In truth, a light footstep was audible on the outside, coming nearer and nearer to the room in which the travellers were. At length the door opened, and a peon appeared.
"Pardon, señores," he said, after bowing ceremoniously, "Don Aníbal de Saldibar, my master, requests you to follow me to the grand hall, where all the caballeros are assembled."
"We are at Don Aníbal's orders," Don Aurelio said, as he rose.
His companions imitated him, and all four went out after the servant.
[CHAPTER V.]
THE COUNCIL.
While the travellers were listening with ever growing interest to the astonishing story told by Don Aurelio, other strangers, coming from all parts of the compass, flocked into the hacienda. They were principally rich landowners of the province, or persons compromised in previous struggles through their ardent love of liberty, and who, justly objects of suspicion to the Spaniards, could only find security in a general uprising. Don Aníbal tried to offer all these visitors, the majority of whom were followed by a numerous and well-armed escort, a large and generous hospitality. Hence, the interior of the hacienda soon resembled a barrack, and though the dependencies of the mansion were large, they were crowded with men and horses, so that the latter were obliged to be placed in the courtyards and the gardens.
At four in the evening the number of strangers assembled at the hacienda amounted to upwards of four thousand, which formed an imposing force. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few experienced men who had fought during the first tentatives made by the Mexicans to regain their liberty, the rest were only poor peons who had never smelt powder, and were completely ignorant of war. Still, whatever their intrinsic value might be from a military point of view, all these men burned with an ardent desire for liberty. They were devoted to their masters, and if well led, it was plain that a good deal might be expected from them; and that when once trained and disciplined, they would become not only formidable through their numbers, but also through their courage and the revolutionary fanaticism that animated them. In the meanwhile they offered a most miserable and pitiable appearance; pale, haggard, thin, scarce covered by their dirty ragged clothes, and mostly armed with pikes, bows and arrows, they could only excite a pity blended with contempt in the well-fed, disciplined, and thoroughly-armed Spaniards.