“Do you know,” said he, addressing the man, “if there be any road by which we can get round the hacienda, and approach it from the opposite side?”
The domestic replied in the affirmative. He knew a path by which he could conduct the troopers to the rear of the building, and by which they might advance up to the very walls without their approach being discovered.
“Go ahead then along with the scouts!” directed Don Rafael. “It is necessary we take these robbers by surprise, else they may get off from us as they have done before.”
The guide obeyed the order, and placing himself at the head of the advance guard, the march was resumed.
The path by which the domestic conducted them made a détour round the foot of the hill, upon which the hacienda stood, and where, but a few hours earlier, Don Cornelio Lantejas had seen the flames shining so brightly through the windows. All was now silent as the tomb; and no sound of any kind announced that the approach of the assailing party was suspected.
A little further on the guide halted and pointed out to Don Rafael several paths that branched off from the one they were following, and by which the party, separating into several detachments, might completely encompass the hacienda. This was exactly what Don Rafael wanted.
Reserving to himself the command of the main body, he detached three smaller parties by these paths—one under the direction of Veraegui, the others each commanded by an alferez. These, at a given signal, were to attack on right, left, and in the rear; while Don Rafael himself with the howitzer would storm the building in front. Each party was provided with a supply of hand-grenades, to be thrown into the courtyard of the hacienda, or into such other places as the enemy might seek refuge in.
So long as the assailants were sheltered from view by the trees and shrubs that skirted the hill, they approached without being discovered: but the moment they became uncovered, on getting nearer to the walls, shouts of alarm and shots fired by the sentries summoned the garrison to the defence; and an irregular fusillade was commenced from the azotéa of the building.
The different parties of the attacking force, without heeding this, kept on throwing their grenades as they advanced; while the party of Don Rafael, on arriving in front of the building, at once mounted the howitzer upon its carriage, and opened fire upon the main gateway.
The first shot crushed through the heavy timbers, carrying away one of the posterns of the gate.