Five minutes later the horses were brought round to the front of the house, and the young men, having meanwhile said a word or two of explanation to the ladies and bidden them temporarily adieu, mounted, and, accompanied by Carnero as guide, cantered off down the long path leading to the main road. But ere they reached this their guide turned off to the right, and, following a path that led through the tobacco fields, took them over the fence that formed one of the boundaries of Don Hermoso's property, and the party found themselves in the open country, over which Carnero led them in a bee-line, taking brooks, watercourses, and obstructions of various kinds as they came. The pace of the riders was by no means rapid, nothing more than a brisk canter, in fact, but, the route taken being practically the shortest possible distance between Senor Montijo's hacienda and Pinar del Rio, the journey was accomplished in little over an hour; and when at length they pulled up at the railway station they had a good four minutes in hand. "All right, Senores!" said Carnero, as he received the bridles of the two horses, "I will see that the nags are properly rubbed down and attended to, and that they shall be in readiness to go back with the coach and the servants to-morrow. Adios, Senores; luck go with you!" The clocks in the city were just striking ten when, after a somewhat tedious journey, the train clattered and jolted into the Western Station at Havana; and, jumping out, the lads chartered a volante--the local hansom, which is an open vehicle, mounted upon a pair of enormously high wheels, and fitted with such long shafts that it can only be turned with the utmost difficulty in the narrow streets--and drove down to the wharf, where they hired a shore boat to take them off to the yacht, which was lying moored to a pair of the trunk buoys in the harbour.