"This is well," said Alvaro, watching with grim satisfaction the adroit manner in which Lazaro linked the rogues together. "On my honour, Lazaro, you should have been a general instead of a mule-driver. But what is wisdom in the former, the world stigmatizes as mere cunning in the latter. Believe me, Señor Stuart, the entire success of this expedition is principally owing to this sturdy rogue of Merida, on whom I would bestow a cherry-cheeked bride and a thousand hard ducats, if he would only quit mule-driving, and settle quietly down within the sound of the bells of San Juan. He was our guide to-night during the whole of the tempest, and notwithstanding its fury and the darkness, which was so intense that I could scarcely see my horse’s ears, he conducted us up the mountains, by some chasm or gorge, safely and surely, horse and foot, as only the devil—"
"Ay, Lazaro, or a muleteer of Merida, could have done. He provided planks for us to cross the chasm here, which otherwise must have brought us to a dead halt; and it was entirely owing to his tact and observation that we were enabled to surprise the villains at so critical a time. A sore penance you must have endured, my friend, in spending so many months in such company; but it might be the less regretted, as it will probably go to your account of time in purgatory. You shall have most ample satisfaction, however, before the night is much older, for all the injuries you have suffered from them."
Ronald was so much overjoyed at his deliverance, that he could scarcely find words to express his feelings, and the obligations which he owed to Don Alvaro; but, with a spirit of forgiveness highly honourable, he began to intercede for the lives of some of the banditti, who had not made themselves quite so obnoxious as the rest while he was kept in durance among them: but Alvaro replied, that the commands of Don Diego de Avallo, the Spanish minister, expressly enjoined that no quarter should be given, as it was the intention of government to strike a general terror into the banditti which infested every part of the country, and that they must be cut off, root and branch. Ronald then proposed that they should be marched down the mountains to Vittoria, or any other town, and there delivered over to the civil authorities; but Villa Franca said that he had no time to spare, and the horde of the Torre de los Frayles must be instantly disposed of.