“What is this fandango Gode has been telling me about?”
“Ah! true. We are to have a famous one to-night. You’ll go, of course?”
“Out of curiosity.”
“Very well, you will have your curiosity gratified. The blustering old grampus of a Governor is to honour the ball with his presence; and it is said, his pretty señora; that I don’t believe.”
“Why not?”
“He’s too much afraid lest one of these wild Americanos might whip her off on the cantle of his saddle. Such things have been done in this very valley. By Saint Mary! she is good-looking,” continued Saint Vrain, in a half-soliloquy, “and I knew a man—the cursed old tyrant! only think of it!”
“Of what?”
“The way he has bled us. Five hundred dollars a waggon, and a hundred of them at that; in all, fifty thousand dollars!”
“But will he pocket all this? Will not the Government—?”
“Government! no, every cent of it. He is the Government here; and, with the help of this instalment, he will rule these miserable wretches with an iron rod.”