Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/94

68 I thought, that the rude entrance had remained partially exposed? I procured a light; and the cause quickly, and, oh! how horribly, presented itself! My wife and two infants lay in a pool of blood upon the floor,—quite dead, with their throats severed.

" 'None can tell what my feelings were that night: my brain seemed on fire; the blow bewildered every faculty. I lay for hours afterwards beside the lifeless forms upon the ground; and, horrible as was the spectacle before me, I yet envied the dead their fate. As the morning dawned, however, I awoke from the torpor of grief, and rose from the earth with staggering limbs, and clothes completely saturated with blood. But I awoke also to the thirst for vengeance; and as the first rays of the sun burst into the room, I knelt down in their ruddy light, and vowed, by all that had been dear to me, to hunt out the murderer of my family, with untiring energy, wherever I could find his track.

" 'But on that very day, at noon, I was hurried away by an impatient crowd, and accused before the administrador of being the murderer of my wife and children! My wild and haggard looks, my confused sentences,