What we have related took place so suddenly, and the whole was done so adroitly, that Don Bernardo, completely confounded, was nailed to the ground by a bayonet before he could comprehend what was happening: it is even probable that he died without guessing the cause of the riot.
In the meantime, the twelve riders of the platoon had closed around their ex-prisoner, and started at full speed through the thickest of the throng.
Then a curious thing occurred: these inquisitive gapers, who were an instant before so crowded and compact that they had broken through the line of soldiery, open right and left before the fugitives, shouted their joy at their success, and, the moment they had passed, closed up the breach they had themselves made, and again presented an impassable human barrier to the rearguard, which vainly strove to break it.
Armed men seemed to start suddenly out of the ground, gave the soldiers back blow for blow, and offered a resistance sufficiently energetic to allow time for the fugitives to secure their safety.
Then, suddenly as if by enchantment, these menacing crowds, which had so lately disputed the ground, retreated, melted away, in some manner or another; and that so speedily, that when the soldiers, recovered from their surprise, were prepared for a vigorous defence, there was no one in front of them: the insurgents had disappeared, without leaving any traces behind them.
This audacious affray might almost have passed for a dream, were it not that, on one side, the prisoner had escaped, and, that on the other, Colonel Pedrosa, and five or six soldiers, lay weltering in their blood on the ground; proving the reality of the daring coup-de-main which had been executed with such remarkable audacity and success.
Don Guzman and his companions found refuge in the boat which was waiting for them. Five minutes later, they were on board the French ship; and when pursuit was ordered, the schooner could only be seen on the horizon, like a halcyon's wing balanced on the breeze.
On board the schooner Don Guzman found his wife. The schooner sailed for Veracruz.
We have already related the decision which Don Guzman had made, and in what manner he carried it out.
In order to insure the success of the researches he was about to make to find his son, and to secure his own tranquillity, Don Guzman, on setting foot in Mexico, resigned his own name for that of Don Pedro de Luna, to which he had a right, and under which we shall still continue to designate him.[1] He hoped by these means to escape the persecutions of Don Leoncio, whose hatred, still unsatiated by the abduction of the child, might possibly lead him to attempt to add his brother as another victim.