As for Don Ramón, always good and anxious for his wife, whom he had never taken the pains to study, he had a right to believe her the happiest creature in the world, which, in fact, she became as soon as God made her a mother. It was some minutes after sunset; the sky, by degrees, lost its purple tint, and grew rapidly darker; a few stars began to sparkle in the celestial vault, and the evening wind arose with a force that presaged for the night, one of those terrible storms which so often burst over these regions of the sun. The mayoral, after having caused the rest of the ganado to be carefully shut up in the enclosure, assembled the vaqueros and the peons, and all directed their steps towards the hacienda, where the supper bell announced to them that the hour of rest was at length arrived. As the major-domo passed the last, with a bow, before his master, the latter asked him: "Well, Nô Eusebio, how many heads do we count this year?" "Four hundred and fifty _mi amo_--my master," replied the mayoral, a tall, thin, wizened man, with a grayish head, and a countenance tanned like a piece of leather, stopping his horse and taking off his hat; "that is to say, seventy-five head more than last year. Our neighbours the jaguars and the Apaches have not done us any great damage this season." "Thanks to you, Nô Eusebio," Don Ramón replied; "your vigilance has been great; I must find means to recompense you for it." "My best recompense is the kind remark your lordship has just addressed to me," the mayoral, whose rough visage was lit up by a smile of satisfaction, replied. "Ought I not to watch over everything that belongs to you with the same zeal as if it were my own?" "Thanks," the gentleman remarked with emotion, and shook his servant's hand. "I know how truly you are devoted to me. "For life and to death, my master! My mother nourished you with her milk; I belong to you and your family." "Come, come, Nô Eusebio," the hacendero said, gaily; "supper is ready; the señora is by this time at table; we must not keep her waiting." Upon this, both entered the patio, and Nô Eusebio, as Don Ramón had named him, prepared, as was his custom every evening, to close the gates. In the meantime, Don Ramón entered the dining hall of the hacienda, where all the vaqueros and peons were assembled. This hall was furnished with an immense table, which occupied the entire centre; around this table there were wooden forms covered with leather, and two carved armchairs, intended for Don Ramón and the señora. Behind these chairs, an ivory crucifix, four feet high, hung against the wall, between two pictures, representing, the one, "Jesus in the Garden of Olives," the other the "Sermon on the Mount." Here and there, on the whitewashed walls, grinned the heads of jaguars, buffaloes, and elks, killed in the chase by the hacendero.