the Huastecan replied.

"We are going," Driscoll now informed his companions, "to drop in on
Murgie--the hospitable old anaconda."

They acquired a pineapple by purchase, and stopped for their morning
coffee at a hut among numberless orange trees, and at another farther on
for their midday lunch, where they learned that the Hacienda de
Moctezuma was only just beyond the first hill, and only just beyond the
first hill they learned that they had six leagues more to go. They
covered three of these leagues, and were rewarded with the information
that it was fully seven leagues yet. Geography in Mexico was clearly an
elastic quantity. But towards three o'clock a young fellow on a towering
stack of fagots waved his arm over the landscape, and said, "Why, senor,
you are there now." Yes, it was the hacienda, but how far was it to the
hacienda house? Oh, that was still a few little leagues.

In the end, after nightfall, they rode into a very wide valley, where
two broad, shallow rivers joined and flowed on as one through the
lowland. Here, on the brow of a slope, they perceived the walls and the
church tower of what seemed to be a small town. But after one last
inquiry, they learned that it was the seat of Anastasio Murguia's
baronial domain.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HERALD OF THE FAIR GOD

"Les grenouilles se lassant
De l'etat democratique,
Par leur clameurs firent tant
Que Jupin les soumit au pouvoir monarchique."
--_La Fontaine._

A wide country road swept up the slope of the hill, curved in toward the
low outer wall of the little town on the brow, then swept down again.
The portico of the hacienda house was set in the wall where the road
almost touched, so that the traveler could alight at the very threshold
of the venerable place. Mounting the half-dozen steps, Driscoll crossed
a vast porch whose bare cement columns stood as sentinels the entire
length of the high, one-storied facade, and on the heavy double doors he
found a knocker. Visitors were infrequent there, but at last a surprised
barefoot mozo answered the rapping, and in turn brought a short man of
burly girth and charro tightness of breeches. This chubby person bowed
many times and assured Their Mercies over and over again that here they
had their house. Driscoll replied with thanks that in that case he
thought that he and the other two Mercies would be taking possession,
for the night at least.

The man was