[CHAPTER XV.]
FRAY AMBROSIO.
The monk remained for a long time in the room of the mesón, taking down the names of the adventurers he wished to enrol in his band. It was late when he left it to return to the Hacienda de la Noria; but he was satisfied with his night's work, and internally rejoiced at the rich collection of bandits of the purest water he had recruited.
The monks form a privileged caste in Mexico: they can go at all hours of the night wherever they please without fearing the numerous "gentlemen of the road," scattered about the highways. Their gown inspires a respect which guarantees them from any insult, and preserves them better than anything from unpleasant rencontres. Besides, Fray Ambrosio, as the reader has doubtless already perceived, was not the man to neglect indispensable precautions in a country where, out of ten persons you meet on your road, you may boldly assert that nine are rogues, the tenth alone offering any doubts. The worthy chaplain carried under his gown a pair of double-barrelled pistols, and in his right sleeve he concealed a long navaja, sharp as a razor, and pointed as a needle.
Not troubling himself about the solitude that reigned around him, the monk mounted his mule and proceeded quietly to the hacienda. It was about eleven o'clock.
A few words about Fray Ambrosio, while he is peacefully ambling along the narrow path which will lead him in two hours to his destination, will show all the perversity of the man who is destined to play an unfortunately too important part in the course of our narrative.
One day a gambusino, or gold seeker, who had disappeared for two years, no one knowing what had become of him, and who was supposed to be dead long ago, assassinated in the desert by the Indians, suddenly reappeared at the Paso del Norte. This man, Joaquin by name, was brother to Andrés Garote, an adventurer of the worst stamp, who had at least a dozen cuchilladas (knife stabs) on his conscience, whom everybody feared, but who, through the terror he inspired, enjoyed at the Paso, in spite of his well-avouched crimes, a reputation and species of impunity which he abused whenever the opportunity offered.
The two brothers began frequenting together the mesones and ventas of the village, drinking from morn till night, and paying either in gold dust enclosed in stout quills, or in lumps of native gold. The rumour soon spread at Paso that Joaquin had discovered a rich placer, and that his expenses were paid with the specimens he had brought back. The gambusino replied neither yes nor no to the several insinuations which his friends, or rather his boon companions, attempted on him. He twinkled his eyes, smiled mysteriously, and if it were observed that, at the rate he was living at, he would soon be ruined, he shrugged his shoulders, saying:—
"When I have none left I know where to find others."
And he continued to enjoy his fill of all the pleasures which a wretched hole like Paso can furnish.