“Are you sure, Pepita?”
It was the Countess who put the question.
“Quite sure, your ladyship. I’ve been all around the place, to the stable, grounds, everywhere, and couldn’t hear or see anything of him. Oh! he’s gone, and so glad I am. They’d have made him prisoner too. Thanks to the Blessed Virgin, they haven’t.”
The thanksgiving was for José, and however fervent on Pepita’s part, it was as fervently responded to by the others, the Condesa seeming more especially pleased at the intelligence.
She better understood its importance, for, but the hour before, she had given him conditional instructions, and hoped he might be now in the act of carrying them out.
Upheld by this hope, which the Doña Luisa, when told of it, shared with her, they less irksomely passed the hours.
But at length, alas! it, too, was near being given up, as the night grew later, nearing midnight. Then the little mertiza came in charged with new intelligence; not so startling, since they anticipated it. The Dueno had got home, and, as themselves, was under arrest. Astounded by what he had learned on return, and angrily protesting, the soldiers had rudely seized hold of him, even refusing him permission to speak with his daughter.
She had harboured a belief that all might be well on the coming home of her father. The last plank was shattered now. From the chair of the cabinet minister Don Ignacio Valverde would step direct into the cell of a prison! Nothing uncommon in the political history of Mexico—only one of its “cosas.”
On their feet they were now, and had come close to the door, which was held slightly open by Pepita. There they stood listening to what was going on outside. The sounds of revelry lately proceeding from the sala grande were no more heard. Instead, calls and words of command in the courtyard, with a bustle of preparation. Through the trellis-work they could see a carriage with horses attached, distinguishable as their own. It was the same which had just brought Don Ignacio from the city. But the heads of the frisones were turned outward, as if it was intended to take them back. Men on horseback were moving around it; soldiers, as could be seen by their armour gleaming in the moonlight.
Those regarding their movements were not left long in suspense as to their meaning. One of the soldiers on foot, whose sleeve chevrons proclaimed him a corporal, stepped up into the corridor, and advancing along it, halted in front of their door. Seeing it open, with faces inside, he made a sort of military salute, in a gruff voice saying: