d the Mochuelo; "not an hour, if I could help it. They
treated me like a dog, and my debt of ill-usage is not half paid. No,
to-morrow I move out, come what may."

"And why not to-night, Mochuelo?" said a young staff-officer who had
approached the table and overheard the last words of the revengeful
guerilla. "It is yet early, the night is dark, why not at once?"

The Mochuelo sprang to his feet.

"Do you bring me orders, Senor Torres?" said he in a low eager tone to
the aide-de-camp. "So much the better! Whither to go? In half an hour my
men are ready."

"Not so fast, amigo," answered Mariano Torres, smiling at the guerilla's
impatience. "It's no ordinary or easy expedition that I propose to you,
nor need you undertake it unless you choose. I bring the general's
authorization, not his order. The risk is great, and the object a
private one; but by accomplishing it you will lay my friend Captain
Herrera, and consequently myself, under deep obligation.

"I would gladly oblige Captain Herrera," said the Mochuelo, bowing to
Luis, who accompanied Torres. "Velasquez once served in his squadron."
And he pointed to his one-handed companion.

"You have forgotten Sergeant Velasquez, captain," said the latter. "He
escaped the ambuscade in which you were taken prisoner. You see I've got
the epaulet at last."

"I remember you well," replied Herrera, cordially shaking the hand of
his former subordinate. "Your promotion has been dearly purchased,"
added he, glancing at the mutilated limb; "and I am sure well deserved."

"No time for compliments, senor," said the Mochuelo. "To business."

He again seated himself, and the others following his example, Herrera
in few words exposed to the guerilla the nature of the projected
expedition.

Notwithstanding the precautions taken to prevent Don Baltasar from
leaving Pampeluna, precautions which, as the reader already knows,
proved fruitless, Herrera, finding after a lapse of twenty-four hours
that no tidings were obtained of the fugitive, resolved not to trust to
the chance of his recapture, but at once to execute the plan he had
formed when first he became aware of Rita's state of durance. This plan,
it will be remembered, was to penetrate clandestinely and with a small
force into the enemy's country, to surprise the convent and rescue his
mistress. Impracticable when first devised at Artajona, the difficulties
besetting the scheme, although diminished by the comparative proximity