Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/228

208 by the Viceroy, contrasting strongly with the tardy execution of justice in our days. There lived in Mexico at that period, in the street of Cordovnnes, No. 15, a rich merchant of the name of Don Joaquin Dongo. A clerk named José Joaquin Blanco, who had formerly been in his office, having fallen into vicious courses, and joined in companionship with two other young men, Felipe Aldama and Baltazar Quintero, gamblers and cock-fighters (with reverence be it spoken!) like himself, formed, in concert with them, a plan for robbing his former master.

They accordingly repaired to the house one evening, when they knew that Dongo was from home, and imitating the signal which Blanco knew the coachman was in the habit of making to the porter when the carriage returned at night, the doors were immediately thrown open, and the robbers entered. The porter was their first victim. He was thrown down and stabbed. A postman, who was waiting with letters for the return of the master of the house, was the next, and then the cook, and so on, until eleven lay weltering in their blood. The wretches then proceeded to pick the locks of the different bureaux, guided by Blanco, who, in his former capacity, had made himself au fait of all the secrets of the house. They obtained twenty-two thousand dollars in specie, and about seven thousand dollars' worth of plate.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate master of the house returned home, and at the accustomed signal the doors were opened by the robbers, and on the entrance of the carriage, instantly relocked. Seeing