Although these dispositions consumed full ten minutes, when he returned to his place, the priest still delayed his coming. The count, however, fiery and impetuous as he was, waited patiently for a period quite as long; when, finding that the door still remained closed, he began to knit his brows and mutter angry threats. These signs encouraged Margarita, for they indicated delay, if not deliverance; and she had even the audacity to smile in De Marsiac’s face. “Antonio,” said the latter furiously, “go to Father Aneres and tell him that we are waiting for him—_impatiently_!” The man addressed sprang to the door and attempted to open it, but it did not yield to his efforts. “It is fastened on the outside,” he said. But, at the same moment, the door behind the altar was heard to swing upon its hinges, and a slow, heavy step was placed upon the short stairway which led up to the platform. “The old dotard is coming at last,” muttered the count, not observing the ominous report of his messenger. He laid aside his gold-laced cap, which hitherto he had kept upon his head, and resuming Margarita’s hand, placed himself before the railing and looked up. It was not the priest who stood at the altar! A tall, heavily-armed man—evidently an American—rose suddenly from his cover, and, leveling a pistol at De Maniac’s breast, gave his war-cry of “_Texano! Texano!_” At the same moment the closed door was thrown open, and a band of near twenty men filed speedily in and brought their carbines to bear upon the _rancheros_—while a detachment, equally strong, rushed in from the priest’s room, and marched past their leader—who was none other than McCulloch of the Texan Rangers! A glance passed between Harding and Grant—each understood the thought of the other—and, as if by pre-concert, they broke away from their guards, sprang upon the count, and, before his men could interfere, dragged him, a prisoner in his turn, within the chancel! Scarcely giving him time to speak, two of the rangers hurried him away through the priest’s room, and delivered him in charge to the guard stationed at the door. “Lay down your arms!” shouted McCulloch, through the din which now arose—chiefly from the domestics—“and every man’s life shall be spared. But the _ranchero_ that holds his arms one minute, shall hang to the first tree that’s tall enough to stretch him.” The word “_Texano_” had already half accomplished the conquest; the captivity of their leader weakened their resolution, and this threat, which every Texan was, in the estimation of a Mexican, fully capable of executing, completed the discomfiture. Each _ranchero_ threw down his arms with an alacrity which seemed to indicate that they were growing hot in his hands, and the two detachments of rangers marched in and made them all prisoners, without the least resistance. “There’s one good job well done, boys,” said McCulloch, “and all the better done because we have spilt no blood.”