ll, could not yet be
seen by the crowd.

Both were nude to the waist, and below it. The eye needed but one
glance at those forms to tell they were women! The long loose hair--in
the one grey, in the other golden--shrouding their cheeks, and hanging
over the necks of the animals, was further proof of this. For one it
was not needed. The outlines were those of a Venus. A sculptor's eye
could not have detected a fault. In the form of the other, age had
traced its marks. It was furrowed, angled, lean, and harsh to the eye
of the observer.

Oh, God! what a sight for the eye of Carlos the cibolero! Those
involuntary riders _were his mother and sister_!

And just at that moment his eye rested upon them--ay, and recognised
them at a glance. An arrow passing through his heart could not have
inflicted keener pain. A sharp, half-stifled scream escaped his lips--
the only sign of suffering the ear might detect. He was silent from
that moment. His hard quick breathing alone told that he lived. He did
not faint or fall. He did not retreat from the window. He stood like a
statue in the position he had first taken, hugging the wall with his
breast, to steady himself. His eyes remained fixed on the group, and
fixed too in their sockets, as if glued there!

Roblado and Vizcarra, in the centre of the square, enjoyed their
triumph. They saw him at the embrasure. He saw not them. He had for
the moment forgotten that they existed.

At a signal the bell rang in the tower of the parroquia, and then
ceased. This was the cue for commencing the horrid ceremony.

The black drivers led their animals from the wall, and, heading them in
a direction parallel to one side of the Plaza, stood still. The faces
of the women were now turned partially to the crowd, but their
dishevelled hair sufficiently concealed them. The padres approached.
Each selected one. They mumbled a few unintelligible phrases in the
ears of their victims, flourished the crucifix before their faces, and
then, retiring a step, muttered some directions to the two ruffians in
the rear.

These with ready alacrity took up their cue, gathered the thick ends of
their cuartos around their wrists, and plied the lash upon the naked
hacks of the women. The strokes were deliberate and measured--they were
counted! Each seemed to leave its separate weal upon the skin. Upon
the younger female they were more conspicuous--not that they had been
delivered with great