"She had heard of my evil reputation, and warned by common rumour—it may be by her parents, or inspired by native modesty—she always drew her mantilla close, and shunned or avoided me, when I visited Orizaba.
"Piqued by her coldness and inflamed by her beauty, which was of a very remarkable kind, I relinquished, or forgot for the time, every other amour, to engage in this new one, proceeding to work warily, and with all the subtlety of the fiend I was then.
"Though I frequently visited the granja (farm) of old Miguel Escudero, I ceased to notice, save by a casual bow, the presence of Mariquita; but strove assiduously to gain the friendship of her brother, Juan, a handsome and high-spirited young man, whom, as he was a deadly shot and good swordsman, I thought it would be as well to remove from the vicinity of my operations.
"I might easily have had him taken off, by distributing a few dollars among the bandidos of the Barranca Secca; but, though wicked enough, I was not sufficiently a villain for that, and so preferred to procure for him a commission as an alferez (ensign) in the guards of the castle of San Juan de Ulloa, an honour which, being so unusual, when conferred on the son of a humble grangero, or farmer, filled the soul of Miguel with gratitude, and Juan with pride and joy.
"Not content with this, I appointed Escudero overseer of all my estates, with an income of about five hundred pistoles per annum; so my cold little beauty, the Senora Mariquita, had now a horse and mounted groom when she went abroad, instead of a mule, as before, and a barefooted negro runner.
"These presents—this unwonted patronage—passed well enough as rewards to an ancient and faithful adherent of our house, for old Miguel Escudero had been an especial confidant of my father, and was descended from one of the twenty men-at-arms whom my ancestor, Don Miguel, had brought from San Pedro de Arlanza in Old Castile. He regarded me with a friendship, a love, that was almost paternal, and now pressed me to visit him at the handsome residence which my favour and bounty had conferred upon him; so I went to spend three months under the same roof with Mariquita, on the slopes of the vast Pic d'Orizaba, to hunt the wild cattle, the elks, the buffaloes, and cabri, and the grisly black bears, in the ever green forests and lovely savannahs that spread away from thence towards the Rio de Carraderas; and, nightly, it was my joy to lay the spoils of the chase at the feet of Mariquita, in compliment to her as the mistress of her father's house, for such she was—luckily, for the furtherance of my project, her watchful mother having been recently removed by death.
"I now saw more of her than I could ever have done by periodical visits, and my passion grew greater by our intimacy, for the girl was a wondrously lovely brunette, though her skin was exceedingly fair. The form of her hands and feet, the contour of her head, and the soft luxuriant masses of her ripply black hair, were all perfect; and her eyes, large, dark, clear, and liquid, were beautiful, and ever varying in expression.
"I was too artful, too well trained in the ways of vice, to seem more than simply pleased with the society of Mariquita. I was scrupulously attentive to her at table and elsewhere. If she mounted, my hand and knee were at her service; but when dismounting, she always preferred the attendance of her father, or her old negro groom, as if determined that no hand of mine should ever touch her slender waist.
"We occasionally accompanied each other on the guitar. Songs of love were long, long avoided, but they came at last. I remember the first we ventured on—'Love's First Kiss,' an old song of Burgos, beginning:
"'A aquel caballero madre.'