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102 over the sand, that hardly crunched beneath their tread. I saw more than one mysterious couple, whose appearance there would probably furnish dainty food to the scandal-loving denizens of the drawing-room. Besides young and beautiful women, there were also those who, to use an English expression, were on the shady side of thirty years. You could see also a considerable number of those doncellas chanflonas, those beauties of easy virtue mentioned by Perez of Guevara. I say nothing of the adventure-seekers whom you find every where in Mexico—bullies, who wear the pavement with their sabres and spurs. Such was the motley crowd which pushed and jostled one another on the Plaza Mayor at the very time I was be taking myself, not without some fear, I must say, to the Callejon del Arco.

I had hardly reached the mouth of the dark lane, when a current of cold air, as if it had issued from a cave, struck my face, and chilled me to the bone. I stood for some seconds at the entrance of the alley, trying to discover some gleam of light from the windows or grated doors, but there were no signs of life in a single house. I then advanced, groping along in search of the house which I had discovered a short time before. I had almost arrived at the cross-road of which I have already spoken, when I heard a noise of footsteps behind me, and saw a man who, coming from the square, was advancing toward me. I wished to keep on the pavement, but my legs getting entangled in the long rapier of the stranger in some way or other, I stumbled, and, to keep myself from falling, grasped his cloak. The man immediately stepped back, and, by the grazing of steel, I knew he was drawing his sword.