I wondered he did not hang back for the purpose of taunting me with his
triumphant speeches. I could only account for his not doing so, by the
supposition that he was a man of patience, and that my hour of torture
had not arrived.
That I should have to suffer some fearful indignity, in all likelihood,
and the loss of my life, I felt certain. What had occurred between
myself and the brigand chief, had established a relationship that must
end in the ruin of one or the other; and it was clear that I was to be
the victim. It needed not that hideous grin with which he had regarded
me, on becoming his prisoner--nor the jovial style in which he talked of
a _revanche_,--to assure me that for this mild term I might substitute
the phrase--"Deadly revenge!"
He had promised his associates a spectacle on their arrival at La
Rinconada. I had no doubt, that in that spectacle I was myself to be
the prominent figure; or at all events the chief _sufferer_.
I had been riding for some time, absorbed in meditations, that I need
not pronounce painful. Circumstanced as I was, they could not be
pleasant. It was only in an occasional and involuntary glance, that my
eyes had rested upon Rayas, at the head of his cuadrilla.
I had not noticed a peculiar personage riding by his side. This arose
from the fact, that the individual in question was of shorter stature
than the other _salteadores_, by nearly the head, and therefore hidden
from my view by the bodies of the brigands habitually interposed between
us.
After cresting the ridge above mentioned, and commencing the descent on
its opposite side, I could command a better view of those in front; and
then it was that the individual, riding alongside of Rayas, attracted my
attention. Not only attracted it, but fixed it, to the exclusion of
every other thought--even the reflections I had been hitherto indulging
in, upon my own unfortunate situation.
At the first glance I had mistaken the companion of the robber chief for
a man, or a boy closely approximating to manhood. There was a man's hat
upon the head--the usual low-crowned, broad-brimmed _sombrero_.
Moreover, the style of equitation was that of a man--a leg on each side
of the saddle.
It was only at the second glance that my gaze became fixed--only after
perceiving, by the long plaits of hair hanging down to the croup of the
saddle--along with some peculiarities of shape and costume--that the
companion of the robber chief was a _woman_!
There was nothing in the discovery to cause me surprise. Both the hat
on the head, and the mode--_a la Duchesse de Berri_--in which the woman
was mounted, were sights that could be seen any day upon the roads of
Mexico, or in the streets of its cities. Both were but the common
fashions of the country.
What fixed my attention was the fact, that I fancied I knew the woman--
or rather girl, as she appeared to be--that I had seen her before!
It was only the back of the head and shoulders I was yet permitted to
see; but there was sufficient idiosyncracy about these, to beget within
me a vague idea of identification.
I had hardly time to enter into the field of conjecture, when a slight
turn in the path brought the faces of the leading riders _en profile_ to
my view; among others, that of the girl.
A shot through the heart could not have been more painful, or caused me
to start more abruptly, than the sight of that face.
"Lola Vergara!"
Story 1, Chapter XXII.