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“The Saints defend us, Don Vicente! The sight of you is like rain in May,—it will bless the whole year! Heaven grant your followers leave untouched the harvest of new maize! Don Rafael would go out of his senses if it were broached and trampled on by this rabble,—begging your Grace’s pardon a thousand times!”

Don Vicente, as the young man was called, laughed as he stamped his feet on the brick pavement until his spurs and the chains and buttons on his riding suit clanked again,—though he looked half sadly, half furtively around.

“Have no fear, Pedro good friend, the men have their orders. The General, José Ramirez, is not to be trifled with;” and he glanced at his companion, a man older than himself, but still in the prime of life, who had also dismounted and was shaking hands with Don Rafael, with many polite expressions of pleasure at meeting the courageous and prudent administrador of Tres Hermanos.

These compliments were returned with rather pallid lips by Don Rafael, who however upon being recognized by Don Vicente, who advanced to embrace him with the cordiality of a friend, though with something of the condescension of a superior, regained his composure with the rapidity natural to a man who having fancied himself in some peril finds himself under the protection of a powerful and generous patron. He hastened in the name of Doña Isabel to place everything the hacienda contained at the disposal of the visitors, making a mental reservation of the new maize and sundry fine horses that happened to be in the courtyards.