Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/84

64 line of conduct in a stage whisper, and they trotted off, primed with valor, while we very cold and (I answer for myself) rather frightened, proceeded on our way. The earliness of the hour was probably our salvation, as we started two hours before the usual time, and thus gained a march upon the gentlemen of the road.

We were not sorry, however, when, at our first halting-place, and whilst we were changing horses, we descried a company of lancers at full gallop, with a very good-looking officer at their head, coming along the road, though when I first heard the sound of horses' hoofs clattering along, and by the faint light, discerned the horsemen, enveloped as they were in a cloud of dust, I felt sure that they were a party of robbers. The captain made many apologies for the delay, and proceeded to inform us that the alcaldes of Tepeyagualco, La Ventilla, and of some other villages, whose names I forget, had for twenty days prepared a breakfast in expectation of his Excellency's arrival;—whether twenty breakfasts, or the same one cold, or réchauffé, we may never know.

The captain had a very handsome horse, which he caused to caracolear by the side of the diligence, and put at my disposal with a low bow, every time I looked at it. He discoursed with Cn of robbers and wars, and of the different sites which these gentry most affected, and told him how his first wife had been shot by following him in some engagement, yet how his second wife invariably followed him also.

Arrived at Tepeyagualco, after having passed over