The news was anything but agreeable to the Catalonian Lieutenant. In the alcavala—which he had for the past two years been accustomed to levy on all the traffic between Puebla and Oajaca—he had found excellent pay for his soldiers; and being a man not over scrupulous, though brave as a lion, he felt greatly disinclined to change his comfortable quarters. A fierce royalist, moreover, the news from Huajapam excited his fury against the insurgents to the highest pitch; and he blamed himself for the clemency he had displayed that very morning in hanging four of the guerilleros he had taken, up by the neck, instead of by the heels—as he had done with three of their comrades.
About an hour after Don Cornelio Lantejas and his travelling companions had passed Del Valle—and only a few minutes from the time, when, thanks to the darkness of the night, two of Arroyo’s followers had found an opportunity to carry off the heads of their three comrades—two men presented themselves in front of the fortified hacienda.
They were Gaspar and Juan de Zapote, who had hidden themselves during the day, and awaited the friendly darkness, to enable them to make their way through the lines of the besieging force.
“I see no one,” muttered Zapote, as they glided into the avenue. “The place appears to be deserted! It’s likely enough that my ex-comrades have abandoned the siege.”
“So much the better—let us keep on then!” rejoined Gaspar.
“Gently, gently, compadre!” counselled Zapote. “You forget that my costume is of the military kind, and likely to make a sentinel suspicious of me. A carbine shot might be the only hail we should get from one of these Royalists.”
“Your physiognomy, amigo, is more likely than your costume to beget suspicions.”
“Ah! that comes of the bad company I have been keeping of late.”
“Never mind that. I shall go forward alone, and make myself known to the sentries. I can then introduce you as a comrade, devoted to the service of Don Rafael Tres-Villas, and who offers to assist in delivering the Colonel from danger.”
“Precisely so, that is, if the Colonel be still alive.”