ght the
news in an hour?"

"Pardon, Lieutenant: both my companion and myself were also hunted by
the same brigands; and we were not able to escape from the woods one
minute sooner than we have done."

"Ah! in that case, I ask your pardon, and that of your companion there,"
continued the Lieutenant, turning to Zapote, "whom I should certainly
have taken for a friend of Arroyo, rather than an enemy to that worthy
individual. Where the devil have I seen you, my good fellow?" he added,
fancying he recognised the features of the deserter.

"Oh! your honour, I have travelled a great deal," replied Zapote, whose
presence of mind did not forsake him. "It would not be strange if--"

"So the Colonel has sent you to apprise me of his situation?" said the
Lieutenant, without waiting for Zapote's explanation.

"We met the Colonel without knowing him," blundered out Gaspar. "It was
only afterwards we learnt it was he."

"Ha! that is very strange!" remarked the Catalan, again turning his eye
upon the men with a suspicious glance.

Gaspar now related how, as he and his companion were flying from the
bandits of Arroyo, Don Rafael had leaped down between them from the
branches of a tree; and how they had parted from him without recognising
him.

So far the story was well enough; but the narrator was treading on
ground that was dangerous for Juan el Zapote. It remained to be
explained how they had been informed, by the ex-comrades of the
deserter, that the fugitive they had encountered was the Colonel
Tres-Villas.

At this point Gaspar hesitated, while the suspicion glances of the
Lieutenant flitted alternately from one to the other. Zapote, however,
came resolutely to the aid of his companion.

"My compadre," said he, "does not wish to tell the whole truth, out of
regard for me. I shall speak for him; and this it is. In going away
from here on his message to the Colonel, my friend Gaspar was captured
by the scouts of Arroyo, and taken to the camp of the guerilleros.
There he stood a very fair chance of losing his life, when, out of
regard for our _compadrazgo_, and old acquaintance' sake, I consented to
assist him at the risk of losing my head."

"Oh! you are then from the camp of Arroyo?"

"Yes," muttered Zapote, in a tone of compunction, "the lamb is sometimes
found in the company of wolves."

"Especially when the lamb so nearly resembles a wolf, that it is
difficult to distinguish them," rejoined the lieutenant