We were not long in learning into whose hands we had fallen; for the name “Jarauta” was on every tongue. They were the dreaded “Jarochos” of the bandit priest.

“We’re in for it now,” said Raoul, deeply mortified at the part he had taken in the affair with the curé. “It’s a wonder they have kept us so long. Perhaps he’s not here himself, and they’re waiting for him.”

As Raoul said this the clatter of hoofs sounded along the narrow road; and a horseman came galloping up to the rancho, riding over everything and everybody with a perfect recklessness.

“That’s Jarauta,” whispered Raoul. “If he sees me—but it don’t matter much,” he added, in a lower tone: “we’ll have a quick shrift all the same: he can’t more than hang—and that he’ll be sure to do.”

“Where are these Yankees?” cried Jarauta, leaping out of his saddle.

“Here, Captain,” answered one of the Jarochos, a hideous-looking griffe (Note 1) dressed in a scarlet uniform, and apparently the lieutenant of the band.

“How many?”

“Four, Captain.”

“Very well—what are you waiting for?”

“To know whether I shall hang or shoot them.”

“Shoot them, by all means! Carambo! we have no time for neck-stretching!”

“There are some nice trees here, Captain,” suggested another of the band, with as much coolness as if he had been conversing about the hanging of so many dogs. He wished—a curiosity not uncommon—to witness the spectacle of hanging.

“Madre de Dios! stupid! I tell you we haven’t time for such silly sport. Out with you there! Sanchez! Gabriel! Carlos! send your bullets through their Saxon skulls! Quick!”

Several of the Jarochos commenced unslinging their carbines, while those who guarded us fell back, to be out of range of the lead.

“Come,” exclaimed Raoul, “it can’t be worse than this—we can only die; and I’ll let the padre know whom he has got before I take leave of him. I’ll give him a souvenir that won’t make him sleep any sounder to-night. Oyez, Padré Jarauta!” continued he, calling out in a tone of irony; “have you found Marguerita yet?”

We could see between us and the dim rushlight that the Jarocho started, as if a shot had passed through his heart.

“Hold!” he shouted to the men, who were about taking aim; “drag those scoundrels hither! A light there!—fire the thatch! Vaya!”

In a moment the hut of the contrabandista was in flames, the dry palm-leaves blazing up like flax.

“Merciful Heaven! they are going to roast us!”

With this horrible apprehension, we were dragged up towards the burning pile, close to which stood our fierce judge and executioner.

The bamboos blazed and crackled, and under their red glare we could now see our captors with a terrible distinctness. A more demon-like set, I think, could not have been found anywhere out of the infernal regions.

Most of them were zamboes and mestizoes, and not a few pure Africans of the blackest hue, maroons from Cuba and the Antilles, many of them with their fronts and cheeks tattooed, adding to the natural ferocity of their features. Their coarse woolly hair sticking out in matted tufts, their white teeth set in savage grins, their strange armour and grotesque attitudes, their wild and picturesque attire, formed a coup d’oeil that might have pleased a painter in his studio, but which at the time had no charm for us.

There were Pintoes among them, too—spotted men from the tangled forests of Acapulco—pied and speckled with blotches of red, and black, and white, like hounds and horses. They were the first of this race I had ever seen, and their unnatural complexions, even at that fearful moment, impressed me with feelings of disgust and loathing.

A single glance at this motley crew would have convinced us, had we not been quite sure of it already, that we had no favour to expect. There was not a countenance among them that exhibited the slightest trait of grace or mercy. No such expression could be seen around us, and we felt satisfied that our time had come.

The appearance of their leader did not shake this conviction. Revenge and hatred were playing upon his sharp sallow features, and his thin lips quivered with an expression of malice, plainly habitual. His nose, like a parrot’s beak, had been broken by a blow, which added to its sinister shape; and his small black eyes twinkled with metallic brightness.

He wore a purplish-coloured manga, that covered his whole body, and his feet were cased in the red leather boots of the country, with heavy silver spurs strapped over them. A black sombrero, with its band of gold bullion and tags of the same material, completed the tout ensemble of his costume. He wore neither beard nor moustache; but his hair, black and snaky, hung down trailing over the velvet embroidery of his manga. (See Note 2).

Such was the Padr&e............