events in Mexico, seemed likely to be employed to the disadvantage of the existing government. Events were not long in confirming the justice of these fore bodings.
The reader may not, perhaps, have forgotten a certain lieutenant Don Blas, whom I had met at the venta of Arroyo Zarco, and had left seated at table with the bravo, Don Tomas Verduzco. The slight degree of acquaintanceship which I had with this officer never occurred to my mind without recalling to memory the mysterious relations which seemed to exist between him and a man who I had every reason to believe was my mortal enemy. Since my last meeting with Don Tomas I had been under a continual apprehension, but too well justified by the known antecedents of this ruffian.
I had, I believed, taken every precaution against an attack which would, according to all appearance, be made in the dark. Besides, I had conformed to the rules of the strictest prudence by restricting myself only to short walks from my place of abode. The porter of my house was an old soldier of the wars of independence, a brave and honorable man, who never showed more vigilance than when he was intoxicated. The result was, that the house could not have been better guarded. I was, it is true, the first victim of this excess of precaution on his part, for it was not without the greatest difficulty that, on one occasion, I prevailed upon him to unlock the iron chain that held together the two leaves of the entrance gate.
The Angelus was still sounding from all the churches in Mexico when, returning from a gallop on the Paseo, I rode through the streets, as I fancied, for the last time. Night was coming on when I gained my
