurrences as had signalized the first part of this singular excursion. In all the inns at which we stopped Don Tomas had preceded us only by a few hours. At last I arrived at Celaya, and alighted at the Meson de Guadalupe at the very moment that Cecilio was mentally registering the seventy leagues we had traveled since we left Mexico, with this consoling reflection, however, that, according to the intelligence we had received, we were now approaching the end of our journey. Unhappily, I was once more balked. At Celaya, as at Arroyo Zarco, I missed Don Tomas by half an hour. Don Tomas, on leaving Celaya, had taken the road to Irapuato. We set out for that place. In the solitary inn of this small market-town no one had seen him. They knew him, however, for the host told me that Don Tomas owned and inhabited a solitary house at the foot of the Cerro del Gigante (Giant peak).
"Where is the Cerro del Gigante?" I asked, not without an apprehension that it might be a hundred leagues away.
"It is the highest peak of the range of mountains," replied my host, "which overhangs Guanajuato. If you set out from here at dawn of day, you will be there in the evening."
Irapuato is ninety-two leagues from Mexico. To reach Guanajuato I had still twenty leagues to travel. It occurred to me that Guanajuato was the town to which the Biscayan nobleman had conveyed Donna Luz. Besides the certainty of there meeting Don Tomas, I had the hope of learning the fate of a man in whom I already felt an interest as intense as if he had been an old friend. This double consideration determined me.
"Well," said I to Cecilio, "we must go and wait upon Don Tomas in his own house, which he seems in a great hurry to reach."
The road to Guanajuato winds through a ravine of interminable length called Cañada de Marfil, and it was far on in the afternoon before we reached that city, whose steep streets we traversed rapidly in the direction of the Cerro del Gigante. The road that we followed on leaving the town was cut with ravines and full of ruts. I was not long in regretting that I had entangled myself in such a defile as this, especially as night was coming on, and we were on an unknown road. As we advanced the scenery became wilder and more desolate; the noise made by the runnels of water which bounded over the rocks on either side, and the cawing of troops of crows which hovered over head, were the only sounds which broke the stillness around.
"Ah! señor," said Cecilio, approaching me when I had halted for a moment to recall to my recollection the instructions I had received, "this gully seems a real cutthroat place, and I hope nothing worse will befall us than wandering all night long in this labyrinth of mountains, where the cold cuts into one's marrow."