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As it chanced, an opportunity was soon given me to do him a signal service. I have stated that there dwelt men of position in this place, Mexicans who were jealous of the Englishman, and these people stirred up some discontented miners in his employ to make a plot to murder him, saying that, if they did so, they would win a great treasure which he kept hidden in his house.

This plot came to my ears through one of the Brotherhood, and I determined to frustrate it, to which end I collected together twenty good men and true, and, arming them with guns, bade them be silent about the matter, above all to the Inglese, whom I did not wish to alarm.

The plan of the murderers was at the hour of dawn to attack the house where the Señor Strickland slept with four or five servants only, and to put all within its walls to death. Accordingly, about one o’clock on the night fixed, I despatched my men by twos and threes, instructing them to go round the hills at the back of the house, and, creeping into the garden, to hide themselves there among the trees till I appeared.