For nearly an hour bridles were let loose, and spurs repeatedly plied. On along the _calzada_ swept the squadron, over the bridge Churubusco, and past the _hacienda_ of San Antonio de Abad, which gives its name to the city gate on that side. Thenceforward the Pedregal impinges on the road, and the Hussars still going at a gallop along its edge, another bugle-call brought them to a halt. That, however, had naught to do with their halting, which came from their commander having reached the spot where he had left the hunchback in charge of the two soldiers. He need not hail them to assure himself they were still there. The trampling of horses on the hard causeway, heard afar off, had long ago forewarned the corporal of what was coming; and he was out on the road to receive them, standing in an attitude of attention. The parley was brief, and quick the action which accompanied it. "Into your saddle, _cabo_!" commanded the colonel. "Take that curiosity up behind you, and bring it along." In an instant the corporal was mounted, the "curiosity" hoisted up to his croup by Perico, who then sprang to the back of his own horse. Once more the bugle gave tongue, and away they went again. The cavalcade made no stop in San Augustin. There was no object for halting it there, and delay was the thing its commander most desired to avoid. As they went clattering through the _pueblo_, its people were a-bed, seemingly asleep. But not all. Two at least were awake, and heard that unusual noise--listened to it with a trembling in their frames and fear in their hearts. Two ladies they were, inside a house beyond the village, on the road running south. Too well they knew what it meant, and whither the galloping cohort was bound. And themselves unseen, they saw who was at the head; though they needed not seeing him to know. But peering through the _jalousies_, the moonlight revealed to them the face of Don Carlos Santander, in the glimpse they got of it, showing spitefully triumphant. He could not see them, though his eyes interrogated the windows while he was riding past. They had taken care to extinguish the light in their room. "_Virgin Santissima_! Mother of God!" exclaimed one of the ladies, Luisa Valverde, as she dropped on her knees in prayer, "Send that they've got safe off ere this!" "Make your mind easy, _amiga_!" counselled the Condesa Almonte in less precatory tone. "I'm good as sure they have. Jose cannot fail to have reached and given them warning. That will be enough." A mile or so beyond San Augustin the southern road becomes too steep for horses to go at a gallop, without risk of breaking their wind. So there the Hussars had to change to a slower pace--a walk in fact. There were other reasons for coming to this. The sound of their hoof-strokes ascending would be heard far up the mountain, might reach the ears of those in the monastery, and so thwart the surprise intended for them.