“I prefer death to the ignominy of finding myself in your company. Traitors! Assassins!” “Assassins, we are not, my captain, that you have already seen,” replied Antón. “I am not the captain of bandit-traitors, ex-Lieutenant Pérez.” “We are not traitors,” returned Pérez, “we desire to save our country, from Yankee usurpation.” “To save it indeed! and give it over to the foreigner! noble patriots! famous Mexicans!” continued Méndez. “Would that I had no eyes to behold you! Would that I were a lightning-stroke to destroy you. Cursed race! race of scorpions, who repay our country, our sacred motherland, by stinging her to the heart. One last word, Lieutenant Pérez; in the name of our native land, in the name of that oath of fealty, which you swore to the flag, in the name of a man’s sacred duty, I implore you to fulfil your obligations as a soldier, as a Mexican, as a man. Lay down those arms which you are converting from sacred to infamous. Lieutenant Pérez; worthy fellows of Cunduacán, _Viva la Republica_.” No one responded. * * * * * The moon, in its second quarter, shed a yellowing light through the trees and impressed upon the night an infinite sadness. When the beams of dawn came, that funereal light paled, until completely extinguished, and the sky became tinted with a rosy flush, which kindled in measure as the new day neared. A trembling of leaves agitated the branches at the awakening of the birds, which after shaking themselves, took silently to flight. Suddenly earth and trees appeared enveloped in dense fog, as if a night of whiteness had substituted itself for that, which had just ended. The fog, thinned little by little, until it seemed like heaps of spider webs, piled one on another, through the elastic meshes of which was seen a sun of polished silver. Suddenly the spider webs broke into a thousand tatters, falling to the ground, converted into a tenuous rain, and the day shone forth in full splendor. The trees gleamed in their beauteous verdure, the flowers of vines and the morningglories opened their chalices, sprinkled with dew drops, to the glowing and incestuous kisses of their father and lover, the regal star of day. Meantime Antón Pérez, in an agony, which seemed endless, lay at the foot of the oak-tree, which, indifferent, spread forth its broad and abundant leaves to the solar heat.