The Poblano seemed to treat it as a thing of course. It caused surprise to the stranger; whose habiliments, though not without some richness, scarce concealed an air of rusticity.

"Who is she?" inquired the astonished provincial.

"The daughter of one of our _ricos_" replied the Poblano. "His name is Don Eusebio Villa-Senor. No doubt you have heard of him?"

"Oh, yes. We know him in Yucatan. He's got a sugar estate near Sisal; though he don't come much among us. But who's the fortunate individual so likely to become proprietor of that pretty plantation? Such an intelligent fellow would make it pay; which, _por Dios_! is more than I can do with mine."

"Doubtful enough whether captain Moreno could do so either--if he had the chance of becoming its owner. By all accounts he's not much given to acc.u.mulating cash--unless over the _monte_ table. Independently of that, he's not likely to come in for any property belonging to Don Eusebio Villa-Senor."

"Well, without knowing much of your city habits," remarked the Yucateco, "I'd say he has a fair chance of becoming the owner of Don Eusebio's daughter. A Campeachy girl who'd do, what she has just done, would be considered as marked for matrimony."

"Ah!" rejoined the denizen of the angelic city, "you Yucatecos are a simple people: you leave your _muchachas_ free to do as they choose. In Puebla, if they don't obey the paternal mandate, they are inclosed within convents--of which we have no less than a dozen in our sainted city. I've heard say, that such is to be the fate of Dolores Villa-Senor--if she insist on marrying the man to whom you have just seen her handing that pretty epistle."

"Dolores Villa-Senor?" I asked, springing forward, and rudely taking part in a conversation that so fearfully interested me.

"_Dolores_ Villa-Senor? Do I understand you to say that _Dolores_ is the name of the lady just gone past in the carretela?"

"_Si senor--ciertamente_!" responded the Poblano, who must have supposed me insane, "Dolores Villa-Senor; or Lola, if you prefer it short: that is the lady's name. _Carrambo_! what is there strange about it? Every _chiquit.i.to_ in the streets of Puebla knows _her_."

My tongue was stopped. I made no further inquiry. I had heard enough to tell me I had been chicaned.

She who had pa.s.sed was the woman I loved--the same who had invited me to the Alameda. There could be no mistake about that, nor aught else--only that her name was _Dolores_, and _not Mercedes_!

I had been made the catspaw of a heartless coquette!

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A PARTING GLANCE AT PUEBLA.

From that hour I felt that Puebla was no place for me. Any _metier_ but that of the singed moth. I determined thenceforth to shun the candle that had cruelly scorched, and might only scorch me more.

Attractive as was the light that had lured me, I resolved never more to let my eyes look upon it. It had proved too resplendent. It would not be with my own will, if I should ever again see _Dolores_ Villa-Senor.

How easy thus to talk--thus to resolve--during the first throes of a wounded vanity--when the spirit is strengthened by its discomfiture.

But ah! how difficult to maintain the determination! Hercules had no such task.

I endeavoured to fortify myself with reflection: by conjuring up every thought that might restore my indifference, or enable me to forget her.

It was all to no purpose. Such memories could only be chastened by time.

They were not universally painful. It was something to think that I had interested, even in the slightest degree, one so grand, so famed, so incomparable; and there were moments when the remembrance soothed me.

It was but a poor recompense for the sacrifice I had made, and the suffering I endured.

In vain I invoked my pride--my vanity, if you prefer so to call it. It no longer availed me. Crushed in the encounter, it made one last spasmodic attempt, and then sank under a sense of humiliation.

Untrue what I had been told by other tongues. They must have been sheer flatterers, those friends who had called me _handsome_. Compared with Francisco Moreno, I was as Satyr to Hyperion. So must Dolores have thought? At times, reflecting thus, I could not help feeling vengeful, and dwelling on schemes of retaliation,--of which both were the object.

By good fortune none appeared feasible, or even possible. I was helpless as Chatelar, when the sated queen no longer looked lovingly upon him.

There was no hope except in absence--that grand balsam of the broken heart. I knew it by a past experience. Fortune favoured me with the chance of trying it the second time; and soon. Three days after that sweet encounter in the Cathedral--and the bitter one in the Alameda--our bugles summoned us to get ready; and, on the fourth, we commenced moving towards the capital of Mexico.

The counsel I had received from my sage comrade, along with the excitement of opening a new chapter in our campaign, gave temporary relief to my wounded spirit. An untrodden track was before us--new fields of fame--to end in that long antic.i.p.ated, much talked-of, pleasure: a revel in the "Halls of the Moctezumas!"

To me the prospect had but little attraction: and even this was gone, before we had pa.s.sed the _Piedmont_ of the Cordillera that overlooks the cla.s.sic town of Cholula.

On entering the "Black Forest," whose trees were to screen it from my sight, I turned to take a parting look at the City of the Angels.

The chances were nearly equal I might never see it again. We were about to enter a valley close as that of Cabool; and from which retreat would be even more difficult. Our troops, all told, mustered scarce ten thousand; while the _trained_ regiments of our enemy were of themselves three times the number. Besides, we were about to penetrate a capital city--the very heart's core of an ancient nation. Would it not rouse our adversaries to a gigantic effort--a throe sufficient to overwhelm us?

So supposed many of my comrades.

For myself I had no reflections about the future--either of its conquests or defeats.

My thoughts were with my eyes--wandering over the vast _vega_--resting on the spires of a city, where I had experienced one of the sweetest sensations of my life.

Alas! it had proved a deception, and I had no pleasure in recalling it.

On the contrary, I looked back upon the place with a cold pain at my heart, and a consciousness, that I had there sacrificed some of its warmest affections without an iota of return!

I remained for some minutes on the edge of the _Bosque Negra_--the _ancillae_ of the long-leaved pines sweeping the crown of my forage cap.

Under my eyes, as on a chart, was spread the fertile plain of Puebla, with the city projected in clear outline. Besides the Cathedral, many a spire could I distinguish, and that "public walk" where I had suffered such humiliation. My eyes traced the lines of the streets--running parallel, as in all Spanish-American cities--and sought that of the Calle del Obispo.

I fancied that I could distinguish it; and along with the fancy a score of souvenirs came sweeping over my soul.

They were not pleasant--not one of them. Though all bright below-- turrets rising gaily against the turquoise sky--domes that sparkled silver-like in the sun--Orizava snow-white in the distance--around me upon the mountain side all seemed dark as death!

It was not the _lava_ that laced the slope, nor the sombre foliage of the pine-trees, under whose shade I was standing.

The shadow came from within--from the cloud covering my soul.

It was not dread of the Black Forest behind me--the terror of stage-coach travellers--nor apprehension of the fate that might be awaiting me in the capital of the Moctezumas, yet to be conquered.

It could not be worse than that, which had befallen me in the City of the Angels!

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

AN ANTIPATHY TO ROBBERS.

After the storming of Chapultepec--the "summer palace of the Moctezumas;" in which I had the honour of leading the forlorn hope--do not mistake a plain statement of fact for a baseless boast--after a seclusion of three months within the walls of a sick chamber, caused by wounds in that action received; I stepped forth upon the streets of the Mexican capital fully restored to health.

Three months more were spent in partaking of those joys--the reward of the victorious soldier, who has completed a campaign.

As in the "City of the Angels," so was it in that of the Moctezumas.

The officers of the invading army were excluded from the "interiors"-- such of them as were worth entering.

But as it was no longer an army of invaders, but _conquerors_, the exclusion was neither so strict nor general. There were exceptions on both sides--extending to a limited number of courageous hosts and welcome guests.