lancer and bound him on his horse? Valdivia had no need to tell me; his nervous arms gave me more information on that subject than his words. The camp had again become calm, during the short absence of Valdivia; it only remained for us bravely to continue the undertaking so happily commenced. We then went without delay to rejoin the horsemen who awaited us in the plain, and at the head of this small troop, we rode towards the hacienda, spurring to the utmost our weary horses. During the journey, we interrogated the prisoner concerning the situation and strength of the Spanish garrison which occupied the hacienda of San Eustaquio. This garrison was composed, said the lancer, of about 500 men, under the orders of Commandant Larrainzar, a proud, brutal man, detested by his soldiers. We obtained still further information of the position of the troops and the places least defended. It was not, however, without great difficulty that we were able with our attenuated horses, and on terrible roads, to clear the two or three leagues which separated the hacienda from our camp, You will readily understand why the route was so difficult, when I explain our situation to you. Not far from the town of Zacatecas, which General Rayou sought to obtain, although he knew it to be occupied by the enemy, the Sierra-Madre is divided into two branches. The first, that on which we are now stationed, runs from north to south, parallel with the shores of the Pacific; the other runs from north to east, following the curve of the Gulf of Mexico. On one of the most elevated points of this last ramification was situated the hacienda of which we wished to possess ourselves. It occupied the extremity of one of the largest plains of the Cordillera.

PART II.-THE VOLADERO.

Having arrived at the hacienda unperceived, thanks to the obscurity of a moonless night, we came to a halt under some large trees, at some distance from the building, and I rode forward from my troop in order to reconnoitre the place. The hacienda, so far as I could see in gliding across the trees, formed a huge massive parallelogram, strengthened by enormous buttresses of hewn stone. The rear was protected by an unfathomable abyss. Along this chasm,

the walls of the hacienda almost formed the continuation of another perpendicular, one chiselled by nature herself in the rocks, to the bottom of which the eye could not penetrate, for the mists which incessantly boiled up from below did not allow it to measure their awful depth. This place was known in the country by the name of “the Voladero."

I had explored all sides of the building except this, when I know not what scruple of military honor incited me to continue my ride along the ravine which protected the rear of the hacienda. Between the walls and the precipice there was a narrow pathway about six feet wide; by day, the pas sage would not have been dangerous, but by night it was a perilous enterprise. The walls of the farm took an extensive sweep, the path crept around their entire basement, and to follow it to the end in the darkness, only two paces from the edge of a perpendicular chasm, was no very easy task even for as practised a horseman as myself. Nevertheless, I did not hesitate, but boldly urged my horse between the walls of the farm-house and the abyss of the Voladero. I had got over half the distance without accident, when all of a sudden my horse neighed aloud. This neigh made me shudder. I had reached a pass where the ground was but just wide enough for the four legs of a horse, and it was impossible to retrace my steps.

"Halloo!" I exclaimed aloud, at the risk of betraying myself,-which was even less dangerous than encountering a horseman in front of me on such a road. "There is a Christian passing along the ravine; keep back"

It was too late; at that moment a man on horseback passed round one of the buttresses, which here and there obstructed this accursed pathway. He advanced towards me. I trembled in my saddle; my forehead was bathed in a cold sweat.

"For the love of God! can you not return?" I exclaimed, terrified at the fearful situation in which we were both placed.

"Impossible!" replied the horseman, in a hollow voice.

I recommended my soul to God. To turn our horses round for want of room, to back them along the path which we had traversed, or even to dismount from them,-these were three impossibilities which placed us both in

presence of a certain doom; between two horsemen so placed upon this fearful path, had they been father and son, one of them must inevitably have become the prey of the abyss. But a few seconds had passed, and we were already face to face,--the unknown horseman and myself; our horses were head to head, and their nostrils, dilated with terror, mingled together their fiery breathing. Both of us halted in a dead silence; above was the smooth and lofty wall of the hacienda; on the other side, but three feet distant from the wall, opened the horrible gulf. Was it an enemy I had before my eyes? The love of my country, which boiled at that period in my young bosom, led me to hope it was.

"Are you for Mexico and the Insurgents ?” I exclaimed in a moment of excitement, ready to spring upon the unknown horseman if he answered me in the negative.

Mexico e Insurgente—that is my watchword," replied the cavalier; "I am the Colonel Garduño.'

"And I am the Captain Castaños !"

Our acquaintance was of long standing. and, but for our mutual agitation, we should have had no need to exchange our names, The colonel had left us two days since at the head of a detachment, which we supposed to be either prisoners or cut off, for he had not been seen to return to the camp. "Well! colonel," I exclaimed, I am sorry you are not a Spaniard,--for you perceive that one of us must yield the pathway to the other."

Our horses had the bridle on their necks, and I put my hand in the holsters of my saddle to draw out my pistols.

"I see it so plainly," replied the colonel with alarming coolness, "that I should already have blown out the brains of your horse, but for the fear lest mine, in a moment of terror, should precipitate me with your self to the bottom of the abyss."

I remarked, in fact, that the colonel already held his pistols in his hand. We both maintained the most profound silence. Our horses felt the danger like ourselves, and remained as immovable as if their feet were nailed to the ground. My excitement had entirely subsided. "What are we going to do?" I demanded of the colonel.

It was in truth the sole means of resolving the difficulty. "There are nevertheless some precautions to take," said the colonel. He who shall be condemned by lot shall retire backwards. It will be but a feeble chance of escape for him, I admit; but in short, it is a chance, and especially one in favor of the winner."

"You cling not to life then?" I cried out, terrified at the sang-froid with which this proposition was put to me.

"I cling to life more than yourself," sharply replied the colonel, "for I have a mortal outrage to avenge. But the time is slipping away: are you ready to proceed to draw the last lottery, at which one of us will ever assist?"

How were we to proceed to this drawing by lot by means of the wet finger, like infants, or by head and tail like the schoolboys? Both ways were impracticable. Our hands imprudently stretched out above the heads of our frightened horses might cause them to give a fatal start. Should we toss up a piece of coin. The night was too dark to enable us to distinguish which side fell upwards. The colonel bethought him of an expedient of which I never should have dreamed.

"Listen to me, captain," said the colonel, to whom I had communicated my perplexities, "I have another way. The terror which our horses feel makes them draw every moment a burning breath. The first of us two whose horse shall neigh-"

"Wins!" I hastily exclaimed.

"Not so,-shall be the loser. I know that you are a countryman, and such as you can do whatever you please with your horse. As to myself, who but last year wore the gown of a theological student, I fear your equestrian prowess. You may be able to make your horse neigh,-to hinder him from doing so is a very different matter."

We waited in deep and anxious silence until the voice of one of our horses should break forth. This silence lasted for a minutc,-for an age! It was my horse who neighed the first. The colonel gave no external manifestation of his joy, but no doubt he thanked God to the very bottom of his soul.

nel, with failing voice.

" 'Will five minutes be sufficient?"

"They will," I replied. The colonel drew out his watch. I addressed towards the heavens, brilliant with stars, which I thought I was looking up to for the last time, an intense and a burning prayer.

"It is time," said the colonel.

I answered nothing, and with infirm hand gathered up the bridle of my horse, which I drew within my fingers, which were agitated by a nervous tremor.

"Yet one moment more," I said to the colonel, "for I have need of all my coolness to carry into execution the fearful manœuvre which I am about to commence." 'Granted," replied Garduño.

My education, as I have told you, had been in the country. My childhood, and part of my earliest youth, had almost been passed on horseback. I may say without flattering myself, that if there was any one in the world capable of executing this equestrian feat, it was myself. I rallied myself with an almost supernatural effort, and succeeded in recovering my entire selfpossession in the very face of death. Take it at the worst,-I had already braved it too often to be any longer alarmed at it. From that instant I dared to hope afresh.

As soon as my horse felt, for the first time since my rencontre with the colonel, the bit compressing his mouth, I perceived that he trembled beneath me. I strengthened my self firmly on my stirrups, to make the terrified animal understand that his master no longer trembled. I held him up with the bridle and the hams as every good horseman does in a dangerous passage, and, with the bridle, the body, and the spur together, succeeded in backing him a few paces. His head was already at a greater distance from that of the horse of the colonel, who encouraged me all he could with his voice. This done, I let the poor trembling brute, who obeyed me in spite of his terror, repose himself for a few moments,-and then recommenced the same manœuvre. sudden I felt his hind legs give way under A horrible shudder ran through my whole frame; I closed my eyes as if about to roll to the bottom of the abyss, and I gave to my body a violent impulse on the side next the hacienda, the surface of which offered not a single projection, not a single tuft of weeds to check my descent. This

ine.

All on a

sudden movement, joined to the desperate struggles of my horse, was the salvation of my life. He had sprung up again on his legs, which seemed ready to fall from under him, so desperately did I feel them tremble,

I had succeeded in reaching, between the brink of the precipice and the wall of the building, a spot some few inches broader. A few more would have enabled me to turn him round, but to attempt it here would have been fatal, and I dared not venture. I sought to resume my backward progress, step by step. Twice the horse threw himself on his hind legs and fell down upon the same spot. It was in vain to urge him anew, either with voice, bridle, or spur; the animal obstinately refused to take a single step in the rear. Nevertheless I did not feel my courage yet exhausted, for I had no desire to die. One last and solitary chance of safety suddenly appeared to me like a flash of light, and I resolved to employ it. Through the fastening of my boot and in reach of my hand was passed a sharp and keen knife; I drew it forth from its sheath. With my left hand I began caressing the mane of my horse, all the while letting him hear my voice. The poor animal replied to my caresses by a plaintive neighing; then, not to alarm him abruptly, my hand followed by little and little the curve of his nervous neck, and finally rested upon the spot where the last of the vertebræ unites itself with the cranium. The horse trembled, but I calmed him with my voice. When I felt his very life, so to speak, palpitate in his brain beneath my fingers, I leaned over towards the wall, my feet gently slid from the stirrups, and with one vigorous blow I buried the pointed blade of my knife in the seat of the vital principle. The animal fell as if thunderstruck, without a single motion, and, for myself, with my knees almost as high as my chin, I found myself on horseback across a corpse. I was saved, I uttered a triumphant cry, which was responded to by a cry of the colonel, and which the abyss re-echoed with a hollow sound, as if it felt that its prey had escaped from it. I quitted the saddle, sat myself down between the wall and the body of my horse, and vigorously pushed with my feet against the carcass of the wretched animal, which rolled down into the abyss. I then arose, cleared at a few

bounds the distance which separated the place where I was from the plain; and under the irresistible reaction of the terror which I had so long repressed, I sunk in a swoon upon the ground. When I reopened my eyes, the colonel was by my side.

PART III.THE HACIENDA.

After having congratulated me on my address and presence of mind, Garduño asked me by what chance I was alone, at that hour of the night, near a building containing a Spanish garrison. I then told him of the project which had brought us thither -myself and my men.

"How many soldiers have you under your orders?" he inquired of me.

"About a hundred,—all resolute to drink or die." At this news, I saw the officer's eyes sparkle with almost ferocious satisfaction. "You, too, are suffering from thirst?" I resumed.

"The thirst of vengeance!" replied the officer; "and this is why, in spite of the almost entire loss of my detachment, I wander day and night about the neighborhood to find some occasion of avenging myself."

"Of what, colonel?"

"An outrage, which I shall never outlive if I wash it not out in blood; or unless, at least, I render back shame for shame. I have still about fifty men here," continued the colonel, who seemed unwilling to explain himself any further, “and I am ready to join them with yours."

I directed the colonel to the spot where he would find them, and hastened to rejoin my troops, who awaited me impatiently. I had scarcely related my adventure to Valdivia when Garduño joined us with his fifty men. We learned from him that he had attacked the hacienda the day before, and had been repulsed with considerable loss. We set ourselves to deliberate, and the colonel submitted the Spanish prisoner to a severe examination. He then gave the order to march, and, as we drew near the hacienda

"Think you," he said to the Spaniard, "that there is a sentinel up in the tower?"

"There is always one at night,” replied the captive; "but you have the chance that he may have fallen asleep at his post, where there is no one to keep a watch over him."

At the very moment the Spaniard was

44

Have you got any ammunition?" I inquired, in my turn.

"The cannon lies beside its caisson filled with ammunition," resumed Garduño; “but, as I tell you, it is like a fusil without a stock."

I cast a glance at the nervous arm of Valdivia; he understood me at once.

"I will take some men with me, and go and look for it," said Valdivia. "Gentlemen, this evening we shall all of us drink at our ease." With these words Valdivia prepared

to start.

"But you do not mean to go alone?" said I to him.

My faith!-if the gun is no heavier than a horse with his rider, I can very well manage to bring it here without assistance."

"But it weighs much heavier," resumed the colonel; "ten men, who know where the cannon lies, shall accompany you."

At the end of a quarter of an hour the men returned. They had harnessed their horses with cords around the piece of dismounted cannon, which they dragged over the unequal ground. Sometimes an obstacle would render the gun immovable; Valdivia then stooped down, made a powerful effort, and the cannon being freed, slid afresh along the surface. I then ranged my men, in silence, about three hundred paces distant from the hacienda.