"We shall have enough to do to get away ourselves, laden as we are," said one of the men, pointing to a number of large packages of plunder lying on the grass hard by. "Who is to take charge of the prisoner? Not I, for one."
A murmur among the other brigands approved this mutinous speech.
"Cuatro tiros," suggested a voice.
"Yes," said the leader, "to bring down the enemy's pickets upon us. They are not a quarter of a league off. Pedro, lend me your knife. We will see," he added with a cruel grin, "how the gallant colonel will look cropped."
A knife-blade glanced for a moment in the torchlight as it was passed round the head of the Christino officer.
"Toma! chicos!" said the savage, as he threw the ears of the unhappy Ignacio amongst his men. A ferocious laugh from the banditti welcomed this act of barbarous cruelty.
The leader sheathed the knife twice in his victim's breast before restoring it to it's owner, and the Carlists, snatching up their booty, disappeared in the direction of the mountains.
At daybreak the following morning, some peasants going to their labour in the fields saw the body of the unfortunate officer still fastened to the tree. They unbound him, and, perceiving some signs of life, carried him into Logroño, where they gave the alarm. A detachment was immediately sent out to the Retiro, but it was too late to pursue the assassins; and all that could be done was to bring in the bodies of Don Torribio, his daughter, and niece, who were lying dead in the supper-room. An old groom and two women servants had shared a like fate; the horses had been taken out of the stable, and the house ransacked of every thing valuable.
For several weeks Ignacio Guerra remained wavering, as it were, between life and death. At length he recovered; but his health was so much impaired, that the surgeons forbade his again encountering the fatigues of a campaign. Enfeebled in body, heartbroken at the horrible fate of Gertrudis, and foreseeing the speedy termination of the war, consequent on the concluded treaty of Bergara, he threw up his commission, and left Spain to seek forgetfulness of his misfortunes in foreign travel.
In all French towns of any consequence, and in many whose size and population would almost class them under the denomination of villages, there is some favourite spot serving as an evening lounge for the inhabitants, whither, on Sundays and fête-days especially, the belles and élégants of the place resort, to criticize each other's toilet, and parade up and down a walk varying from one to two or three hundred yards in extent.