veritable Juan el Zapote, while his companion was
the honest Gaspar.

"Who are these men?" indignantly inquired Don Rafael. "Ah! it is you,
my brave fellows?" continued he, softening down, as he recognised the
two adventurers whom he had met in the forest, and whose advice had
proved so advantageous to him. "What do you want with me? You see I am
engaged at present, and have no time to attend to you?"

"True!" replied Juan el Zapote. "We see your honour is occupied; and
that we have arrived at an inconvenient time! Ah! it is the Senor
Arroyo with whom you are engaged! But your honour must know that we
have a message for you, and have been running after you for twenty-four
hours, without being able to deliver it. It is one of life and death."

"Mercy! mercy!" shrieked Arroyo, in a tone of piteous appeal.

"Hold your tongue, you stupid!" cried Juan el Zapote, reproachfully
addressing his former chief. "Don't you see that the Colonel has
business with us? You are hindering him from attending to it."

"A message of life and death!" repeated Don Rafael, his heart suddenly
bounding with a triumphant hope. "From whom do you come?"

"Will your honour direct your people to step aside?" whispered Zapote.
"It is a confidential mission with which we are charged--a love
message," added he, in a still lower tone.

By a commanding gesture of the Colonel--for the communications of Zapote
had deprived him of the power of speech--the troopers moved off to one
side, and he was left alone with the messengers--to whom he now bent
downwards from his saddle, in order that their words might not be heard.

What they said to him need not be repeated: enough to know that when
their message was finally delivered it appeared to produce a magical
effect upon the Colonel, who was heard to give utterance to a stifled
cry of joy.

Holding by one hand the withers of his horse--which he appeared to need
as a support to hinder him from falling out of his saddle--with the
other he was observed to conceal something in the breast of his coat,
apparently a packet which the messengers had handed to him. They, in
their turn, were seen to bound joyfully over the ground at some word
which Don Rafael had spoken to them, and which seemed to have produced
on Zapote an effect resembling the dance of Saint Vitus.

In another moment the Colonel drew his dagger from its sheath, and
called out in a voice loud enough to be heard by all:--"God does no