es of
Captain Ruperto Rivas now formed a more friendly escort.

CHAPTER SIXTY ONE.

CONCLUSION.

About a month after in San Augustin a small two-masted vessel--a
goleta--might have been observed standing on tacks off the coast of
Oaxaca, as if working against the land wind to make to the mouth of Rio
Tecoyama--a stream which runs into the Pacific near the south-western
corner of that State. Only sharp eyes could have seen the schooner; for
it was night, and the night was a very dark one. There were eyes
sharply on the lookout for her, however, anxiously scanning the horizon
to leeward, some of them through glasses. On an elevated spot among the
mangroves, by the river's mouth, a party was assembled, in all about a
score individuals. They were mostly men, though not exclusively; three
female figures being distinguishable, as forming part of the group. Two
of them had the air, and wore the dress, of ladies, somewhat torn and
travel-stained; the third was in the guise of a maid-servant attending
them. They were the Condesa Almonte the Don Luisa Valverde, and her
ever faithful Pepita.

Among the men were six with whom the reader has acquaintance. Don
Ignacio, Kearney, Rock, Rivas, Jose, and he who had been major-domo in
the old monastery, baptismally named Gregorio. Most of the others,
undescribed, had also spent some time in the establishment with the
monks while playing the part of Free Lances. They were, in fact, a
remnant of the band--now broken up and dispersed.

But why! When last seen it looked as though their day of triumph had
come, or was at all events near. So would it have been but for a
betrayal, through which the _pronunciamento_ had miscarried, or rather
did not come off. The Dictator, well informed about it--further warned
by what occurred at San Augustin--had poured troops over the Sierras
into Oaxaca in force sufficient to awe the leaders of the intended
insurrection. It was but by the breadth of a hair that his late Cabinet
Minister, and those who accompanied him, were able to escape to the
sequestered spot where we find them on the shore of the South Sea. To
Alvarez, chief of the Pintos, or "spotted Indians," were they indebted
for safe conduct thither; he himself having adroitly kept clear of all
compromise consequent on that grito unraised. Furthermore, he had
promised to provide them with a vessel in which they might escape out of
the country; and it was for this they were now