"The men who take that name, and the person who commands them, can only be regarded by me as traitors and fosterers of rebellion." "We care little, Colonel, what name you give us, or the manner in which you regard our acts. We have taken up arms to render our country independent, and shall not lay them down till that noble task is accomplished. These are the proposals I think it my duty to make you." "I cannot and will not treat with rebels," the Colonel said, clearly and distinctly. "You will act as you please, Colonel; but humanity orders you to avoid bloodshed, if possible, and your duty imperiously commands you to listen to what I have to say to you." "Be it so, Caballero, I will listen to you, and then will see what answer I have to give you; but I must ask you to be brief." The Jaguar leaned the point of his sabre on the ground, and giving a clear and piercing glance at the Mexican staff, he continued, in a loud, firm, and accentuated voice-- "I, the Commander-in-Chief of the Liberating Army of Texas, summon you, a Colonel in the service of the Mexican Republic, whose sovereignty we no longer recognise, to surrender to us this Larch-tree hacienda, of which you entitle yourself the Governor, and which you hold without right or reason. If, within twenty-four hours, the said hacienda is put into our hands, with all it contains, guns, ammunition, material of war, and otherwise, the garrison will quit the place with the honours of war, under arms, with drums and fifes playing. Then, after laying down their arms, the garrison will be free to retire to the interior of Texas, after making oath that during a year and a day they will not serve in Texas against the Liberating Army." "Have you ended?" the Colonel asked, with ill-disguised impatience. "Not yet," the Jaguar coldly answered. "I must ask you to make haste." On seeing these two men exchange savage glances, and placed in such a hostile position face to face, no one would have supposed that they were fond of each other, and groaned in their hearts at the painful part fate compelled them to play against their will. The truth was, that in one military fanaticism, in the other an ardent love of his country, had imposed silence on every other feeling, and only permitted them to listen to one, the most imperious of all--the sentiment of duty. The Jaguar, perfectly calm and firm, continued in the same resolute accent-- "If, against my expectations, these conditions are refused, and the place obstinately defends itself, the Army of Liberation will immediately invest it, carry on the siege with all the vigour of which it is capable, and when the hacienda is captured, it will undergo the fate of towns taken by assault; the garrison will be decimated, and remain prisoners till the end of the war."