"We no longer understand one another," he said to them.
Then he turned to the negotiators.
"Return to Guaymas, gentlemen, and be good enough to tell General Guerrero that I thank him, and am awaiting his escort."
The escort arrived at daybreak, and the count set out, after a last and melancholy glance at his comrades, who witnessed his departure with aching hearts and tears in their eyes. Henceforth the divorce between the count and the adventurers was accomplished.
General Guerrero, on the count's entrance to Guaymas, ordered the honours due to a commander-in-chief to be paid him. Don Louis smiled with disdain. What did he care for these empty ceremonies?
The count and the general had a lengthened conversation together. The general had not yet given up his projects of seduction; but this time, like the first, the count answered with a positive refusal.
The company was henceforth surrendered defencelessly to the machinations of Señor Pavo. This man lost no time, and by his advice the adventurers sent as a deputation to the count two ignorant sailors, with orders to come to a settlement with him at any price. These two emissaries were selected by Señor Pavo, for the worthy man knew perfectly well what he was about. The two sailors presented themselves at the count's house, who sent out a message to them that he was engaged at the moment, and begged them to wait a little while. The ambassadors, ruffled in their self-esteem, and puffed up with the importance of the mission intrusted to them, left the count's house immediately, swearing at his insolence, and went straight to the palace of General Guerrero.
The latter, advised beforehand, knew what would happen, and was impatiently awaiting them. He ordered them to be admitted at once so soon as they sent in their names, and received them most graciously: then, when he had sufficiently intoxicated them with flattery, he made them sign—that is to say, make a cross at the foot of—a treaty, in which they recognised that, having been deceived and abandoned in a cowardly manner by their chief, they pledged themselves to lay down their arms and quit the country for a sum of eleven thousand piastres.[1] We must confess that General Guerrero made a capital bargain, for the arms came into his possession. Oh! the Mexicans are famous negotiators, and, above all, most crafty diplomatists.
Unable to vanquish the company, the Mexicans bought it of two scoundrels, by the intervention of a third, whose duty it was to defend it.
Thus the Atrevida Company had committed suicide. It effected its own dissolution without even attempting to see once again that chief who had been its idol, and whom it abandoned writhing on a bed of suffering.