Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/187

Rh Moving on, but not very fast, and looking back occasionally to the distant lights in the village, with an unknown mountain before me, and a dark night, I began to think that it was about enough for me to defend myself when attacked; although the affair was got up on my account, it was straining a point for me to pass the night in helping to rid the town of its robbers. Next, I reflected that, if the gentlemen we were in pursuit of should take it into their heads to double, my cap and white dress made me conspicuous, and it might be awkward to meet them at this place; and, in order to gain time for consideration what it was best to do, I walked back toward the town, and had not fully made up my mind when I reached the plaza.

Here I stopped, and in a few minutes a man passed, who said that he had met two of the robbers on the main road, and that they had told him they would catch me in the morning. They had got it into their heads that I was an aid-de-camp of Carrera, returning from Balize with a large amount of money to pay the troops. In about an hour the alcalde and his posse comitatus returned. I had no idea of being robbed by mistake; and, knowing the facility with which the robbers might go ahead and take a long shot at me, I asked the alcalde to furnish me with two men to go in advance and keep a look-out; but I was heartily sick of the country, and the excitement of its petty alarms.

Daylight dispelled the gloom which night had cast over my spirits. Leaving Guastatoya, for some distance I rode through a cultivated country, and the fields were divided by fences. Very soon I forgot all apprehensions of robbers, and, tired of the slow pace of the cargo-mules, rode on, leaving them far behind. At eleven o'clock I entered a ravine so wild that I thought it could not be the main road to Guatimala; there were no mule-tracks visible; and, returning, I took another road, the result of which was that I lost my way, and rode the whole day alone. I could gain no certain intelligence of Augustin and the muleteer, but continued on in the belief that they were before me. Pushing on rapidly, at dark I rode up to a hacienda on one side of the road, at which I was very kindly received by the proprietor, who was a mulatto, and, to my great surprise, I learned that I had advanced to within one long day's journey of Guatimala. He made me anxious, however, about the safety of my luggage; but for that night I could do nothing. I lay down opposite a large household altar, over which was a figure of the Virgin. At about ten o'clock I was roused by the arrival of Augustin and the muleteer. Besides their apprehensions about me, they had had their own difficulties; two of