utside there, that if
he persists in breaking open your gates, he may capture _us_ alive.
That he may do, beyond doubt; but as to yourself, and your two
daughters, he will find nothing more of you than your dead bodies. You
understand me now?"

Arroyo need not have been so explicit. Half the speech would have been
enough to explain his fearful meaning. The air of ferocity that
characterised his features was sufficiently indicative of his thoughts.

The daughters of Don Mariano, terrified at his looks, flung themselves
simultaneously into the arms of their father.

At that moment the notes of the bugle resounded through the building;
and the voice of the dragoon was heard for the second time pronouncing
his summons.

The haciendado, troubled about the fate of his children--thus completely
in the power of his unfaithful vaqueros, whose companions crowded the
corridor--permitted the second summons to pass without response.

"_Mil Devionios_!" cried the bandit, "why do you hesitate? Come! show
yourself at the window, and make known to this furious captain what I
have told you. _Carrai_! if you do not--"

The bugle sounding for the third summons drowned the remainder of the
brigand's speech. As soon as the trumpet notes had ceased to echo from
the walls, a voice was heard from without, the tones of which produced
within the heart of Gertrudis at the same moment both fear and joy.

It was the voice of Rafael.

Quickly following it were heard the cries of the troopers as they called
aloud--

"Death to the enemies of Spain!"

"One moment!" shouted Don Mariano, presenting himself at the window,
where he could command a view of the plain below; "I have two words to
say to your captain: where is he?"

"Here!" responded Don Rafael, riding a pace or two in front.

"Ah! pardon," said the haciendado, with a bitter smile; "I have hitherto
known Captain Tres-Villas only as a friend. I could not recognise him
in the man who threatens with ruin the house where he has been a guest."

At this imprudent speech--whose irony Don Mariano had not been able to
conceal--the face of the Captain, hitherto deadly pale, became red.

"And I," he replied, "can only recognise in you the promoter of an
impious insurrection, which I have striven to crush, and the master of a
mansion of which brigands are the guests. You have understood my
summons? They must be delivered up."

"In any case," rejoined the haciendado, "I should not