Pacific Ocean to this most remote boundary of the state of Jalisco. The soldier seated himself on the cannon, and invited me to place myself beside him. The deep blue sky was bespangled with innumerable -stars; the air was mild; around the fires before the venta were seated the muleteers singing their simple tunes; the ringing of the little bells of the mules reached us, accompanied by the soft sounds of the guitar; the watch-dogs answered by their plaintive barking to the indistinct and distant sounds, which were wafted by the evening breeze. In leading me to this retired spot, the captain said he had deemed the time and place suitable for continuing the relation of his military adventures. I hastened to express my concurrence with this opinion, and Don Ruperto, thus encouraged, commenced a long narration, to which I listened attentively, scated on the rusted cannon, round which large tufts of wild wormwood interlaced their stems, and diffused their powerful odours.

After a series of skirmishes, (commenced the captain,) we halted at a place called Las Animas. A sad spectacle was presented by our troops on that day. Panting from thirst and fatigue, we lay on a soil strewn with the carcases of our horses and mules of burden. A gloomy silence overspread the camp, interrupted from time to time by the agonizing cries of the wounded, who, tortured by thirst, wildly craved a drop of water to refresh their parched mouths. A few soldiers moved like spectres amongst these bodies, of whom some were apparently dying, others were already dead. The sentinels had scarcely strength to hold their muskets during the tumult around the camp. I, myself, was almost worn out, and to disguise my thirst, had pressed the hilt of my sabre to my lips. Not far from me, the woman to whom Albino Caute had entrusted the care of his son, and whom I had taken into my service in compliance with the dying requests of my former companion, was repeating her rosary in tears, and imploring all the saints in Paradise to send us a cloud charged with rain. The saints, unfortunately, were not in the humour to listen to us that evening, for the sun set gloriously in a sky of undisturbed serenity. As for me, I prayed God that some marauders of my troop, who had left the camp on the discovery of some concealed springs, might succeed in their expedition, and, above all, not forget their captain. God was more gracious than the saints invoked by the poor woman who was praying at my side; he heard me favourably, for soon I discovered one of our marauders returning to the camp with rapid strides. It was the man you have seen, the companion of Guanajuateña. At that time he had not changed the name of Valdivia for that of Cureño, nor was he so frightfully maimed as you have seen him; the trunk of a pine was not straighter nor more robust than his form. You, yourself, have had a proof of his herculean strength; I need not say more about it. I shall content myself with telling you that his intelligence and courage equalled his physical powers. On every occasion, even the most critical, Valdivia knew how to act.

"Signor Capitano," said he, advancing mysteriously towards me, enveloped in the cloak of a Spanish dragoon, which he had picked up on the field of battle, "I have brought you a leathern bottle containing a few drops of water for yourself, the child, and his nurse, but I should wish no one to see us."

"Some water!" cried I, too much delighted to heed Valdivia's prudent advice.

"Hush!" resumed he; "if you attend to me, you will not drink until night, and when you have quenched your thirst, I will tell you where there is water in abundance, and make a proposition you will like."

I eagerly extended my hand to seize the bottle. "Give it to me, for God's sake!" exclaimed I, "my thirst is consuming me, and can I wait till night?"

"In ten minutes it will be dark. On reflection, I will keep the water, for I do not wish the furious soldiers to attempt to kill you, in order to obtain it. In the mean time, get your horse saddled, and then join me under that mesquite,' where mine is all ready. We shall be obliged to mount directly. There remain here about a hundred horsemen; give them orders to wait for us yonder in the plain. We will tell the sentinels we are going in search of water, and they will let us pass without waking the general."

Valdivia walked away, and in spite of my entreaties, took with him the bottle of water. I hastened to obey his injunctions, and at nightfall, our horsemen, quite prepared for departure, awaited us in the place appointed. I took my horse by the bridle, led away the woman and child, and rejoined Valdivia. Instead of a few drops of water, as he had promised, he presented me with a bottleful of that precious liquid. So great was my thirst, that I found considerable difficulty in preventing myself from draining the contents of the bottle; however, I left a sufficient quantity for the woman and little Albino, and when the bottle was empty-"Let us hear," said I to Valdivia, "what you have to propose."

"To go," returned he, "with your hundred horsemen and take possession of a hacienda, two leagues from here, where there is water in abundance, and which is now occupied by a Spanish detachment.

"We will go," said I," but if it is so, why should you not inform the general, and ask for a thousand men?

"

Why?" returned Valdivia, "because the general is no longer master of his troops, and any order he might give at this moment would but hasten the explosion of a conspiracy for delivering the army to the Spanish. Yes, Signor Capitano, if we do not instantly take possession of the hacienda of San Eustaquio, into which I have been able to creep alone and fill this bottle, to-morrow General Rayou will not have a soldier ;-there is a traitor among us, and this traitor is no other than General Ponce."

As Valdivia finished speaking, a great tumult was heard at one extremity of the camp. It soon increased. Torches flared on all sides, illuminating groups of soldiers whose cries reached us. By the gleam of the

torches we perceived General Rayou leaving his tent and advancing alone, bareheaded, towards the most infuriated; but his voice, generally so much respected, seemed unrecognised.

"I was mistaken by a day," said Valdivia, "however, the General will probably quiet the malcontents until sunrise. Let us be off, there's no time to lose, this night we must be back and able to announce to the General that the troops shall be supplied with water to-morrow."

The tumult continued, although it was less clamoous, and the voice of the General, which we were able to hear, prevailed by degrees over that of the mutineers. I mounted my horse, and advised Valdivia to do the same.

"I must first," said he, "bring you one of the enemy's sentinels with whom I have taken care to provide myself."

Without waiting to explain these enigmatical words, Valdivia departed, but soon I saw him returning with a black moving mass under his arm. When he approached, I discovered that this mass was a man dressed in the costume of a Spanish lancer. Valdivia set the man down on the ground, loosened his cords, and made him mount behind him. My robust companion had found that the shortest method of reaching the well of the hacienda was, to bind the sentinel placed near the cistern, and take him with us as a necessary guide in our nocturnal excursion. How had he effected this hardy enterprise? how had he taken from his post the Spanish 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 SierraMadre 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 arrrived 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 honour 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 passage 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 casy 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 impossibilites 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.

ceed 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.

"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 yourself to the bottom of the abyss."

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 minute,-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.

"You will allow me a minute to make my peace || with Heaven?" I said to the Colonel, 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 tremour.

"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

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 self-possession 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

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we could batter and breach in the doorway, and take these dogs of Gachupines between two fires."

"We have left a gun under some bushes not far from hence," said the Colonel, "but it is of no use; the supports are broken; it is a bit of useless brass." "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."

The fifty men selected by the Colonel commenced their preparations for scaling. The massive building was adorned with numerous "almenas," (a species of battlements,) which denoted the rank of the proprietor. Each soldier was furnished with his lazo, of which a ring of iron formed the sliding knot. In one minute, from each of these battlements was suspended a loose cord, the extremity of which surrounded the stone projection. Before the signal for commencing the scaling was given, we agreed, Garduño and 1, that

"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 case." With these words, Valdivia prepared to start.

enemy's garrison until the third report of the cannon; three cannon balls appeared to us more than sufficient to destroy the gate. These arrangements being made, the Colonel, with his usual calmness, seized the loose cord which was to serve as his ladder, and put it in the hands of the prisoner, commanding him to precede him.

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.

Now, my friends," said I, "we have two methods of attack the first is to raise our war-cry simultaneously, after the manner of the Indians; the second is to scale the hacienda, whilst we cannonade the gate: the prisoner will accompany you, and act as a faithful guide under pain of death; and whilst we enter by the breach, you will enter by the terraces; but this second plan can only be adopted provided we find fifty men sufficiently brave, agile, and determined, to scale a wall looking into a precipice, the bottom of which cannot be seen. Indeed, after a certain distance, the man who is falling looks not for it."

"I will go first!" cried the Colonel, who had heard me attentively; "and perhaps, as the reward of our audacity, we shall be fortunate enough to possess ourselves of the commandant !"

followed his example, and soon we saw fifty men, raising themselves by means of their hands on the cord, and their feet against the wall, floating above the precipice like so many demons, who seemed to issue from the abyss.

Although perilous in itself,-for a sudden dizziness, or the rupture of one of the lazos, might have launched a man into eternity,-this ascension was nevertheless easier than the attack which I was to make. The sentinel, even if he had faithfully kept watch, could not have perceived the assailants; the wall concealed them; but the post we had selected presented another kind of danger: we were soon to leave the cover of the trees, which concealed us from the sentinels, and to enter the open country embarrassed with a cannon which we were obliged to drag by force of arm. Happily, we performed this march without any accident, and when we saw the last of our men set foot on the terrace of the hacienda, Valdivia and I began to act the part allotted to us.

I first gave orders to charge the cannon. Those who had dragged it, harnessed their horses again, and we advanced, but we had scarcely moved half-a-dozen steps when a sentinel perceived us, gave the alarm, and discharged his carabine. The ball, happily, reached none of our party, and we redoubled our efforts to bring the cannon to the place where we supposed the gate to be, which we intended to destroy. Other reports of guns soon reached our ears; and in the

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The example of the Colonel encouraged the soldiers, and soon the former was permitted to choose, amongst all those who presented themselves, the strongest and most active to accompany him.

Of this band, the least enthusiastic was evidently the Spanish prisoner, to whom the idea of scaling a wall, which rose perpendicularly to the height of twenty-five feet above a frightful precipice, was far from pleasing.

and the clarions sounding. There was no longer any hope of our surprising the garrison, and I gave orders to my troops to raise loud and shrill cries, changing the intonation of their voices every time. By means of this artifice, it appeared as if five hundred men were¦¦ raising their voices almost at the same moment. The report of cannon, which I fired, sounded from all the echoes.

Soon the wall was lined with Spanish soldiers, and the discharges succeeded each other rapidly. Although