Of course I thought only of Mercedes. It would have been absurd to suppose that the man I saw before me could be _after_ the other. The idea did not enter my brain--reeling at the sight of my successful rival. Unlike me, he was not kept long in suspense. Ten o'clock had evidently been the hour of appointment. The cathedral was to give the time; and, as the tolling commenced, the cloaked cavalier had entered the street, and hastened forward to the place. As the last strokes were reverberating upon the still night air, I saw the blind silently drawn aside; while a face--too often outlined in my dreams--now, in dim but dread reality, appeared within the embayment of the window. The instant after, and a form, robed in dark habiliments, stepped silently out into the balcony; a white arm was stretched over the balusters; something still whiter, appearing at the tips of tapering fingers, fell noiselessly into the street, accompanied by the softly whispered words: "_Querido Francisco; va con Dios_!" (God be with you, dear Francis!) Before the _billet-doux_ could be picked up from the pavement, the fair whisperer disappeared within the window; the jalousie was once more drawn: and both house and street relapsed into sombre silence. No one passing the mansion of Don Eusebio Villa-Senor could have told, that his daughter had been committing an _indiscretion_. That secret was in the keeping of two individuals; one to whom it had, no doubt, imparted supreme happiness; the other to whom it had certainly given a moment of misery! CHAPTER SEVEN. BRIGANDAGE IN NEW SPAIN. Accustomed to live under a strong government, with its well-organised system of police, we in England have a difficulty in comprehending how a regular band of robbers can maintain itself in the midst of a civilised nation. We know that we have gangs of burglars, and fraternities of thieves, whose sole profession is to plunder. The _footpad_ is not quite extinct; and although he occasionally enacts the _role_ of the highwayman, and demands "your money or your life," neither in dress nor personal appearance is he to be distinguished from the ordinary tradesman, or labourer. More often is he like the latter. Moreover, he does not bid open defiance to the law. He breaks it in a sneaking, surreptitious fashion; and if by chance he resists its execution, his resistance is inspired by the fear of capture and its consequences--the scaffold, or penitentiary. This defiance rarely goes further than an attempt to escape from the policeman, with a bull's-eye in one hand and a truncheon in the other.