Carelessly leaning against the portico of the hacienda, a man of about forty years of age, clothed in the rich costume of a gentleman farmer, his shoulders covered by a zarapé of brilliant colours, and his head protected from the rays of the setting sun by a fine hat of Panama straw, worth at least five hundred piastres, seemed to be presiding over this scene while enjoying a husk cigarette.
He was a gentleman of lofty bearing, slightly built, but perfectly well-proportioned, and his features well defined with firm and marked lines, denoted loyalty, courage, and, above all, an inflexible will. His large black eyes, shaded by thick eyebrows, displayed indescribable mildness; but when any contradictory chance spread a red glow over his embrowned complexion, his glance assumed a fixity and a force which few could support, and which made even the bravest hesitate and tremble.
His small hands and feet, and more than all, the aristocratic stamp impressed upon his person, denoted, at the first glance, that this man was of pure and noble Castilian race.
In fact, this personage was Don Ramón Garillas de Saavedra, the proprietor of the Hacienda del Milagro, which we have just described.
Don Ramón Garillas was descended from a Spanish family, the head of which had been one of the principal lieutenants of Cortez, and had settled in Mexico after the miraculous conquest of that clever adventurer.
Enjoying a princely fortune, but unnoticed by the Spanish authorities, on account of his marriage with a woman of mixed Aztec blood, he had given himself up entirely to the cultivation of his land, and the amelioration of his vast domains.
After seventeen years of marriage, he found himself the head of a large family, composed of six boys and three girls, in all nine children, of whom Rafaël—he whom we have seen so deftly kill the vaquero—was the eldest.
The marriage of Don Ramón and Doña Jesuita had been merely a marriage of convenience, contracted solely with a view to fortune, but which, notwithstanding, had rendered them comparatively happy; we say comparatively, because, as the girl only left her convent to be married, no love had ever existed between them, but its place had been almost as well occupied by a tender and sincere affection.
Doña Jesuita passed her time in the cares necessitated by her children, surrounded by her Indian women. On his side, her husband, completely absorbed by the duties of his life as a gentleman farmer, was almost always with his vaqueros, his peons, and his huntsmen, only seeing his wife for a few minutes at the hours of meals, and sometimes remaining months together absent in hunting excursions on the banks of the Rio Gila.
Nevertheless, we are bound to add that, whether absent or present, Don Ramón took the greatest care that nothing should be wanting for his wife's comfort; and in order that her least caprices might be satisfied, he spared neither money nor trouble to procure her all she appeared to desire.