exclamation, "_Madre de
Dios_! 'Tis not my brother!"

It was not, but a man pale and breathless--a _peon_ of the
establishment--who, on seeing her, gasped out,--

"Senorita! I bring sad news. There's been a mutiny at the cuartel--a
_pronunciamento_. The rebels have had it all their own way, and I am
sorry to tell you that the colonel, your brother--"

"What of him? Speak! Is he--"

"Not killed, _nina_; only wounded, and a prisoner."

Adela Miranda did not swoon nor faint. She was not of the nervous kind.
Nurtured amid dangers, most of her life accustomed to alarms from
Indian incursions, as well as revolutionary risings, she remained calm.

She dispatched messengers to the town, secretly, one after another; and,
while awaiting their reports, knelt before an image of the Virgin, and
prayed.

Up till midnight her couriers went, and came. Then one who was more
than a messenger--her brother himself!

As already reported to her, he was wounded, and came accompanied by the
surgeon of the garrison, a friend. They arrived at the house in hot
haste, as if pursued.

And they were so, as she soon after learnt.

There was just time for Colonel Miranda to select the most cherished of
his _penates_; pack them on a _recua_ of mules, then mount, and make
away.

They had scarce cleared the premises when the myrmidons of the new
commandant, led by the man himself, rode up and took possession of the
place.

By this time, and by good luck, the ruffian was intoxicated--so drunk he
could scarce comprehend what was passing around him. It seemed like a
dream to him to be told that Colonel Miranda had got clear away; a more
horrid one to hear that she whom he designed for a victim had escaped
from his clutches.

When morning dawned, and in soberer mood he listened to the reports of
those sent in pursuit--all telling the same tale of non-success--he
raved like one in a frenzy of madness. For the escape of the late
Commandant of Albuquerque had robbed him of two things--to him the
sweetest in life--one, revenge on the man he heartily hated; the other,
possession of the woman he passionately loved.

CHAPTER SIX.

SURROUNDED.

A plain of pure sand, glaring red-yellow under the first rays of the
rising sun; towards the east and west apparently illimitable, but
interrupted northward by a chain of table-topped hills, and along its
southern edge by a continuous cliff, rising wall-like to the height of
several hund