Chapter Forty Eight.
Padre Jarauta.
We were not long in learning into whose hands we had fallen; for the name “Jarauta” was on every tongue. They were the dreaded “Jarochos” of the bandit priest.
“We’re in for it now,” said Raoul, deeply mortified at the part he had taken in the affair with the curé. “It’s a wonder they have kept us so long. Perhaps he’s not here himself, and they’re waiting for him.”
As Raoul said this the clatter of hoofs sounded along the narrow road; and a horseman came galloping up to the rancho, riding over everything and everybody with a perfect recklessness.
“That’s Jarauta,” whispered Raoul. “If he sees me—but it don’t matter much,” he added, in a lower tone: “we’ll have a quick shrift all the same: he can’t more than hang—and that he’ll be sure to do.”
“Where are these Yankees?” cried Jarauta, leaping out of his saddle.
“Here, Captain,” answered one of the Jarochos, a hideous-looking griffe (Note 1) dressed in a scarlet uniform, and apparently the lieutenant of the band.