"Oh, pray tell us all about it!" exclaimed Rose, smiling brightly under her parasol, and drawing two very pretty feet, cased in bronze boots, close under her crinoline. Hawkshaw seemed here to recall some real memory of his wild and wandering life, for a dark, savage, and malignant gleam came into his eyes, while a hectic flush crossed his weather-beaten cheek, and he began thus: "I was travelling through the Barranca Secca, which lies between Xalappa and the Puebla de Perote, on the long, hot, dusty road which leads from Vera Cruz to Mexico. "Though I had not a farthing in my pocket, and knew not how I was to procure a supper for myself or my horse on reaching Orizaba (for I had spent all my ready money), I was well mounted, and well armed, with a first-rate six-shooter, a bowie-knife, and carried, moreover, a lasso, for whatever might come to hand--to catch a stray _cavallo_, a wild bull, whip nuts from a tree, to loop in a chocolate-coloured _raterillo_, which means a thief, or, perhaps, a run-away nigger. "The sun was setting behind the Cordilleras de los Ondes, when I entered a _quibrada_, as the Spaniards name it, a deep gully--all great adventures take place in ravines and defiles; but I am more practical than most men, and so call things by their right names--so it was a gully in the mountains, worn, bored, and torn by the waterspouts and thunderstorms of ages; but lofty trees that towered above the underwood of aloes and azaleas--azaleas to which yours are weeds, indeed, Rose--overshadowed it, and cast a gloom upon the road, which seemed to enter a species of sylvan tunnel. I took a hearty pull of aquadiente from the leathern _bota_ at my saddle-bow, and lit a Manilla cheroot, to make the most of the 'shining hour.' "This portion of the Barranca Secca had a particularly bad name as the haunt of robbers, and there was more than one wooden cross, covered with green creepers, and many a pile of stones by the wayside marking the lonely and unconsecrated grave of a bandit, who had been shot by the National Guard of Orizaba, the soldiers of Santa Anna, long ago, or where the victim of the bandido's knife or rifle lay. "Well, anxious to get through the gully, I was going at a fine rasping pace, when I met a man, armed with a long rifle, and carrying a knife and brace of pistols in the red and yellow sash which girt up his blue cotton breeches. His tawny breast, feet, and legs, from the knees at least, were bare, and a sheepskin jacket, tied by a cocoa-nut cord, dangled over his right shoulder. "I recognised him at once, as Zuares Barradas, a young man, whom, with his brother Pedro, I had met at the gold-diggings on the Feather River, and with whom I had travelled from the seaport of San Diego, when they had both deserted their ship to try their fortunes at the mines. "'What--capitano, is it you?' he exclaimed, 'welcome to the Barranca Secca.'