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“The same,” answered Vicente; “and those troops were reinforced by a chain-gang he had released the day before,—vile miscreants every one. We quarrelled over each of these acts; but he laughed us all—the merchants, the government, myself—into good-humor again. He is one of those anomalies one detests, and admires,—crafty, daring, licentious, superstitious, yielding, cruel, all in turn and when least expected. He will rob a city with one hand, and feed the poor or enrich a church with the other. But here he comes!”

The man thus spoken of was, indeed, crossing the court with Don Rafael, who seemed to reel slightly in his walk, and was laughing and talking volubly. “Yes, yes,” he was saying, as he came within hearing, “you are right, Señor Don José; the herd of brood mares of Tres Hermanos is the finest in the country. There are more than a hundred well-broken horses in the pasture, besides scores upon scores that no man has crossed. I sent a hundred and fifty to Don Julian a month ago. Doña Isabel begrudges nothing to the cause of liberty.”