Don Melchior de la Cruz resolved to seize at any price the fortune of his father, which his sister's marriage threatened to make him hopelessly lose, had rushed headlong into politics, hoping to find amid the failures which had so long distracted his country, the occasion to satisfy his ambition and insatiable avarice by fishing largely in the troubled waters of revolutions. Endowed with an energetic character and great intelligence, a true political condottiere, passing without hesitation or remorse from one party to another, according to the advantages offered him, ever ready to serve the man who paid him best, he had contrived to render himself master of important secrets which made him feared by all, and gained him a certain degree of credit with the chiefs of parties whom he had served in turn; a well-born spy he had managed to get in everywhere, and join all the fraternities and secret societies, for he possessed in a most eminent degree the talent so envied by the most renowned diplomatists, of naturally feigning the most opposite feelings and opinions. It was thus that he became a member of the mysterious society union and Strength, by which he was eventually condemned to death, with the predetermined resolution of selling the secrets of this formidable association whenever a favourable opportunity presented itself. Don Antonio de Cacerbar was shortly after made a member of the same association. These two men were made to understand each other at the first word, and they did so. The most intimate friendship ere long united them. When, at the beginning of their connection, don Antonio de Cacerbar, owing to anonymous revelations, was convicted of treachery, condemned by the mysterious association, and obliged to defend his life against one of the members, fell beneath his adversary's sword, and was left for dead on the road, where Dominique found him, as we have previously related. Don Melchior, who had been watching this sanguinary execution from a distance, resolved, were it possible, to save this man who inspired him with such warm sympathy. After the departure of his comrades, he hurried up as soon as he dared with the intention of succouring the wounded man, but did not find him; chance, by bringing Dominique to the spot, had deprived him, to his great regret, of the opportunity he desired for rendering don Antonio his debtor. At a later date, when don Antonio, half cured, escaped from the grotto where he was being nursed, the two men met again; more fortunate this time, don Melchior had rendered his friend important services. The latter, in his turn, had been able on several occasions to let the young man profit by the occult influence which he had at his disposal. The only difference was, that if don Antonio was thoroughly aware of his partner's affairs, of the object he proposed to himself, and the means he intended to employ in attaining it, the same was not the case with don Melchior as regarded don Antonio de Cacerbar, who remained an undecipherable mystery to him. Still the young man, though he had several times tried to make his friend speak, and lead him into confessions which would have given certain prerogatives, but never succeeded, did not for all that resign the hope of discovering one day what the other appeared to have so great an interest in hiding.
The last service which don Antonio had rendered him, by making him so unexpectedly escape from the implacable justice of the members of the union and Strength society, had rendered don Melchior temporarily, at any rate, dependant on him. Don Antonio seemed to make it to some extent a point of honour not to remind don Melchior of the immense danger from which he had saved him; he continued to serve him as he had hitherto done. The first care of the young man, on returning to Puebla, had been to proceed in all haste to the convent in which he had confined his sister after carrying her off; but, as he had a secret presentiment, he found the bird flown. Don Antonio had said but a few words to him on this subject, but they had a terrible eloquence.
"Only the dead do not escape," he had remarked.
Don Melchior bowed his head, recognizing the correctness of this remark. All the young man's searches in Puebla were vain: no one could or would tell him anything; the mother superior of the convent was dumb.
"Let us go to Mexico; we shall find her there if she be not dead already," don Antonio said to him.
They set out. What means don Antonio employed to discover the retreat of do?a Dolores, we are unable to say, but so much is certain, that two days after his arrival in the capital, he was acquainted with the young lady's residence.
Let us leave for a short season these two men, whom we shall meet again but too soon, and describe how do?a Dolores had been liberated. The young lady was placed, by don Melchior's orders, in a convent of Carmelite nuns. The mother superior—whom don Melchior succeeded in winning to his interests by a large sum of money he paid her, and the promise of larger sums if she executed his orders zealously and intelligently—did not allow the young lady to receive any visitors but her brother, she was forbidden to write letters, and those that arrived for her were pitilessly intercepted. Dolores thus passed sad and monotonous days in a narrow cell, deprived of all relations with the outer world, and no longer retaining even the hope of being some day restored to liberty; her brother had made known to her his will in this respect; he insisted on her taking the veil. This was the only method don Melchior had found to force his sister to give up her fortune to him, by renouncing the world. Still don Melchior, though he had got himself named his sister's guardian, could not have taken her to a convent without a written order of the governor; but this had been easily obtained, and handed by don Diego Izaguirre—private secretary to his Excellency the Governor—to the mother superior when the young lady was taken to the convent.
At about nine o'clock on the night of the day when don Melchior had been so adroitly carried off by don Adolfo, whom he believed his prisoner, three men wrapped in thick cloaks, and mounted on handsome and powerful Spanish genets, stopped at the gate of the convent, at which they rapped. The lay sister opened a wicket in this gate, exchanged a few words in a low voice with one of the horsemen who had dismounted, and evidently satisfied with the answers she received, she set the gate on the jar to admit this late visitor. The latter threw his horse's bridle to one of his companions; while the latter awaited him outside, he went in, and the gate was closed after him. After passing along several corridors, the porteress opened the abbess' cell, and announced don Diego Izaguirre, private secretary to His Excellency the Governor. Don Diego, after exchanging a few compliments, drew a sealed letter from his dolman, and handed it to the superior, who opened and hastily read it.
"Very good, se?or," she answered, "I am ready to obey you."
"Please, madam, carefully do bear in mind the teno............