uring the dry season it ran gently and silently along, but in the
season of rain it would suddenly change into an impetuous torrent that
inundated the whole plain, bearing huge rocks along in its current, and
every year widening its channel.

Perhaps the most powerful of Arab chiefs, the richest patriarch of
ancient times, never counted such superb and numerous herds as roamed
over the pasturage of the Hacienda del Venado.

About an hour before sunset--on that same day on which the travellers
departed from La Poza--two men, one on horseback, the other mounted on a
mule, were seen traversing the plain in the direction of the hacienda.
Both horse and mule were each a splendid specimen of his kind--the horse
with fiery eye, broad chest, and curving, swan-like neck, was scarce
more to be admired than the mule, that with fine, delicate limbs,
rounded flanks, and shining coat, walked side by side with him.

This horseman was the master of the hacienda, Don Augustin Pena. His
costume consisted of a hat of Guayaquil grass, a shirt of the finest
cambric, an embroidered vest, and silk velvet pantaloons fastened down
the sides with large buttons of gold.

His companion, the rider of the mule, was the chaplain of the hacienda,
a reverend Franciscan monk in a sort of half convent costume. This
consisted of an ample blue frock confined around the waist with a thick
cord of silk, the tassels of which hung down below his knees. Beneath
this appeared a pair of large riding-boots heavily spurred. Upon his
head a grey beaver, somewhat jauntily set, gave to the Franciscan an
appearance rather soldier-like than monastic.

The haciendado appeared to be regarding with a look of pride his rich
possessions--extending beyond view on every side of him--as if he was
reflecting how much this kind of wealth was superior to golden ingots
shut idly in a chest; while the monk seemed to be absorbed in some
profound reverie.

"By Saint Julian! the patron saint of travellers!" said Don Augustin,
breaking silence, "you have been more than twenty-four hours absent! I
was afraid, reverend father, that some jaguar had swallowed both you and
your mule."

"Man proposes, and God disposes," replied the monk. "When I took my
departure from the hacienda, I did not except to be gone more than a few
hours--giving Christian burial to poor Joaquin, that had been killed by
one of the bulls--but just as I had blessed the earth where they had
buried him, a y