"A short distance, senor, and your horse is quite fresh," replied the host; "it is useless dismounting, as I cannot accommodate you."
"Why?" asked the other, with a malediction which sounded familiar to the ear of Pedro.
"We have no room."
"Bah! I have been told that elsewhere."
"Very likely," replied the host, drily, as he turned to retire.
"If you have no room inside, just shove a pole out of the upper window, and I'll roost on that in California fashion," urged the speaker, as he deliberately dismounted, and, taking the lasso from his saddlebow, threw it over his arm; "I must have a bottle of wine, at least, ere I look for other diggings—caramba."
This interjection made Pedro regard the stranger more closely as he passed from where he had fastened his horse, and crossed the yard in the full blaze of the moonlight. Then Barradas ground his teeth as he recognised Cramply Hawkshaw, whom he had not met since that afternoon of crime in the Barranca Secca; and he was quite as much enraged and bewildered on seeing Hawkshaw there in the Posada de San Augustin as that personage had been on beholding him when perched on the yard-arm of the Hermione, on that evening after she left London.
But Pedro's measures were rapidly taken; already he heard the footsteps of him he must avoid ascending the broad marble-staircase of the hotel! Save his poncho, knife, and revolver, Pedro had no luggage that he cared about, so he thrust the weapons in his sash, threw the poncho over his shoulders, stuck his sombrero fiercely on his head, and brushed past Hawkshaw just as that person entered the room.
Descending quickly to the stable-yard, Pedro went straight to where Hawkshaw's horse was standing in shadow, and after deliberately giving a glance at the bit and bridle, and lengthening the stirrup-leathers, to suit himself, he mounted, rode softly out of the stable-yard, and before Captain Hawkshaw, late of the Texan Partisan Rangers, had finished his wine, and had another expostulation with the maestro de casa, who either knew him of old, or disliked his trapper-like equipment, Pedro was fully three miles from Valparaiso, and was ascending, at a slow pace, of course, the steep and winding path which led to one of the many ravines in the mountain range that overhangs the city.
The horse had come from the Maypo River that day, as Hawkshaw stated; but it was strong and active, being one of that degenerated breed of Spanish chargers, which are to be met with, sometimes in herds of 10,000, on the vast plains which extend from the shores of La Plata to the mountains of Patagonia. His head was broad; his legs clumsy; he was long-eared, rough-coated, and of a chestnut bay colour; but, like his brethren of the grassy prairies, he was possessed of great strength and spirit, and thus ascended the rough mountain path with unflagging zeal; but not so quickly as to prevent another horse, whose hoofs were heard behind, from gaining on him as they entered the ravine in the hills, where their galloping was re-echoed by the overhanging volcanic rocks.