eyes now gleamed a light of a
vengeance not to be allayed save by a life sacrificed. If Santander on
seeing Kearney believed his hour was come, so did the dwarf as he saw
Cris Rock striding towards him. Caught by the collar, and dragged out
into the light, he knew death was near now.

In vain his protestations and piteous appeals. Spite of all, he had to
die. And a death so unlike that usually meted out to criminals, as he
himself to the commonality of men. No weapon was employed in putting an
end to him: neither gun nor pistol, sword nor knife. Letting go hold of
his collar, the Texan grasped him around the ankles, and with a brandish
raising him aloft, brought his head down upon the pavement. There was a
crash as the breaking of a cocoa-nut shell by a hammer; and when Rock
let go, the mass of mis-shapen humanity dropped in a dollop upon the
flags, arms and legs limp and motionless, in the last not even the power
left for a spasmodic kick.

"Ye know, Cap," said the Texan, justifying himself to Kearney, "I'd be
the last man to do a cruel thing. But to rid the world o' sech varmint
as them, 'cording to my way o' thinking, air the purest hewmanity."

A doctrine which the young Irishman was not disposed to dispute just at
that time, being otherwise and better occupied, holding soft hands in
his, words exchanging with sweet lips, not unaccompanied by kisses.
Near at hand Don Ruperto was doing the same, his _vis-a-vis_ being the
Condesa.

But these moments of bliss were brief--had need be. The raid of the
Free Lances down to San Augustin was a thing of risk, only to have been
attempted by lovers who believed their loved ones were in deadly danger.
In another hour or less, the Hussars who had escaped would report
themselves at San Angel and Chapultepec--then there would be a rush of
thousands in the direction of Tlalpam.

So there was in reality--soldiers of all arms, "horse, foot, and
dragoons." But on arrival there they found the house of Don Ignacio
Valverde untenanted; even the domestics had gone out of it; the
carriage, too, which has played such an important part in our tale,
along with the noble _frisones_. The horses had not been taken out of
it, nor any change made in the company it carried off. Only in the
driver, the direction, and _cortege_. Jose again held the reins,
heading his horses up the mountain road, instead of towards Mexico;
while, in place of Colonel Santander's Hussars, the Free Lanc