It was but a moment, and again he looked upwards. Not curiosity, but the fascination of fear, caused him to look again. The horseman had disappeared. Neither horse nor man--no object of any sort--broke the line of the bluffs! "Surely I have been dreaming again?" muttered the still trembling caitiff. "Surely I have? There was no one there, least of all--. How could he? He is hundreds of miles off! It was an illusion! Ha! ha! ha! What the devil is the matter with my senses, I wonder? That horrid dream of last night has bewitched them! _Carrambo_! I'll think no more of it?" As he said this he resumed his pace more briskly, believing that that might rid him of his unpleasant reflections. At every turn, however, his eyes again sought the bluff, and swept along its edge with a glance that betokened fear. But they saw no more of the spectre horseman, and their owner began to feel at ease again. A footstep was heard upon the stone steps of the "escalera." Some one was ascending to the roof. The next moment the head and shoulders of a man were visible; and Captain Roblado stepped out upon the azotea. The "buenos dias" that passed between him and Vizcarra showed that it was their first meeting for that day. In fact, neither had been long up; for the hour was not yet too late for fashionable sleepers. Roblado had just breakfasted, and come out on the azotea to enjoy his Havannah. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed he, as he lighted the cigar, "what a droll masquerade it has been! 'Pon my soul! I can scarce get the paint off; and my voice, after such yelling, won't recover for a week! Ha! ha! Never was maiden wooed and won in such a romantic, roundabout way. Shepherds attacked--sheep driven off and scattered to the winds--cattle carried away and killed in regular _battue_--old woman knocked over, and rancho given to the flames--besides three days of marching and countermarching, travestying Indian, and whooping till one is hoarse; and all this trouble for a poor _paisana_--daughter of a reputed witch! Ha! ha! ha! It would read like a chapter in some Eastern romance-- Aladdin, for instance--only that the maiden was not rescued by some process of magic or knight-errantry. Ha! ha ha!" This speech of Roblado will disclose what is, perhaps, guessed at already--that the late incursion of "los barbaros" was neither more nor less than an affair got up by Vizcarra and himself to cover the abduction of the cibolero's sister. The Indians who had harried the sheep and cattle--who had attacked the hacienda of Don Juan--who had fired the rancho and carried off Rosita--were Colonel Vizcarra, his officer Captain Roblado, his sergeant Gomez, and a soldier named Jose-- another minion of his confidence and will.