"And a fine reward they got for so doing," retorted the youth.
"Our day will come yet," returned the captain. "You are caballeros, very gentle and noble men, and we are only gavilla, knaves and serfs—therefore have ye hung and shot us, struck us down like oxen, and trampled us under foot, used us worse than snared wolves. Poor Hidalgo!" continued he in a more gentle tone, "you little thought, twelve months before, how you would be peppered by the damnable Gachupins. They rubbed his hands and his poor bald head with brick-dust, slipped a san benito over him, and sent him straight into paradise, where, doubtless, he is now giving concerts, with his musicians and the blessed St Cecilia. Allende ought to be there, too; but he is a soldier, and perhaps they would not let him in amongst the eleven thousand virgins. But enough of this. May we venture humbly to enquire of Don Manuel, what brought him upon this lonely marques-camino? Has your young excellency, perchance, a fancy to take up arms for Mexico and freedom's sake?"
"By the Holy Virgin, Jago, you are an impudent scoundrel, and deserve a beating, for daring to suspect a caballero of such base dispositions."
The Metis smiled scornfully.
"You have chosen the other side, señor," said he, "instead of remaining neutral, which would have been best for you. Ah! beams from bright eyes! Aha!"
"Scoundrel!" cried the youth with menacing tone and gesture, "if your tongue"——
"Speaks," interrupted Jago, "what every guachinango[37] in Mexico sings over his pulque. But love blinds, they say. May I beg to know what you are doing on this road?"
"Mind your own business," replied the angry nobleman, turning his back haughtily upon his interrogator, who gazed at him for a moment with a look of comical astonishment.
"Now, by my poor soul!" exclaimed the captain, "that is an amount of pride which, if divided into a million of doses, would stock every Creole in Mexico with the drug! But listen to me, young sir. All things have their time, says the proverb, and some two years back this behaviour might have been very suitable from your worship towards Jago the arriero; but times are changed since a certain cura, named Hidalgo, hoisted the standard of Mexican liberty. Ah! your nobility, always excepting the very noble Conde San Jago, display their courage in tertulias and ballrooms, in intrigues and camarilla conspiracies; but when it came to hard knocks they crept out of the way, and left the poor priest of Dolores to help himself. Hidalgo did not understand such tricks, and began in right earnest. You should have seen Hidalgo—you would never have thought him the man he was. A short, round, little fellow, with a sanguine smile and lively eyes, and a complexion as olive-green as the Madeira bottles he was so fond of. His head was bald; he used to say his bedstead was too short, and had rubbed all his hair off; but in spite of that, and of his threescore years, he had the sinews of a caguar and the strength of a giant; always on horseback, and a splendid rider, for he had been a lancer in the presidios, and had had many a fight with those devils of Comanches. Ah, Hidalgo! you deserved a better fate!" concluded the patriot captain in a saddened tone.
The young Creole had listened with some interest to this short but graphic sketch of the remarkable man who first, with unexampled boldness, raised the banner of Mexican liberty, and who, as well through the originality of his private life, as through his political virtues and failings, had become an object of idolatry to his friends, and of unappeasable hatred to his opponents. Just as Jago finished speaking, Don Manuel's servants and muleteers made their appearance upon the platform.