Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/141

Rh from the earth, condensed by the coldness of the night, looked in the distance like a tranquil lake, and from among the vapor towered aloft some aloes which grow upon this rocky soil. In this mournful solitude, in an inhospitable country, where a thousand dangers surround the traveler, especially when he is a foreigner, my present enterprise appeared for the first time in its true light a perilous folly. For the first time, also, since my departure from Mexico, my heart failed me, and I was almost on the point of retracing my steps, when, as I was taking, as I fancied, a last look at the scene, I thought I heard, amid the stillness of the night, the distant sounds of a guitar. This came, probably, from a party of muleteers who had bivouacked at some distance, or some groom who was playing to his fellows in one of the inn stables. Without stirring, I listened to the strains broken by the distance, when gradually, out of the stillness, a vocal accompaniment stole along on the night air. Owing to the profound silence that prevailed, I easily made out the words of the song; it was a Spanish Romancero; but the musician, through some odd fancy, had accompanied it with a refrain, consisting of some by-words very much in use among the Mexican people. This singularity raised in me a desire to see the player. At a short distance from the hacienda, and at the foot of a low hill which overtopped it, I observed the flickering light of a fire. One side of the singer's face was brightly illuminated by the blaze, and near him, two horses, tied together by a long cord, were cropping the scanty grass which grew on that stony soil. I advanced quietly, so as not to interrupt the unknown; but the noise of my footsteps betrayed me, and the music stopped all at once. The stranger rose hurriedly;