Suddenly The Scowling Spokesman Of The Troop, With A Shouted "Vamos!"
Turned His Horse's Head And, Followed By All The Others, Rode Out And
Broke Into A Gallop.
We too then hurried out, and from the screen of
poplar and black acacia trees growing at the side
Of the moat, watched
their movements, and saw, when they had got away a few hundred yards
from the gate, the young unarmed officer break away from them and
start off at the greatest speed he could get out of his horse. The
others quickly gave chase and at length disappeared from sight in the
direction of the Alcalde's or local petty magistrate's house, about a
mile and a half away. It was a long low thatched ranch without trees,
and could not be seen from our house as it stood behind a marshy lake
overgrown with all bulrushes.
While we were straining our eyes to see the result of the chase, and
after the hunted man and his pursuers had vanished from sight among
the herds of cattle and horses grazing on the plain, the tragedy was
being carried out in exceedingly painful circumstances. The young
officer, whose home was more than a day's journey from our district,
had visited the neighbourhood on a former occasion and remembered that
he had relations in it; and when he broke away from the men, divining
that it was their intention to murder him, he made for the old
Alcalde's house. He succeeded in keeping ahead of his pursuers until
he arrived at the gate, and throwing himself from his horse and
rushing into the house, and finding the old Alcalde surrounded by the
women of the house, addressed him as uncle and claimed his protection.
The Alcalde was not, strictly speaking, his uncle but was his mother's
first cousin.
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