s and legs of the prostrate guerillero, and
firmly bound them together.

"Now, then!" continued Don Rafael, "let him be attached to the tail of
my horse!"

Notwithstanding the terrible acts of retaliation, which the royalist
soldiers were accustomed to witness, after each victory on one side or
the other, this order was executed in the midst of the most profound
silence. They knew the fearful nature of the punishment about to be
inflicted.

In a few seconds' time the end of the lazo, which bound the limbs of the
brigand, was tightly looped around the tail of the horse; and Don Rafael
had leaped back into his saddle.

Before using the spur, he cast behind him one last look of hatred upon
the murderer of his father; while a smile of contempt upon his lips was
the only reply which he vouchsafed to the assassin's appeal for mercy.

"Craven! you need not ask for life!" he said, after a time. "Antonio
Valdez met his death in the same fashion, like yourself meanly begging
for mercy. You shall do as he did. I promised it when I met you at the
hacienda Las Palmas, and I shall now keep my word."

As Don Rafael finished speaking, his spurs were heard striking against
the flanks of his horse, that, apparently dismayed at the awful purpose
for which he was to be used, reared violently upon his hind legs, and
refused to advance! At the same instant the bandit uttered a wild cry
of agony, which resounded far over the lake, till it rang in echoes from
the sides of the enchanted mountain. Like an echo, too, came the
strange snorting from the nostrils of Roncador, who, at a second
pricking of the spur, made one vast bound forward, and then suddenly
stopped trembling and affrighted. The body of the bandit, suddenly
jerked forward, had fallen back heavily to the earth, while groans of
agony escaped from his quivering lips.

Just at this moment--this fearful crisis for the guerilla leader--two
men were seen running towards the spot, and with all the speed that
their legs were capable of making. It was evident that they were in
search of Don Rafael with some message of great importance.

"A word with you, Colonel, in the name of God!" cried one of them, as
soon as they were near enough to be heard. "For Heaven's sake do not
ride off till we have spoken to you. My companion and I have had the
worst of luck in trying to find you."

The man who spoke, and who had exhausted his last breath in the words,
was no other than the