Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/47



arrival of assistance. The dogs —of which there are always plenty in a Mexican farm -house—gave the first alarm, their shrill barking breaking inharmoniously on the still night; but it was too late. To rush to the zaguan, overcome and knife the porter, possess themselves of his keys, and open wide the gates to their comrades, was, for these bandits, the work of an instant; and then, but not till then, were the doomed inmates aroused to a sense of theirdanger. Pepe was the first to spring from bed, and a glance showed him what had happened. He rushed to his weapons, but at that moment his door yielded to the ponderous blows dealt on it by the invaders; and in they poured, overpowering and making him secure in an instant. All attempt at concealment being now thrown off, most of the ruffians dispersed over the house, bent on pillage, and yelling and shouting like demons. Noriega himself and his men looking only for he prize, Don Cirilo, they brutally asked Pepe, "Where is your father?" "Not in the house," was his answer, he hoping to gain time to let his father hide; but one of his captors roared out, "M/entira/" ("You lie!") and, striking him a heavy blow with the butt-end of a pistol, laid him senseless on the floor. Two or three grooms, who had remained to attend on the amos (masters), had now turned out armed; and, with the devotion of Mexican servants toward their employers, had generously resolved to defend Don Cirilo to their utmost. Sallying forth with a Henry rifle each, they fired, and two of the invaders bit the dust; again they fired, and two more foes fell, but that was all: in an instant they were surrounded and separated, and then ensued a horrible scene of confusiom. Owing to the darkness, it was hard to tell friends from foes, and several of the bandits fell wounded by the shots of their own party; but there could be no mistake about the faithful #ozos,

who were fighting desperately. Odds told finally, and they were literally hacked to pieces —struggling to the last. Don Cirilo had slept on till the first' shots were exchanged: these woke him, and, starting up, he cried out, "Pepe! Pepe!" but received for answer the shouts and shots of the struggle in the Jatio, and the tramping of the horses passing in and out of the zaguan. He at once guessed the truth, and, seeing no hope of escape, resolved to sell his life dearly. Seizing a rifle, he quietly left his room, and entered the sa/a; his appearance was greeted by a yell of triumph, as a freshly lighted torch lit up the place, and the voice of Noriega was heard above the din, exclaiming, "Alive! take him alive!" But that was not the old man's idea: the first man that moved received a bullet, and the same fate befellanother. Enraged, one of the bandits cocked a pistol and fired: the ball struck Gil on the head, and he fell, but only to be caught up immediately, carried outside, and thrown across a horse, as if he had been a mere bundle. Once made fast, the order was given to march, for the alarm had now been given in the neighboring huts, and a vaguero had galloped off in all haste to San Juan. It would have required the pencil of a Rembrandt to give a faithful idea of the awful scene the Jatio now presented. A few torches shed their lurid and fitful light over this place of horrors. Here, a few bodies, still warm and with a spark of life, uncared for, lay like shadows; but the dark pools of blood only too clearly explained; there, the bandits in the hurry of departure. Imagine, peaceful reader, some fifty or sixty fiends in human form, a black crape veil covering the lower part of their faces —increasing their similarity to the agents of his Satanic Majesty—the broad - brimmed sombrero shadowing the upper part, that the uncertain light of the torches would otherwise have revealed; clothed in ev