Seven or eight days had elapsed since the events we recorded in our last chapter. General Guerrero, after a long conversation with Colonel Don Jaime Lupo, Don Sirven, and two or three others of his most faithful partizans—a conversation in which the final arrangements were made for the pronunciamiento which was to be attempted immediately—gave audience to two of his spies, who assured him that the person, whose movements they were ordered to watch, had not yet arrived in Mexico.
When the hour for going to the theatre arrived, the general, temporarily freed from alarm, prepared to be present at an extraordinary performance to be given, that same night, at the Santa Anna theatre; but at the moment when he was about to give orders for his carriage to be brought up, the door of the room, in which he was sitting, opened, and a footman appeared on the threshold, with a respectful bow.
"What do you want?" the general asked, turning round at the sound.
"Excellency," the valet replied, "a caballero desires a few minutes' conversation with your excellency."
"At this hour?" the general said, looking at a clock, "it is impossible;" but, suddenly reflecting, he asked, "anyone you know, Isidro?"
"No, excellency; it is a caballero whom I have not yet had the honour of seeing in the house."
"Hum," said the general, shaking his head thoughtfully, "is he a gentleman?"
"That I can assure your excellency; and he told me that he had a most important communication to make to you."
In the general's present position, as head of a conspiracy on the point of breaking out, no detail must be neglected, no communication despised, so, after reflecting a little, he continued—
"You ought to have told the gentleman that I could not receive him so late, and that he had better call again tomorrow."