"No get Mexico, senor; bad men watch road and kill you with _machete_
so," and he made a sweep with his knife, adding "they not want you live
tell soldiers."

"Listen," said Emma. "Do you know the _hacienda_, Concepcion, by the
town of San Jose?"

"Yes, senora, know it well, the _hacienda_ of Senor Gomez; bring you
there to-morrow."

"Then show the way," I said, and we started towards the hills.

All that day we travelled over mountains as fast as the mules could
carry us, Antonio trotting by our side. At sundown, having seen nothing
more of the brigands, who, I suppose, took it for granted that we were
dead or were too idle to follow us far, we reached an Indian hut, where
we contrived to buy some wretched food consisting of black _frijole_
beans and _tortilla_ cakes. That night we slept in a kind of hovel made
of open poles with a roof of faggots through which the water dropped on
us, for it rained persistently for several hours. To be more accurate,
Emma slept, for my nerves were too shattered by the recollection of our
adventure with the brigands to allow me to close my eyes.

I could not rid my mind of the vision of that coach, broken like an
eggshell, and of those shattered shapes within it that this very morning
had been men full of life and plans, but who to-night were--what? Nor
was it easy to forget that but for the merest chance I might have been
one of their company wherever it was gathered now. To a man with a
constitutional objection to every form of violence, and, at any rate
in those days, no desire to search out the secrets of Death before his