"My dear Colonel Miranda,--I am about to carry out the promise made to
you at our parting. I have my mercantile enterprise in a forward state
of readiness for a start over the plains. My caravan will not be a
large one, about six or seven waggons with less than a score of men; but
the goods I take are valuable in an inverse ratio to their bulk--
designed for the `ricos' of your country. I intend taking departure
from the frontier town of Van Buren, in the State of Arkansas, and shall
go by a new route lately discovered by one of our prairie traders, that
leads part way along the Canadian river, by you called `Rio de la
Canada,' and skirting the great plain of the Llano Estacado at its upper
end. This southern route makes us more independent of the season, so
that I shall be able to travel in the fall. If nothing occur to delay
me in the route, I shall reach New Mexico about the middle of November,
when I anticipate renewing those relations of a pleasant friendship in
which you have been all the giver and I all the receiver.
"I send this by one of the spring caravans starting from Independence
for Santa Fe, in the hope that it will safely reach you.
"I subscribe myself, dear Colonel Miranda,--
"Your grateful friend,--
"Francis Hamersley."
"Well, _teniente_," said his Colonel, as he refolded the far-fetched
epistle, and returned it to the drawer, "do you comprehend matters any
clearer now?"
"Clear as the sun that shines over the Llano Estacado," was the reply of
the lieutenant, whose admiration for the executive qualities of his
superior officer, along with the bumpers he had imbibed, had now exalted
his fancy to a poetical elevation. "_Carrai-i! Esta un golpe
magnifico_! (It's a splendid stroke!) Worthy of Manuel Armilo himself.
Or even the great Santa Anna!"
"A still greater stroke than you think it, for it is double--two birds
killed with the same stone. Let us again drink to it!"
The glasses were once more filled, and once more did the associated
bandits toast the nefarious enterprise they had so successfully
accomplished.
Then Roblez rose to go to the _cuartel_ or barracks, where he had his
place of sleeping and abode, bidding _buena noche_ to his colonel.
The latter also bethought him of bed, and, taking a lamp from the table,
commenced moving towards his _cuarto de camara_.
On coming opposite a picture suspended against the _sala_ wall--the
portrait of a beautiful girl--he stopped in front, for a moment gazed
upon it, and then into a mirror that stood close by.
As if there was something in the glass that reflected its shadow into
his very soul, the expression of exultant triumph, so lately depicted
upon his face, was all at once swept from it, giving place to a look of
blank bitterness.
"One is gone," he said, in a half-muttered soliloquy; "one part of the
stain wiped out--thanks to the Holy Virgin for that. But the other; and
she--where, where?"
And with these words he staggered on towards his chamber.