The Bandolero; Or, A Marriage among the Mountains

Who does not know him? Who that has journeyed upon the "corduroy roads" of Kentucky, Mississippi, or Tennessee--who thus dreadfully jolted--does not remember the compensation he...

It had not yet reached the hour of midnight, as we left the Great National Road, and commenced moving up the mountain,--in a lateral though somewhat parallel course to that we h...

At a glance I could see that he was a Spanish-American of the pure Iberian blood--the boasted _sangre azul_ of Andalusia--without any trace of the Aztecan. Perhaps a Spaniard re...

The stage-driver still acted in this capacity. By good fortune he had made the ascent before--on some speculative expedition during a recess, when the ribbons were out of his ha...

Fortunately the wounds received by their comrades were not mortal, though it needed not this to provoke their vengeance. The situation of the two captives--now thoroughly compre...

Another terrace was ascended; and before us stood the house--a massive structure of quadrangular shape only one story in height, but surmounted by an _azotea_ with a parapet run...

"Darn'd if I know, cap'n; 'cept it air one band o' robbers that's attackted the t'other, and stripped 'em of their spoils. The conq'rors 'pear to be clean gone away, an' hev too...

After watching my rival disappear within his doorway, I remained for some seconds in the street--undecided which way to go. I had done with "querido Francisco;" and intended to...

As I tottered upon my back, I felt my head and shoulders in contact with the legs of a man. They broke the fall, that might otherwise have stunned me: for the floor was of stone...

"What is it, captain? One of my aides-de-camp tells me you have asked for an interview. Be brief with your business; I'm full of affairs just now." I was not a favourite at head...

A fine old town we found it--with its grand cathedral, of which, according to monkish legend, _real_ angels were the architects; its scores of _capillas_ and _parroquias_; its h...

There seemed no help for it, but complying with the brigand's request. The log cabin could not be successfully stormed without a fearful sacrifice of the lives of my men--which...

There was no ambiguity about the meaning of the phrase: "God be with you, dear Francis!" The coldest heart could not fail to interpret it-- coupled with the act to which it had...

Though by this time the sun was in the sky, it was still sombre darkness at the bottom of the barranca. I could barely distinguish the forms of Sam Brown and the brigand.

There was one of these frequenters of the saloon in whom I felt a peculiar interest. Our acquaintance did not commence at the _monte_ table. I first saw him in the Calle del Obi...

La Puebla de los Angeles is peculiar, even among the cities of modern Mexico; peculiar in the fact, that two-thirds of its population are composed of priests, _pelados, poblanas...

With the thought of Dolores in the keeping of common brigands, I should have been, if not content, certainly less tortured. It was a different thing to think of her in the keepi...

And the pain came not from the story I had heard. It was not the thought that Dolores--for it was no more Mercedes--that Dolores Villa-Senor was in the keeping of brutal brigand...

Accustomed to live under a strong government, with its well-organised system of police, we in England have a difficulty in comprehending how a regular band of robbers can mainta...

From that day, each return of twilight's gentle hour saw me in the Calle del Obispo. The sun was not more certain to set behind the snow-crowned Cordilleras, than I to traverse...

I supped with Francisco. The goddess Fortuna did not show any grudge against him, for his short flirtation with the sister divinity; but, on his return to the _monte_ table, aga...

Our conquering army thus easily admitted into the City of the Angels, soon discovered it to be deserving of a far different appellation; and before we were a week within its wal...

"I hope you have not received any serious injury?" I said, on becoming assured that the only Red Hat remaining in the street was the one lying along the kerb-stone. "Are you wou...

Another strange occurrence of Mexico; if not the most incomprehensible, certainly the most painful, that had yet come under my cognisance: for it related to myself--the black, b...

As on the day before, the _jalousies_ were down, and my surveillance was once more doomed to disappointment. There was no face, no form, not even so much as a finger, to be seen...

In most Mexican cities of the first and second class, there is both a "Paseo" and an "Alameda;" the former a public drive--riding included; the latter more especially set apart...

To me the situation was irksome in the extreme. It gave too much leisure to brood over my bitterness. An active life might have offered some chance of distraction; but inside a...

The house rose three stories from the street--its massive mason work giving it a look of solemn grandeur. The great gaol-like gate--knobbed all over like the hide of an Indian r...

When "wanted," to give testimony in the investigation that ensued, not one, but five, of Dominguez's followers were reported "missing!" The four coadjutors of him who had been k...

There is one subject upon which there can be no question--nothing to admit of discussion. It is, that jealousy is the most painful thought that can torture the soul of man.

There was no need for any one to explain what had passed. All saw, and too clearly, that we had been chicaned; and that the wretched curs who had "sold" us, were as completely b...

After the storming of Chapultepec--the "summer palace of the Moctezumas;" in which I had the honour of leading the forlorn hope--do not mistake a plain statement of fact for a b...

From that hour I felt that Puebla was no place for me. Any _metier_ but that of the singed moth. I determined thenceforth to shun the candle that had cruelly scorched, and might...

The Street of the Sparrows appeared to be my doomed spot. For the second time there seemed no chance of my getting out of it alive; and for the second time I made up my mind to...

The human heart is capable of a sentiment that can turn dirt into diamonds, or darkness to light,--at least in imagination. Under its influence the peasant's hut becomes transfo...

Before separating from Don Eusebio I received from him a detailed account of the coach robbery, with all the allied incidents. It was necessary I should know everything; and eve...

I now longed to have a conversation with him; determined in my own mind that it should be more cordial than any that had yet taken place between us. I could at that moment have...

I was not so confident of being able to keep my promise, as I stepped out into the sunlight, and saw a little before me the man who was to be my antagonist.

While engaged in her devotions a Mexican _senorita_ assumes three distinct attitudes. She stands, she kneels, she _squats_. I regret my inability to express in more elegant phra...

While carrying on my eye-courtship with the kneeling devotee, I stood somewhat in shadow. A column, with the statue of some canonised churchman, afforded me a niche where I was...