It is now well on the afternoon, and the "beauty and fashion" of the Mexican metropolis were beginning to appear in carriages, with chivalry on horseback, along the line of streets leading to the Paseo Nuevo. The procession of the morning would little affect the usual evening display; and already several equipages had rolled past the place where the chain-gang was at work. But as yet appeared not the one so anxiously looked-for, and the half-hour was up! Still ten minutes more without any sign of it! More anxious now were the three prisoners, who contemplated escape, though not at all to the same degree, or for the same reason. Kearney feared there had been a failure, from betrayal by the coachman spoken of as so trustworthy; he did not think of suspecting Pepita. The Texan, too, believed some hitch had occurred, a "bit o' crooked luck," as he worded it. Not so Rivas. Though, as the others, chafing at the delay, he still had confidence in the carriage coming, as he had in the directing head of one he expected to see inside it. It was being purposely kept back, he fancied; likely as not, lest it might attract attention by being too early on the street. Whatever the cause, his conjectures were soon brought to an end--and abruptly--by seeing the thing itself. "_Bueno_!" he mentally exclaimed, then muttering to the others--"Yonder it comes! _Frisones pardes_ coachman in sky-blue and silver--be ready _camarados_." And ready they were, as panthers preparing to spring. Rock and Rivas, as Kearney himself, were now out of the sewer and up on the street; all three still making believe to work; while the dwarf seemed to suspect there was something in the wind, but could not guess what. He knew the instant after, when a strong hand, grasping him by the collar, lifted him off his feet, raising and tossing him further aloft, as though he had been but a rat. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. A CLUMSY COCHERO. Perhaps no people in the world have been more accustomed to spectacular surprises than they who perambulate the streets of the Mexican metropolis. For the half-century preceding the time of which I write, they had witnessed almost as many revolutions as years, seen blood spilled till the stones ran red with it, and dead bodies lying before their doors often for hours, even days, unremoved. As a consequence, they are less prone to curiosity than the dwellers in European cities, and the spectacle or incident that will stir their interest in any great degree must needs be of an uncommon kind.