ory these advantages had been to some
extent neutralised by the ill-success of the governmental generalship
and by the brilliant successes of two great Carlist leaders--Tomas
Zumalacarregui and Ramon Cabrera.

These men perfectly understood the conditions of warfare among their
native mountains, and had inflicted defeat upon defeat on every Cristino
general sent against them.

But a cloud had of late overspread the fair prospects of the party.
Their great general, Tomas Zumalacarregui, had been killed by a cannon
ball at the siege of Bilbao, and Cabrera, though unsurpassed as a
guerrilla leader, had not the swift Napoleonic judgment and breadth of
view of his predecessor. Add to this that a new premier, Mendizabal, and
a new general, Espartero, were directing operations from Madrid. The
former, already half English, had begun to carry out his great scheme of
filling the pockets of the civil and military authorities by conveying
to the government all the property belonging to the religious orders
throughout Spain, who, like our friend the Abbot of Montblanch, had
resolutely and universally espoused the cause of Don Carlos.

It was an early rumour of this intention which had so stirred the
resentment of Don Baltasar Varela, and caused him to look about for some
instrument of vengeance to prevent the accomplishment of the designs of
"that _burro_ of the English Stock Exchange," as his enemies freely
named Mendizabal.

But Cristina of Naples was a typical woman of the Latin races, and,
however strongly she might be determined to establish her daughter on
the throne of Spain, she was also a good Catholic, and any oppression of
Holy Church was abhorrent to her nature.

Upon this probability, which amounted to certainty in his mind, the
Abbot of Montblanch resolved to proceed.

Moreover, it was an open secret that a few months after the death of her
husband Fernando, Cristina had married Munoz, one of the handsomest
officers of her bodyguard. For this and other Bourbon delinquencies,
conceived in the good old Neapolitan manner, the Spaniards generally had
the greatest respect--not even being scandalized when the Queen created
her new partner Duke of Rianzares, or when, in her _role_ of honorary
colonel of dragoons, she appeared in a uniform of blue and white,
because these were the colours of the "Immaculate Conception."

But enough has been said to indicate the nature of the adventure which
our hero had before him, wh