race.

In fact, this personage was Don Ramón Garillas de Saavedra, the proprietor of the Hacienda del Milagro, which we have just described.

Don Ramón Garillas was descended from a Spanish family, the head of which had been one of the principal lieutenants of Cortez, and had settled in Mexico after the miraculous conquest of that clever adventurer.

Enjoying a princely fortune, but unnoticed by the Spanish authorities, on account of his marriage with a woman of mixed Aztec blood, he had given himself up entirely to the cultivation of his land, and the amelioration of his vast domains.

After seventeen years of marriage, he found himself the head of a large family, composed of six boys and three girls, in all nine children, of whom Rafaël—he whom we have seen so deftly kill the vaquero—was the eldest.

The marriage of Don Ramón and Doña Jesuita had been merely a marriage of convenience, contracted solely with a view to fortune, but which, notwithstanding, had rendered them comparatively happy; we say comparatively, because, as the girl only left her convent to be married, no love had ever existed between them, but its place had been almost as well occupied by a tender and sincere affection.

Doña Jesuita passed her time in the cares necessitated by her children, surrounded by her Indian women. On his side, her husband, completely absorbed by the duties of his life as a gentleman farmer, was almost always with his vaqueros, his peons, and his huntsmen, only seeing his wife for a few minutes at the hours of meals, and sometimes remaining months together absent in hunting excursions on the banks of the Rio Gila.

Nevertheless, we are bound to add that, whether absent or present, Don Ramón took the greatest care that nothing should be wanting for his wife's comfort; and in order that her least caprices might be satisfied, he spared neither money nor trouble to procure her all she appeared to desire.

Doña Jesuita was endowed with extraordinary beauty and angelic mildness; she appeared to have accepted, if not with joy, at least without any great pain, the kind of life to which her husband bad obliged her to submit; but in the depth of her large black languishing eye, in the paleness of her countenance, and, above all, in the shade of sadness which continually obscured her beautiful white brow, it was easy to divine that an ardent soul abode within that seducing statue, and that the heart, which was ignorant of itself, had turned all its feelings upon her children, whom she adored with all the virginal strength of maternal love, the most beautiful and the most holy of all loves.

As for Don Ramón, always good and anxious for his wife, whom he had never taken the pains to study, he had a right to believe her the happiest creature in the world, which, in fact, she became as soon as God made her a mother.

It was some minutes after sunset; the sky, by degrees, lost its purple tint, and grew rapidly darker; a few stars began to sparkle in the celestial vault, and the evening wind arose with a force that presaged for the night, one of those terrible storms which so often burst over these regions of the sun.

The mayoral, after having caused the rest of the ganado to be carefully shut up in the enclosure, assembled the vaqueros and the peons, and all directed their steps towards the hacienda, where the supper bell announced to them that the hour of rest was at length arrived.

As the major-domo passed the last, with a bow, before his master, the latter asked him:

"Well, Nô Eusebio, how many heads do we count this year?"

"Four hundred and fifty mi amo—my master," replied the mayoral, a tall, thin, wizened man, with a grayish head, and a countenance tanned like a piece of leather, stopping his horse and taking off his hat; "that is to say, seventy-five head more than last year. Our neighbours the jaguars and the Apaches have not done us any great damage this season."

"Thanks to you, Nô Eusebio," Don Ramón replied; "your vigilance has been great; I must find means to recompense you for it."

"My best recompense is the kind remark your lordship has just addressed to me," the mayoral, whose rough visage was lit up by a smile of satisfaction, replied. "Ought I not to watch over everything that belongs to you with the same zeal as if it were my own?"

"Thanks," the gentleman remarked with emotion, and shook his servant's hand. "I know how truly you are devoted to me.

"For life and to death, my master! My mother nourished you with her milk; I belong to you and your family."

"Come, come, Nô Eusebio," the hacendero said, gaily; "supper is ready; the señora is by this time at table; we must not keep her waiting."

Upon this, both entered the patio, and Nô Eusebio, as Don Ramón had named him, prepared, as was his custom every evening, to close the gates.

In the meantime, Don Ramón entered the dining hall of the hacienda, where all the vaqueros and peons were assembled.

This hall was furnished with an immense table, which occupied the entire centre; around this table there were wooden forms covered with leather, and two carved armchairs, intended for Don Ramón and the señora. Behind these chairs, an ivory crucifix, four feet high, hung against the wall, between two pictures, representing, the one, "Jesus in the Garden of Olives," the other the "Sermon on the Mount." Here and there, on the whitewashed walls, grinned the heads of jaguars, buffaloes, and elks, killed in the chase by the hacendero.

The table was abundantly supplied with lahua, or thick soup made of the flour of maize boiled with meat, with puchero, or olla podrida, and with pepian; at regular distances there were bottles of mezcal, and decanters of water.

At a sign from the hacendero the repast commenced.

The storm, which had threatened for some time past, now broke forth with fury.

The rain fell in torrents; at every second vivid flashes of lightning dimmed the lights of the hall, preceding awful claps of thunder.

Towards the end of the repast, the hurricane acquired such violence, that the tumult of the conspiring elements drowned the hum of conversation.

The thunder peals clashed with frightful force, a whirlwind filled the hall, after dashing in a window, and extinguished all the lights; the assembly crossed themselves with terror.

At that moment, the bell placed at the gate of the hacienda resounded with a convulsive noise, and a voice, which had nothing human in it, cried twice distinctly,—

"Help! help!"

"Sangre de Cristo!" Don Ramón cried, as he rushed out of the hall, "somebody is being murdered on the plain."

Two pistol shots resounded at almost the same moment, a cry of agony rung through the air, and all relapsed into sinister darkness.

All at once, a pale flash of lightning furrowed the obscurity, the thunder burst with a horrible crash, and Don Ramón reappeared in the hall, bearing a fainting man in his arms.

The stranger was placed in a seat, and all crowded round him.

There was nothing extraordinary in either the countenance or the appearance of this man, and yet, on perceiving him, Rafaël, the eldest son of Don Ramón, could not repress a gesture of terror, and his face became lividly pale.

"O!" he murmured, in a low voice, "it is the juez de letras!"

It was, indeed, the worthy judge, whom we saw leave Hermosillo with such a brilliant equipage.

His long hair, soaked with rain, fell upon his breast, his clothes were in disorder, spotted with blood, and torn in many places.

His right hand convulsively clasped the stock of a discharged pistol.

Don Ramón had likewise recognized the juez de letras, and had unconsciously darted a glance at his son, which the latter could not support.

Thanks to the intelligent care that was bestowed upon him by Doña Jesuita and her women, he breathed a deep sigh, opened his haggard eyes, which he rolled round upon the assembly, without at first