The sight, taken in connection with the history deduced from its being in possession of the trooper, was sufficiently horrible.
I did not allow my eyes to dwell upon it; and the shower of blows which I administered to the inhuman scoundrel were not the less heavily dealt on my being told that the finger had belonged to the same corpse which Laundrich had despoiled of its boots!
Ordering the fragment of humanity to be brought along—with the design of some day sending the ring to the friends of the mutilated man—I resumed the route; painfully impressed with the disagreeable circumstances, which had thus disturbed the tranquillity of my temper.
Story 1, Chapter XVII.
A Riderless Horse.
We halted about midway on the road to Jalapa, at a place called Corral Falso, which, literally translated, signifies “The False Enclosure.”
I know not why the name; but certain it is, that a large enclosure of mason work, with a portion of it in ruins, occupied the summit of the slight eminence where the village stands.
This enclosure may have been a “corral” or penn for cattle, or perhaps a “paraje” for pack mules; though it seemed to be no longer used for any purpose—as it exhibited the appearance of a ruin overgrown with bushes and rank weeds.