or
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, Padre 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