"You will find my shoes too tight for you, I expect," replied Don Manuel, raising a pistol. The Metis, on his side, covered the young nobleman with his carbine.
"Keep still, Jago," cried Don Manuel sharply, "or I will so shoe you that you shall remember Manuel M——to the very last day of your life."
The patriot officer pushed aside the hair which hung over his forehead and eyes, gazed at the Creole for a few seconds in great astonishment, and then, letting his gun fall, ran towards him with outstretched arms.
"Santa Virgen!" exclaimed he—"By the blessed Redeemer of Atolnico! May I never see heaven if it is not the very noble señor Don Manuel, nephew of his excellency Count San Jago, the first cavalier in Mexico, and son of the not-quite-so-noble but still very-tolerably-noble Señor Don Sebastian, and of the Gachupina, Señora Donna Anna de Villagio, and cortejo of the greatest angel in Mexico, and consequently in the whole world, the Countess Elvira!"
This characteristic and thoroughly Mexican apostrophe was accompanied by vehement gesticulation on the part of the Metis, in whose expressive and variable countenance a strange mixture of fun and irony, with reverence for the illustrious persons he was speaking of, was discernible. He was interrupted in his tirade by Don Manuel.
"Have you done?" said the latter.
"Not yet," replied the captain. "May the Virgin of Guadalupe for ever deprive me of those comforts to Mexican palates, Havannah cigars and aguardiente, if I can guess what so noble a señor as yourself is doing on such a rugged path as the old Camino de Cortes, instead of taking the usual road by Otumba."
"I can tell you the reason," replied Don Manuel. "Our friends have commissioned me to have you hung, and that as soon as possible."
"Indeed!" said the captain with a sly smile; "and would you be good enough, just for the joke's sake, to tell me the names of those friends? I might, perhaps, find an opportunity of returning their kindness."
As he spoke he advanced a step towards the Creole, in a sort of familiar way.