d thus
render it an easy prey to the Mexican guerrilleros? Perhaps my
straggling followers were by this cut off? Perhaps the post had been
attacked by a large body of the enemy--captured? I was not only to lose
life, but had already lost my honour. I, the proud captain of a boasted
troop, to be thus entrapped by artifice--the artifice of a woman!

My heart, overwhelmed with such bitter fancies, stayed not to reason.

Presently followed a calmer interval, and I began to discuss the
probability of my suspicions. What motive could she have to plot my
destruction? Surely not from any feeling of love for her country, and
hatred towards its enemies? From all I had learned, no such sentiment
existed in her mind, but rather an opposite one--a truer patriotism.
She was a woman of sufficient aim and intellect to have a feeling one
way or the other; but had I not good grounds for believing her a friend
to our cause; a foe to the tyrants we would conquer? If otherwise, I
was the victim of profound deception and unparalleled hypocrisy!

Perhaps, however, her feeling was personal, not national. Was _I_ alone
the object of her hatred? Had I done aught by word or deed to call
forth her antagonism--to deserve such cruel vengeance? If so, I was
sadly ignorant of the fact. If she hated me, she hated one who loved
_her_, with his whole soul absorbed in the passion. But no, I could not
think that I was an object of hatred to her. Why should she hate me?
How _could_ she?

I could think of but one motive why she should make herself instrumental
in the accomplishment of my ruin. It was explicable only on the
presumption that she was attached to Ijurra--that Rafael Ijurra was the
lord of her heart. If so, he could easily bend it to his will--for this
is but the sequence of the other--could influence her to whatever act.

As for Ijurra, there was motive enough for his hostility, even to the
seeking of my life. The insult put upon him at our first meeting--the
knowledge that I loved _her_--for I was certain he knew it--with the
additional fact that I was an enemy--one of the invaders of his country.
These were sufficient motives, though, doubtless, the two first far
outweighed the other: with Rafael Ijurra, revenge and jealousy were
stronger passions than patriotism.

Then came consolation--thoughts of brighter hue. In the face of all was
the fact, that _the white steed had been found_, and captured! There
stood the beaut