resolve--on the part of those who uttered them--not to show mercy or
give quarter.

El Zapote looked for some moments with fixed gaze upon the royalist
fugitive, who with the felt hat of an insurgent, the jacket of an
infantry soldier, and the pantaloons of a dragoon officer, presented a
somewhat motley appearance.

"You are a man who has just dropped down from a tree," said he. "I will
not deny that fact; but if you are the only one about here, I should say
there is a royalist in this wood, that these fellows are about to hunt
to death."

"On my side I shall be frank with you," answered Don Rafael. "You have
guessed rightly: I am in the King's cause."

"These shouts," continued Zapote, "the meaning of which I understand
full well, denote that there is a royalist hidden in these woods, who is
to be taken dead or alive. Have the men who are pursuing you ever seen
you?"

"I killed two of their number yesterday evening. There were others who,
no doubt, saw me."

"Then there is no hope of my being able to pass you off as an ordinary
prisoner, like my companion here, who is neither royalist nor
insurgent."

"It is very doubtful, to say the least," remarked Don Rafael, in a
desponding tone.

"Altogether impossible; but I can promise you one thing, however: that
we shall not betray you, should we fall in with these pursuers.
Moreover, I shall endeavour to throw them off your scent: for I am
beginning to tire of this brigand life of theirs. On one condition, how
ever."

"Name it!" said the Colonel.

"That you will permit us to part company with you. I can do nothing to
save you--you know it--while you may only ruin us, without any profit to
yourself. On the other hand your fate has become in a manner linked
with ours; and to abandon you in the midst of danger would be a baseness
for which I could never pardon myself."

There was in the words of Zapote an accent of loyalty, which moved the
Colonel to admiration, in spite of himself.

"Have no care for me," resolutely rejoined Don Rafael. "Go which way
you please without me; and I hope," he added with a smile, "that you
will reach that nephew you speak of, and safely deliver to him his
uncle's will!"

"After all, _amigo_," he continued in a more serious tone, "I have but
little reason to care for life more than yourself. A little sooner or a
little later, what matters it? Only," added he, smiling, "I should not
exactly fancy to be hanged."

"Thanks