sons under constraint. _Con
permiso_, I hasten to rectify my error by urging them to honor my humble
abode with their presence."

"I fear that the Senor Commandant will have to excuse _los Americanos_,"
I said.

"The sky is ever a welcome roof to us," added Pike, no less offended
than myself.

"But that is impossible, senores!" urged the Commandant, with growing
concern. He turned appealingly to Malgares--"Pray persuade them, Don
Faciendo! Should they refuse my hospitality I could never forgive
myself!"

"From the first our countrymen have given them the warmest of welcomes,"
remarked Malgares, his chin still high.

"_Por Dios!_ Do I deny it? Yet consider, I have but now received the
gazette from the City of Mexico."

"The gazette?" inquired Malgares, unbending.

"With the account of the terrible Colonel Burr."

"Senor, we will be pleased to accept your hospitality," said Pike.

Immediately there was a general exchange of amicable bows, and the
Commandant conducted us to his quarters. I could see that Malgares was
hardly less eager than Pike and myself to hear the news about Burr. But
diplomacy, no less than etiquette, compelled us to repress our burning
curiosity until our host had exemplified his hospitality with a light
evening meal. As we rose from the table, he remarked that we might
better enjoy our _cigarros_ under the starlight, on the _azotea_.

"_Perdone, amigo_," replied Malgares, suavely. "You spoke of the
gazette. I would hardly venture to say how old was the last gazette
which I saw at Santa Fe."

"_Con permiso_, senores," said the Commandant, bowing to Pike and
myself.

At his command the attendant fetched the gazette, which he took into his
own hands and tendered to us, with a polite bow. When we shook our heads
over the Spanish text, he waved us back to our seats, and proceeded to
translate into French a most extraordinary mess of wild and
contradictory rumors regarding Aaron Burr.

The redoubtable Colonel had descended the Ohio with an immense army; he
had invaded the Province of Texas; he was marching upon Santa Fe; he had
captured New Orleans; he was operating against Pensacola, with a view to
the conquest of the Floridas; he had joined forces with the British
fleet and had sailed to invest Vera Cruz; he was fighting the Eastern
_Americanos_; no! the atheist Jacobin Jefferson had sent a second army
to help him to conquer New Spain. Only the firm stand of the honest and
most upright