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“Impossible! Ye are mad! Anselmo, thou art drunk, raving!” stammered forth the gate-keeper. “Don Juan is is at the reduction-works!”

“Thou liest!” cried an excited villager; “he is in purgatory. God help him! Holy angels and all saints pray for him!”

“Ave Maria! Mother of Sorrows, by the five wounds of thy Son, intercede for him!” cried a chorus of women, wringing their hands and gesticulating distractedly.

“Open the gate, Pedro!” demanded the throng without, by this time almost equalled by that within, through which the administrador, Don Rafael Sanchez, was seen forcing his way, holding high the great keys of the main door. He was a small man, with a pale but determined face, before whom the crowd fell back, ceasing for a moment their incoherent lamentations, while he assisted Pedro to unlock and throw open the doors.

“Good heavens, man, are you mad?” he exclaimed, as Pedro darted from his side and rushed toward the group of rancheros, who, bearing between them a recumbent form, were slowly approaching the hacienda. “Ah! ah, that is right,” as he saw that Pedro, with imperative gestures and a few expressive words, had induced the bearers to turn and proceed with the body toward the reduction-works; “better there than here. What could have induced him to roam about at night? I have told him a score of times his foolhardiness would be the death of him;” and with these and similar ejaculations Don Rafael hastened to join the throng which were soon pouring into the gates of the reduction-works.