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Rh men, showed that he was regaining the ground he had lost.

"The colonel is no bad reasoner, it appears to me," said I to Don Blas.

"His reasons seem solid enough," he answered, with the air of a man who seemed almost convinced; "but my duty obliges me to look on him as an enemy."

Affairs, however, appeared to be drawing to a pacific conclusion, when the colonel added, "It is an understood thing, then, that we do not fire upon each other. Besides, what would your captain gain by shooting me? He does not owe me a single real."

This unhappy allusion, which brought to the lieutenant's mind the disagreeable circumstance that he had been held in pledge for a debt of a few piastres, kindled anew all his former hatred, and he exclaimed, "Death to the enemies of our country! Fire upon the traitors!"

His men were astonished at such an unexpected order, but they were forced to obey, and the two parties began to fire at one another with a want of success only equaled by their obstinacy. The balls passed above my head, and tore through the air with a sharp whiz, similar to that produced by thrusting red-hot iron into water. Carefully squatting down in an angle of the wall, I marked the countenance of Don Blas, and I must say that it did not appear quite at ease, when a fresh discharge was heard, and the lieutenant fell. I ran toward him, but the asistente was before me. Don Blas, lying at full length, gave no sign of life. I saw Juanito shove several of the soldiers imperiously aside, and could not help admiring the fidelity of this man to his master, when, to my great surprise, he thrust his hands into the pockets of the