The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley

This laconism came from the lips of a young man who was walking along the Levee of New Orleans. Just before giving utterance to it he had made a sudden stop, facing a dead wall,...

Some six months before the encounter described, he had landed from a Liverpool cotton ship on the Levee of New Orleans. A gentleman by birth and a soldier-scholar by education,...

The volunteer _rendezvous_ was in a tavern, better known by the name of "Coffee House," in the street called Poydras. The room which had been chartered for the occasion was of a...

Not because he had lost his way. His hotel was but three blocks off; and he had, during his short sojourn in the Crescent City, become acquainted with almost every part of it. I...

In a small house of the third Municipality, in the street called Casa Calvo, dwelt Don Ignacio Valverde. It was a wooden structure--a frame dwelling--of French-Creole fashion, c...

The thick "swamp-fog" still hovered above the Crescent City, when a carriage, drawn by two horses, rolled out through one of its suburbs, and on along the Shell Road, and in the...

The duellists stood confronting one another, in the position of "salute," both hands on high grasping their swords at hilt and point, the blades held horizontally. The second of...

Impossible to describe the scene which followed, or the expression upon the faces of those men who stood beside Santander. The Texan, strong as he was big, still kept hold of hi...

In ancient days Sparta had its Thermopylae, while in those of modern date Sicily saw a thousand men in scarlet shirts make landing upon her coast, and conquer a kingdom defended...

One of the most noted "lions" in the City of Mexico is the prison called La Acordada. Few strangers visit the Mexican capital without also paying a visit to this celebrated pena...

Yes; outside the door of their cell was Carlos Santander. And in full war panoply, wearing a magnificent uniform, with a glittering sword by his side, and on his head a cocked h...

During all this time--only a few seconds it was--the four men within the cell preserved silence; the dwarf, as the door alone was drawn open, having said to the gaol-governor: "...

Of the _dramatis personae_ of our tale, already known to our reader, Carlos Santander, Florence Kearney, and Cris Rock were not the only ones who had shifted residence from the...

In the city of Mexico the houses are flat-roofed, the roof bearing the name of _azotea_. A parapetted wall, some three or four feet in height, runs all round to separate those o...

As a rule, people of melancholy temperament, or with a sorrow at the heart, give way to it within doors in the privacy of their own apartments. The daughter of Don Ignacio had b...

Luisa Valverde and Ysabel Almonte were fast friends--so fondly intimate that scarcely a day passed without their seeing one another and exchanging confidences. They lived in the...

In all cities there is a street favoured by fashion. This in Mexico is the Calle de Plateros (street of the silversmiths), so called because there the workers in precious metals...

Such the twice sesquipedalian name and title of him who at this time wielded the destinies of Mexico. For more than a quarter of a century this man had been the curse of the you...

For some time the Dictator remained in his seat lighting cigarrito after cigarrito, and puffing away at them furiously. The look of light frivolity had forsaken his face, which...

Soon as the aide-de-camp had closed the door behind him, Santa Anna sprang up from his seat and hastily stumped it to a large cheval glass which stood on one side of the room. S...

So spoke the Countess Almonte half in soliloquy, though beside her sat her friend Luisa Valverde. They were in a carriage on return from their fruitless visit to the Dictator. I...

Along with a score of other prisoners, the "chain-gang" of the Acordada, Kearney, Rock, Rivas, and the dwarf were conducted out into the street, and on the Calle de Plateros. Do...

Disagreeable as was their job, some of the _forzados_ made light of it, bandying jests with the street passengers, who did not find it safe to go too near them. A scoopful of th...

Yes; the lady in the carriage was Luisa Valverde. Too surely she, thought Florence Kearney; for seeing her there was painful to him--a shock--as one who sees the woman he loves...

Thus passionately exclaimed Luisa Valverde, half addressing herself to the Condesa Almonte in her father's house again, to which they had just returned from the ceremony of the...

The ceremony of laying the foundation-stone had been brief and it was yet only an early hour of the afternoon when the procession passed back along the Calle de Plateros. The sc...

Pepita it was, though in a different style of dress to what he had been accustomed to see her in; as at New Orleans she had not kept to her national costume. Besides, there was...

From the way Rivas treated the "billetita" after he had finished reading it, one unacquainted with its contents might have supposed they had made him either mad angry, or madly...

Perhaps no people in the world have been more accustomed to spectacular surprises than they who perambulate the streets of the Mexican metropolis. For the half-century preceding...

Quite a combination of circumstances had favoured the escape of the four _forzados_--the balking of the horses, the absence of Dominguez, and the relaxed vigilance of the guards...

While the ladies set down upon the street were still plaintively appealing to those around, the carriage from which they had been so unceremoniously ejected was tearing along th...

In a strict military sense the capital of Mexico cannot be called a fortified city. Still, it has defences, one being an _enceinte_ wall, which envelops it all round, leaving no...

He was sure of it being the carriage of Don Ignacio Valverde; his horses and livery too. But nothing more. None of the party was known to him as belonging to Don Ignacio's famil...

"Such forethought?" exclaimed Rivas, as the landau went rattling along the road with the speed of a war-chariot, "wonderful!" he went on. "Ah, for cleverness, commend me to a wo...

The labourers hoeing among the young maize plants, and the _tlachiquero_ drawing the sap from his magueys, saw a sight to astonish them. Two horses of unusual size, both carryin...

Interesting as is the Mexican Valley in a scenic sense, it is equally so in the geological one; perhaps no part of the earth's crust of like limited area offering greater attrac...

"Suspicious, to say the least of it! If a coincidence, certainly the strangest in my experience, or that I've ever heard of. A score of other carriages passing, and they to have...

With unappeased impatience the Dictator awaited the return of the pursuing party, or some news of it. The last he in time received at first hand from the lips of its leader, who...

"In one way, yes; in another, for us. Our pursuers will be sure to ride all round the Pedregal, and leave a picket wherever they see the resemblance of path or trail leading out...

The spot where they had now made stop--final for the night--was still far below the summit of the mountain. It was a sort of platform or bench, formed by the crest of a projecti...

"_Ay Dios_, indeed! It's to be hoped they won't, though. And I have less fear of it now than ever. It must have gone that way, or the soldiers wouldn't be there; and as it could...

It was Florence Kearney who asked this question, interrogating himself; time, the morning after their retreat up the mountain. He was lying on a low pallet, or rather bench of m...

The repast finished, the Holy Brethren, rising from the table together, forsook the Refectory. Some disappeared into cloisters on the sides of the great hallway, others strolled...

"_Amigo_," said their host, as he rejoined them, speaking to Kearney, who could alone understand him, "permit me to offer you a cigar--your comrade also--with my apologies for h...

"Try a Manilla this time," said the Mexican, as Kearney was reaching out to take a cigar from the case. "Most people believe that the best can only come from Cuba. A mistake, th...

One of the pleasantest villages in the valley of Mexico is San Augustin de las Cuevas--_Tlalpam_ by Aztec designation--both names due to some remarkable caverns in the immediate...

For some time after their arrival at the old monastery, neither Kearney nor Cris Rock saw aught of their late "fourth fellow" prisoner--the hunchback. They cared not to inquire...

"Dead!" muttered the inhuman wretch, as he stood upon the spot late occupied by his victim, looking down over the cliff. "Dead he must be; unless a man can fall two hundred feet...

It was the garden of Don Ignacio's _casa de campo_; the ladies, his daughter and the Condesa. The lovely night, with balm in the air and a bright moon shining through the sky, h...

Passing out of the San Augustin towards the city, the great National Road, as already said, touches upon the Pedregal, the lava rocks here and there rising cliff-like over it. O...

Part of the dialogue between Santander and the hunchback was overheard by Jose--enough of it to give him the trembles. Among its revelations was nought relating to himself, or h...

"Now, I shouldn't wonder," continued the corporal, shifting upon his seat, and facing fully round to the dwarf. "I shouldn't at all wonder but that this diminutive gentleman has...

The _cochero_ had but a confused idea of what he was carrying away with him. By the feel, watches, with chains and bracelets; besides some smaller articles wrapped in bits of pa...

The surmise which had influenced Zorillo to leaving the convent cell earlier than he intended was a correct one. The goings on in the Refectory were, at the time, of an unusual...

About the time the Free Lances were burying their comrade in the cemetery of the convent the gate of San Antonio de Abad was opened to permit the passage of a squadron of Hussar...

Dawn was just beginning to show over the eastern _Cordilleras_, its aurora giving a rose tint to the snowy cone of Popocatepec, as the Hussars passed back through San Augustin....

It was no more a question of the safety of their lovers, but their own. And the prospect was dark, indeed. Santander had said nothing of the reason for arresting them; nor had t...

Just after the ladies had been proclaimed under arrest, but before the sentinels were posted around the house, a man might have been seen outside their line, making all haste aw...

As in all Mexican country houses of the class mansion, that of Don Ignacio Valverde was a quadrangular structure enclosing an inner courtyard--the _patio_. The latter a wide ope...

If the carriage horses were startled by the apparition, no less so were the Hussars formed round. Equally frightened these, though not from the same cause. The hunchback--for it...

About a month after in San Augustin a small two-masted vessel--a goleta--might have been observed standing on tacks off the coast of Oaxaca, as if working against the land wind...