The pulquero obsequiously doffed his straw hat, and hastened to obey this injunction, which admitted of no reply.
"What do you desire, Excellency?" he asked.
"To ask you a question."
"Pray do so."
"Are you fond of money?
"Well, tolerably so, Excellency," he replied, with a crafty grimace, which doubtless had pretensions to be a smile.
"Very good, here is an onza: when we go away, we will give you a second; but bear in mind that you must be deaf and blind."
"That is easy," he replied, as he pocketed the gold coin, and drew aside.
Since the Jaguar's departure, the two officers had been suffering from an anxiety they did not attempt to conceal, but which El Alferez did not appear to notice, for his face was quite radiant. In fact, the expedition they were going to attempt in the company of the daring partisan seemed to them not only rash but mad, especially since El Alferez had so cavalierly given up to the Jaguar the thirty resolute men, whose support they considered indispensable.
"Come, come, Señors," the young man said, with a smile, after attentively watching them for some moments, "regain your courage; hang it all, you look as if you had been buried and dug up again; and we are not dead yet, I suppose."