“What want you with the Señora?” she inquired, in a tone of angry jealousy. “Have you got the keg of dollars to satisfy you!”
“I have told you already,” rejoined Arroyo, with a demoniac glance at his wife, “that I want her for the purpose of enabling me to extract a ransom from her father. I want her, and will have her. You stay here, and guard the treasure; and by all the devils if you don’t behave yourself better—”
The bandit drew his dagger with such an air of resolution and menace, that the hag, cowed by the gesture, no longer offered opposition to his will. Shrinking to one side, she appeared to busy herself in looking after the keg of dollars.
Meanwhile Don Cornelio and his two acolytes, not caring to remain in such company longer than was absolutely necessary, hastened from the room; and, mounting their restored steeds, rode off into the darkness of the night.
Chapter Sixty Nine.
The Catalan Lieutenant.
It is already known how Don Rafael Tres-Villas had fortified his hacienda of Del Valle, and how, when called elsewhere by his military duties, he had left its garrison of nearly a hundred men, under the command of a Catalonian officer, Lieutenant Veraegui.
On the same day in which he had made a sortie from the hacienda, and succeeded in capturing ten of the besieging guerilleros, the Lieutenant received a despatch from the governor of the province, ordering him, without further delay, to attack the band of Arroyo, and annihilate it, if possible. Then, with his whole troop, to repair to Oajaca, which was now in danger of being besieged by Morelos. The despatch also conveyed to Veraegui the additional intelligence of the raising of the siege of Huajapam, and the total defeat of the besieging forces.