[CHAPTER XX.]
EL ZARAGATE.
The night was clear, mild and starry, a profound calm prevailed in the deserted streets, and it was in fact one of those delicious Mexican nights, so filled with soft emanations, and which dispose the mind to delicious reveries.
The two gentlemen, carefully wrapped in their cloaks, walked side by side, along the middle of the street, in fear of an ambuscade, examining with practised eyes the doorways and the dark corners of side streets. When they were far enough from the theatre no longer to fear indiscreet eyes or ears, the general at length broke the silence.
"Now, Señor Don Jaime," he said, "let us speak frankly, if you please."
"I wish for nothing better," the colonel replied, with a bow.
"And to begin," Don Sebastian continued, "tell me who the man is from whom you hinted that I could derive some benefit."
"Nothing is easier, excellency. This man is a villain of the worst sort, as I already had the honour of telling you; his antecedents are, I suppose, rather dark, and that is all I have been able to discover. This man, who, I believe, belongs to no country, but who, in consequence of his adventurous life, has visited them all and speaks all languages, was at San Francisco when the Count de Prébois Crancé organized the cuadrilla of bandits, at the head of which he undertook to dismember our lovely country, and in which, between ourselves, he would probably have succeeded had it not been for your skill and courage."
"We will pass over that, my dear colonel," the general quickly interrupted him; "I did my duty in that affair, as I shall always do it when the interest of my country is at stake."