Though neither of us were animated by a love of cruelty or taste for the morbid, we were somewhat curious to see how this romantic vagabond, who so pitilessly had meted out death to so many others, would encounter his own terrible doom, and availing ourselves of the Spanish officer's polite offer, we procured a day's leave, rode over to breakfast with him, and marched with his detachment to San Roque, a little town, which lies, as I have elsewhere said, about six miles from our garrison on the Spanish side.
As we proceeded, the Spanish capitano told us the little episode of Don Fabrique's capture.
It happened thus.
The Alcalde of San Roque was reputed to be immensely wealthy, and to have in a secret place a strong box full of yellow doubloons and rich silver duros, piled up in shining pillars to its brim, like the treasure chests which the Moors are supposed to have hidden in all the old castles and ruined atalayas in Spain, and all of which are occasionally visible to those who have the fortune of being born on Good Friday, as every Spaniard knows.
The rumour of this wealth could not fail to reach the ears of Don Fabrique, and to excite the cupidity of that enterprising gentleman; but concealing his intentions from his band, whom he intended to leave, as he proposed to himself a little trip to Paris or Peru, if he relieved the Alcalde of those cares which are inseparable from the possession of wealth, he reconnoitred the house, and found an entrance to a room wherein he secreted himself beneath a bed, which stood in an alcove off it. In this bed the portly alcalde and his buxom wife were wont to take their repose; so Don Fabrique had not been very long in this place of concealment, when the lady came in with a lamp in her hand, and placing it on the toilet table, proceeded to divest her charming person of her habiliments.
She threw the fag end of her cigar into the brassero; hung her wig upon a knob of the mirror, et cetera. She then dipped a finger into the little font of holy water which hung at the head of her bed, and stepped in, to await the coming of her worthy spouse, who was lingering over the 'Heraldo' and a glass of Valdepenas in the dining-room below.
Now as the bed had a canvas bottom like a hammock, and the lady therein was equal in size and weight to three ordinary women, Don Fabrique, with natural consternation, reflected on what he should have to endure, when the gorbellied alcalde was added to the superincumbent load of the señora.
"Demonio!" thought he, "what is to be done? I shall be suffocated before that brute the señor patron is half asleep!"
The panting robber stirred uneasily, and the stout lady above him started.
"Madre de Dios, what is that!" she whispered to herself.