[CHAPTER XXXI.]
THE JACAL.
The night was dark; the rain, driven by the wind lashed furiously; the Río Sabina, swollen by the storm, rolled along its yellow, muddy waters, which were filled with trunks of trees and fragments of every description, with a lugubrious murmur. The town and camp were plunged in gloomy silence, only interrupted at long intervals by the mournful cry, "Sentinela, alerta," with which the sentries on the ramparts and in the intrenchments called to each other. At times a vivid flash, immediately followed by a deafening peal of thunder, lit up the horizon with a fantastic and transient gleam; then all fell again into deeper silence and more complete obscurity.
In a miserable jacal, built in the centre of the camp, which every gust threatened to blow away, two men, seated in equipales, in front of a table covered with maps and plans, were conversing by the light of a smoking candle. The jacal was the headquarters of the Mexican army, while the men were Padre Sandoval and Don Aníbal de Saldibar. Outside, two sentries, wrapped up in their zarapés, were walking up and down in front of the door, cursing the wind and rain in a low voice, while several horses, saddled and fastened to pickets, were champing their feet and pawing up the ground impatiently.
"You see, my friend," Don Pelagio was saying at the moment we introduce the reader into the jacal, "everything favours us. Heaven is with us."
"Yes," the hacendero answered; "but, General Cárdenas is an old soldier, accustomed to European warfare. I doubt whether he will let himself be caught in this trap."
"You are a perfect St. Thomas, my friend," Don Pelagio continued, "and doubt is your essence. The ruse I have invented is too simple for the general not to be caught in it. For the last two days my spies have prepared him by clever reports to fall into the trap we are setting for him; and, moreover, I count upon an omnipotent ally."
"An ally?" Don Aníbal asked, curiously. "Who is he?"