We will give, in a few words, a portrait of this new personage, who is destined to play a most important part in this narrative. The stranger seemed to be twenty, or two-and-twenty at the most, though he was probably older; he was slim and delicate, but perfectly proportioned, and all his movements were marked by indescribable grace and nobility. His beardless face was surrounded by magnificent black ringlets, which escaped in profusion from under his hat, and fell in large clusters on his shoulders. This man had a lofty and wide forehead, intelligent and pensive, and a deep and well-opened eye, an aquiline nose with flexible nostrils, and a disdainful and mocking lip. All his features made up a strange, but commanding countenance. He might be loved, but he must be feared. His feet and hands were small, and evidenced good breeding. Dressed in the picturesque costume of Mexican campesinos, he wore his rich clothes with inimitable grace and ease. Who was he? His best friends, and he counted many such among the men in whose midst he had suddenly appeared, could not say. In America, especially at the period when our story is laid, it was the easiest thing in the world to conceal one's private existence: an intelligent man suddenly revealed himself, no one caring, whence he came or whither he went--a brilliant meteor, he traced a luminous line on the chaos of the revolutionary struggle, which he illumined by the strange flashes of his extraordinary deeds. Then this man--this unknown hero disappeared as suddenly as he had arisen: night closed in round him, the darkness grew denser and denser, and an impenetrable mystery brooded over his birth and his grave. The stranger was one of these men. He and the Jaguar were thus placed in an identical situation in the eyes of their partisans; but men live so quickly when the hour for the supreme struggle has struck, that no one attempted to pierce the gloom, and obtain the secret of these two young Chieftains. The man with whom we are now engaged was commonly called El Alferez by his friends and enemies. This word, which in Spanish literally signifies sub-lieutenant, had become the name of this singular person, which he had accepted, and to which he answered. Why had this strangely selected title been given him? This question, or any other, it is impossible for us to answer--at any rate, for the present. After taking a haughty and assured glance at the persons collected in disorderly groups around him, the young man leant against a barrel, and, with affected carelessness, said to the individuals who surrounded him--"Well, my scamps, have you amused yourselves properly?" A murmur of general satisfaction ran along the ranks. "Good, my coyotes," he continued, with the same mocking tone; "now, I suppose, you would like to smell a little blood?" "Yes," these sinister persons answered unanimously.