h to learn how the threads
are passed."

And as he said this he left his seat upon the banqueta, and, approaching
the loom, knelt down beside it.

"Indeed, very singular and ingenious. Ah, now, do you think, pretty
Rosita, you could teach me?"

The old woman, who was seated with her eyes bent upon the ground,
started at hearing the stranger pronounce her daughter's name, and
glanced around at him.

"I am really serious," continued he; "do you think you could teach me
this useful art?"

"No, Senor!" was the laconic reply.

"Oh! surely I am not so stupid! I think I could learn it--it seems only
to hold this thing so,"--here he bent forward, and placed his hand upon
the shuttle, so as to touch the fingers of the girl,--"and then put it
between the threads in this manner; is it not--?"

At this moment, as if carried away by his wild passions, he seemed to
forget himself; and, turning his eyes upon the blushing girl, he
continued in an under tone, "Sweetest Rosita! I love you,--one kiss,
fairest,--one kiss!" and before she could escape from his arms, which
had already encircled her, he had imprinted a kiss upon her lips!

A scream escaped from the girl, but another, louder and wilder, answered
it from the corner. The old woman sprang up from her crouching
position, and running across the floor launched herself like a tigress
upon the officer! Her long bony fingers flew out, and in an instant
were clutching his throat!

"Off! beldame! off!" cried he, struggling to escape: "off I say; or my
sword shall cut short your wretched life, off!--off!--I say!"

Still the old woman clutched and screamed, tearing wildly at his throat,
his epaulettes, or whatever she could lay hold of.

But sharper than her nails were the teeth of the great wolf-dog that
sprang almost simultaneously from his lair, and, seizing the soldier by
the limbs, caused him to bellow out at the top of his voice--

"Without there! Sergeant Gomez! Ho! treason! to the rescue! to the
rescue!"

"Ay! dog of a Gachupino!" screamed the old woman,--"dog of Spanish
blood! you may call your cowardly myrmidons! Oh! that my brave son were
here, or my husband alive! If they were, you would not carry a drop of
your villain blood beyond the threshold you have insulted!--Go!--go to
your poblanas--your _margaritas_! Go--begone!"

"Hell and furies! This dog--take him off! Ho, there! Gomez! your
pistols. Here! send a bullet through him! Haste! haste!"