no steps towards obeying his orders,
he stamped impatiently upon the ground, and exclaimed in a stern
peremptory tone,

"Off with them, and quickly! Your shoes and your gamashes!"

"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 senor 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 Senor Don Sebastian,
and of the Gachupina, Senora 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 senor 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.

"Keep your distance!" cried the young man. "None of your hypocritical
caresses! We know each other."

"Hardly, senor," replied Jago, shaking his head. "If you knew me you
would, perhaps, speak in