With an effort he repulsed these reflections, and sternly resolved upon going to the hacienda Del Valle, to re-steel his heart over the tomb of his father. A perilous journey it would be for him. The whole province--the capital and one or two other places excepted--was now in the hands of the insurgents; and a royalist officer could not travel the roads without great risk of falling into their hands. "God protects him who does his duty," muttered Don Rafael, as he again turned his horse to the roads, spurring him into a gallop, in order that the sound of his hoofs might drown that pious song, which, by stirring up sad souvenirs, was fast weakening his resolution. In another hour he had crossed the Sierra which bounded the plain of Huajapam, and was following the road which led southward to the hacienda Del Valle. CHAPTER FIFTY TWO. RUDE GUESTS. Let us now recount the events which took place at the hacienda Las Palmas from the day on which Captain Tres-Villas was compelled to leave Don Mariano and his two daughters at the mercy of the ferocious robbers Arroyo and Bocardo. The two guerilleros had sought refuge there, with the remnant of their band--most of which had been already destroyed by Tres-Villas and Caldelas. From the moment of first entering his house, they had insisted upon a footing of perfect equality between themselves and their old master. Even Gertrudis and Marianita were not exempted from this compulsory social levelling. The brigands ate at the same table with Don Mariano and his daughters--were waited upon by the servants of the hacienda--and slept in the very best beds the house afforded. All the while Bocardo was observed to cast covetous glances on the silver plate--which, as is customary in the houses of Mexican _ricos_, was massive and abundant. In Don Mariano's presence he was in the habit of frequently making allusion to the richness of the Royalists; and behind his back he had several times endeavoured to persuade Arroyo that one who was the proprietor of such wealth, as was enjoyed by the haciendado, could not be otherwise than an enemy to the insurgent cause, and, at the bottom of his heart, a friend to the oppressors of the country. "Look at us, poor insurgents!" he would say, "often reduced--especially when absent from this hospitable mansion--to use our fingers for forks, and our _tortillas_ for spoons!" And the wind-up of his argument always was, that they "ought to treat as a Royalist a master who dined every day upon silver plates--that Don Mariano should be reduced to the same condition as other patriotic insurgents, and use his fingers for forks, while his plates should be converted into piastres."