"May Heaven grant it!"
"I guarantee success. You have, I suppose, all the stores necessary for entering on a campaign?"
"Nearly so; but I regret to say that all my arrieros have deserted me, and left my camp furtively."
"The deuce! and naturally they took their mules with them?"
"All, without exception; and this renders it very embarrassing to move my baggage and draw my guns."
"Good, good! We will provide for all that. I have here, as you saw, excellent wagons; I am also well supplied with mules; and there are in the colony men perfectly capable of leading them."
"You will render me no slight service."
"I hope to render you others far greater than that."
The three men had returned to the room in which the conference with Colonel Suarez had taken place. The captain struck the bell, and a peon entered.
"This evening, after oración, at the end of the day's labour, the colonists will assemble in the patio to hear an important communication I have to make to them," he said.