“Now, my good friend,” continued the Colonel of Colonels, “there you see the head of our old comrade, Lieutenant Lantejas, which we have brought away from where it was nailed over the gate of the hacienda Del Valle. Conceive, then, what a lucky thing for us! What a splendid revanche we shall have when, in place of the head of the insurgent Lantejas, we shall nail up that of Lantejas the royalist spy!”
“But it is a mistake,” cried Don Cornelio, rubbing the cold sweat from his forehead. “I am not a royalist nor a spy neither. I have the honour to serve the cause of the Independence—”
“Bah! everybody says the same. Besides, without any proofs—”
“But I have proofs. They are in the pocket of my cloak, of which I have been robbed.”
“Who took your cloak?” inquired the Colonel of Colonels.
“Gaspacho,” replied Don Cornelio, who had incidentally learnt the name of the brigand who had despoiled him.
“Ah! that is a terrible misfortune. Gaspacho has just received orders to go in all haste to Las Cruces. He is off by this time, and will not likely be back in less than ten days. You, by that time will have lost your head, and I my cloak and Vicuña hat. Both of them, I know, would have fitted me, since you and I are both of a size. What a damnable misfortune for both of us!”
A fearful cry interrupted the dialogue between Don Cornelio and the Colonel of Colonels. The cry came from the wretched sufferer, who fainted as soon as uttering it.
Almost at the same instant the alcohol shot up its last flickering flame—as the spirit itself was consumed; and in the reddish light of the torches Don Cornelio could perceive the men flitting about like shadows, or rather like demons assisting in the horrible drama that was being enacted.