then we shall find out, without any
safe-conduct, what he has got to say, that is so very important. Ha! ha!
ha!'

"General Robles, peace to his soul, was a short, thick man, with round,
staring eyes, fierce and jovial. Seeing my distress he added:

"'Come, come, chico. I promise you his life if he does not resist. And
that is not likely. We are not going to break up a good soldier if it
can be helped. I tell you what! I am curious to see your strong man.
Nothing but a general will do for the picaro--well, he shall have a
general to talk to. Ha! ha! I shall go myself to the catching, and you
are coming with me, of course.'

"And it was done that same night. Early in the evening the house and the
orchard were surrounded quietly. Later on the General and I left a ball
we were attending in town and rode out at an easy gallop. At some little
distance from the house we pulled up. A mounted orderly held our horses.
A low whistle warned the men watching all along the ravine, and we
walked up to the porch softly. The barricaded house in the moonlight
seemed empty.

"The General knocked at the door. After a time a woman's voice within
asked who was there. My chief nudged me hard. I gasped.

"'It is I, Lieutenant Santierra,' I stammered out, as if choked. 'Open
the door.'

"It came open slowly. The girl, holding a thin taper in her hand, seeing
another man with me, began to back away before us slowly, shading the
light with her hand. Her impassive white face looked ghostly. I followed
behind General Robles. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I made a gesture of
helplessness behind my chief's back, trying at the same time to give a
reassuring expression to my face. None of us three uttered a sound.

"We found ourselves in a room with bare floor and walls. There was a
rough table and a couple of stools in it, nothing else whatever. An old
woman with her grey hair hanging loose wrung her hands when we appeared.
A peal of loud laughter resounded through the empty house, very amazing
and weird. At this the old woman tried to get past us.

"'Nobody to leave the room,' said General Robles to me.

"I swung the door to, heard the latch click, and the laughter became
faint in our ears.

"Before another word could be spoken in that room I was amazed by
hearing the sound of distant thunder.

"I had carried in with me into the house a vivid impression of a
beautiful clear moonlight night, without a speck of cloud in the sky. I
could n