“Just as I turned the corner, on a run, with both of my colts on a shooting level--for, by the way, it is always best to come upon your enemy suddenly and surprise him before he knows you are there--I saw several bodies in the street, and in the distance some dozen men retreating. I stopped near by the first body I came to; and to my horror I saw it was the still warm corpse of Senor Bustino. As I paused and stooped to more closely examine, I thought I could detect the lingering smell of that hellish convict's tobacco. Had the fiends attacked my host's home and dragged him insensate through the streets, or had he been slain whilst hurrying to the post of duty, at the sound of the alarm he knew well the meaning of? If the former, good God! what had been the fate of his wife and lovely daughters? The very thought momentarily unnerved me; and if the convicts had not yet wreaked their vengeance, could I reach them in time to be of effective service? Louder and louder roared the tumult, nearer and nearer came the flashing, glinting lights of torch and pistol, and as I swept round into the street in which Senor Bustino's house stood I could see, pouring down the hill toward it, a demoniac gang led by the bare-breasted convict whose baleful face had haunted me. “I found the senora and her daughters alone and, thank God! unharmed; but not a moment too soon, for even as I hurried them through into the darkness of the night the convicts, with curses on their tongues, lust in their heart, and red ruin in their hands, swarmed into the house. A momentary check came as their leader and another fell in the narrow door, beneath the fire of my two revolvers, and the flames which leaped up from that erewhile home lent their last protection in the shadow they cast, which enabled us, by availing ourselves of it, to escape. By the time we arrived at my hotel the convicts had flown to the mountains and we heard the story of the revolt. If I had not smelled that tobacco I should not have concealed myself in the doorway, my life would not have been worth a picayune, and you may imagine what would have been the fate of my hostess and her household. Senor Bustino, it appeared, had fallen a victim to the high chivalry which prompted him, hearing the bell and knowing its meaning, to hastily summon his servants, and with five or six armed _peons_ hasten out to overtake me and bid me return to his house until all danger was over. He had met the convicts, who had attacked him and struck him down, while most of his servants fled.” Dunton paused, made and lighted another cigarette, and continued: “I could not get away for a month, for it was not safe for a small party to leave the town. I brought out some of that tobacco as a curiosity and learned to like it. I send for more every year where it is still prepared, in the prison-pens.”