The staff-colonel did comprehend; the emphasis on the "tenderly" made it impossible for him to mistake the Dictator's meaning, which was just as he desired it. As he passed out of the presence, and from the room, his countenance was lit up, or rather darkened, by an expression of fiendish triumph. He now had it in his power to humiliate them who had so humbled him. "Quite a little comedy!" soliloquised Santa Anna, as the door closed on his subordinate, "in which, before it's played out, I may myself take a part. She's a charming creature, this Senorita Valverde. But, ah! nothing to the Condesa. That woman--witch, devil, or whatever I may call her--bids fair to do what woman never did--make a fool of Lopez de Santa Anna." CHAPTER NINETEEN. A WOODEN-LEGGED LOTHARIO. For some time the Dictator remained in his seat lighting cigarrito after cigarrito, and puffing away at them furiously. The look of light frivolity had forsaken his face, which was now overcast with gloom. At this time, as said, he wielded supreme unlimited power over the Mexican people--even to life and death. For although he might not recklessly or openly decree this, he could bring it about secretly--by means which, if rumour spoke true, he had more than once made use of. Indeed, there stood against his name more than one well-confirmed record of assassination. Thought of this may have had something to do with the cloud that had come over his features; though not for any qualms of conscience for the murders he may have committed or hired others to commit. More likely a fear that he himself might some day meet a similar fate; like all despots he dreaded the steel of the assassin. By his corrupt administration, he had encouraged bravoism till it had become a dangerous element in the social life of his country--almost an institution--and it was but natural he should fear the bravo's blade turned against himself. Another apprehension may at this time have been troubling him. Although to all appearance secure in the dictatorial chair, with a likelihood of his soon converting it into a real throne, he had his misgivings about this security. By imprisonments, executions, banishments, and confiscations, he had done all in his power to annihilate the Liberal party. But though crushed and feeble now, its strength was but in abeyance, its spirit still lived, and might again successfully assert itself. No man knew this better than he himself; and no better teacher could he have had than his own life's history, with its alternating chapters of triumph and defeat. Even then there was report of a _pronunciamento_ in one of the northern cities of the Republic--the State, by a polite euphemism, being still so designated. Only a faint "gritto" it was, but with a tone that resembled the rumbling of distant thunder, which might yet be heard louder and nearer.