"Four leagues off at the most, with two thousand troops."
"Where has he halted?"
"His Excellency has not halted, General, but, on the contrary, is advancing with forced marches to join you."
The General gave a start of anger.
"It is well," he continued, presently. "Return at full gallop to his Excellency, and announce to him my speedy arrival."
"Pardon me, General, but it seems to me that you have not read the despatch I had the honour of handing you," the officer said, respectfully, but firmly.
The General looked at him askance.
"I have not time at this moment to read the despatch," he said, drily.
At the period when our history takes place, General Don Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was thirty-nine to forty years of age; he was tall and finely built; he had a lofty and projecting forehead, rounded chin, and slightly aquiline nose, large black eyes, full of expression, and a flexible mouth, which gave him an air of remarkable nobility, while his black and curly hair, which formed a contrast to the yellowish tinge of his complexion, covered his temples and his high-boned cheeks. Such, physically, was the man who, for thirty years, has been the evil genius of Mexico, and has led it to infallible ruin by making himself the cause or pretext of all the wars and revolutions which, since his first assumption of power, have incessantly overwhelmed this unhappy country.
We must now ask our reader's pardon, but we must talk a little politics, and describe cursorily the facts which preceded and led to the denouement of the too lengthy story we have undertaken to narrate.