Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/475

Rh met the beautiful woman at a party and was introduced. She took the matter so coolly that he inquired how it could be, and she replied that her husband was a brute; that she had never loved nor cared for him, and that she was glad when justice overtook him at last. An intimacy sprang up between them, and after some weeks the French colonel who had made her a widow, obtained her reluctant consent to visit her on a certain evening at her own apartments.

The meeting was tender and affectionate on both sides, and the Frenchman was delighted beyond words. The lady urged him to join with her in a glass of wine, and he, nothing loth, consented. After he had drank she stepped out of the room, and closing the heavy door between them, locked it in an instant and then called out to him:

"Colonel: you murdered my husband before my eyes! Your time has come now. That wine was poisoned, and in five minutes you will be a dead man! I have waited long for this; how do you like it?"

He fell, striving vainly to escape from the room, and expired in horrible agony. But her words had been overheard by a servant, who betrayed her, and she was condemned to death for the murder. She went to her execution with a smile of satisfaction on her face, and died glorying in what she had done.

It was Christmas Eve when we entered Orizaba, and all the bells were ringing, and they rung nearly all the time we were there. I rather liked it after I got used to it, but it was a little rough at first. The Christmas festivities are kept up in Orizaba for something like a month, and are mainly of two kinds. Those within the churches should take precedence of course.