The general kissed his daughter once again, and left the room. So soon as he was gone the two girls began laughing like little madcaps.
We must allow that both had played their part to perfection, and though he little suspected it, had, in a few moments, led the general to do exactly what they wanted, while leaving him persuaded that he was merely acting from his own impulse.
A few minutes later Doña Angela joined her father in the cuarto, which was employed as dining room. The mayordomo had arrived, and the general only awaited his daughter's presence to begin the meal. This mayordomo, already known to the reader, was no other than Don Isidro Vargas, who had accepted this situation as a retiring pension.
The Mexican haciendas, especially in Sonora, are often eight to ten leagues in extent. To watch so large a tract of country, on which immense bands of wild horses and numerous herds of cattle pasture at liberty, a young, robust, and active man is generally selected, who is called in that country a hombre de a caballo. In truth, the profession of a mayordomo is excessively severe: he must constantly be on horseback, galloping day and night, in heat or cold, doing everything and looking after everything himself, and obliging the peons to work, who are the idlest fellows in existence, and the biggest thieves imaginable.
Don Isidro was no longer young. At the period when we bring him again on the stage he was nearly seventy; but this long, thin man, on whose bones a yellow skin, dry as parchment, seemed to be glued, was as upright and vigorous as if he were but thirty: age had gained no power over his body, which was solely composed of muscles and nerves. Thus, by his continual vigilance, his indefatigable ardour, and his uncommon energy, he was the terror of the poor fellows whom their evil destiny had placed under his orders, and who fully believed that their mayordomo had made a compact with the demon, so closely did he watch them, and so thoroughly was he acquainted with their slightest actions.
The mayordomo had retained his botas vaqueras, and his spurs with enormous rowels, which compel the wearer to walk tiptoe. His zarapé and hat of vicuna skin were negligently thrown on a butaca in a corner, and at his left side hung a sheathless machete, passed through an iron ring.
So soon as he perceived the young lady he walked up to her, wished her good day, and embraced her affectionately. The captain knew Doña Angela from the day of her birth, and loved her as his daughter. She, for her part, entertained a great friendship for the old soldier, with whom she had played when a child, and whom she still liked to tease, to which the worthy mayordomo lent himself with the best grace in the world.
They sat down to table; but that expression is somewhat pretentious when applied to a Mexican breakfast.
We have already frequently remarked that the Spanish Americans are the most sober people in the world. The least thing suffices them. Thus the breakfast in question was only composed of a small cup of that excellent chocolate which the Spaniards alone know how to make, of a few maize tortillas, and a large glass of water. This meal, if it be one, is common to all classes of society in Mexico.
The party sat down to table, then, Doña Angela said the benedicite and the chocolate was served. The conversation, at the outset, was completely in the hands of the general and the captain, and turned exclusively on what had happened at the hacienda since the general's last visit; then it gradually veered round to the subject of the ganado.