A doctrine which the young Irishman was not disposed to dispute just at that time, being otherwise and better occupied, holding soft hands in his, words exchanging with sweet lips, not unaccompanied by kisses. Near at hand Don Ruperto was doing the same, his vis-à-vis being the Condesa.
But these moments of bliss were brief—had need be. The raid of the Free Lances down to San Augustin was a thing of risk, only to have been attempted by lovers who believed their loved ones were in deadly danger. In another hour or less, the Hussars who had escaped would report themselves at San Angel and Chapultepec—then there would be a rush of thousands in the direction of Tlalpam.
So there was in reality—soldiers of all arms, “horse, foot, and dragoons.” But on arrival there they found the house of Don Ignacio Valverde untenanted; even the domestics had gone out of it; the carriage, too, which has played such an important part in our tale, along with the noble frisones. The horses had not been taken out of it, nor any change made in the company it carried off. Only in the driver, the direction, and cortège. José again held the reins, heading his horses up the mountain road, instead of towards Mexico; while, in place of Colonel Santander’s Hussars, the Free Lances of Captain Ruperto Rivas now formed a more friendly escort.
Chapter Sixty One.
Conclusion.
About a month after in San Augustin a small two-masted vessel—a goleta—might have been observed standing on tacks off the coast of Oaxaca, as if working against the land wind to make to the mouth of Rio Tecoyama—a stream which runs into the Pacific near the south-western corner of that State. Only sharp eyes could have seen the schooner; for it was night, and the night was a very dark one. There were eyes sharply on the lookout for her, however, anxiously scanning the horizon to leeward, some of them through glasses. On an elevated spot among the mangroves, by the river’s mouth, a party was assembled, in all about a score individuals. They were mostly men, though not exclusively; three female figures being distinguishable, as forming part of the group. Two of them had the air, and wore the dress, of ladies, somewhat torn and travel-stained; the third was in the guise of a maid-servant attending them. They were the Condesa Almonté the Don Luisa Valverde, and her ever faithful Pepita.
Among the men were six with whom the reader has acquaintance. Don Ignacio, Kearney, Rock, Rivas, José, and he who had been major-domo in the old monastery, baptismally named Gregorio. Most of the others, undescribed, had also spent some time in the establishment with the monks while playing the part of Free Lances. They were, in fact, a remnant of the band—now broken up and dispersed.
But why! When last seen it looked as though their day of triumph had come, or was at all events near. So would it have been but for a betrayal, through which the pronunciamento had miscarried, or rather did not come off. The Dictator, well informed about it—further warned by what occurred at San Augustin—had poured troops over the Sierras into Oaxaca in force sufficient to awe the leaders of the intended insurrection. It was but by the breadth of a hair that his late Cabinet Minister, and those who accompanied him, were able to escape to the sequestered spot where we find them on the shore of the South Sea. To Alvarez, chief of the Pintos, or “spotted Indians,” were they indebted for safe conduct thither; he himself having adroitly kept clear of all compromise consequent on that grito unraised. Furthermore, he had promised to provide them with a vessel in which they might escape out of the country; and it was for this they were now on the lookout.