in the neighbourhood, and will be down in
half an hour, to smite everybody, hip and
thigh.

Nothing would suit my host but that the
Canonigo should take a seat in our
carriage, and be of our party up to Mexico.
The good priest was nothing loth, for he
owned that he was dreadfully frightened
of the brigands, who had been committing
frightful atrocities lately on the Jalapa
road. I might have mentioned to you, ere
this, that we had brought with us from La
Soledad a sufficiently imposing escort, in
the shape of an entire company of French
infantry, who journeyed with us on the
"ride and tie" principle; half of them
crowded inside and outside a kind of omnibus
we had picked up in the post office at
Orizaba, and half of them hanging on to the
wheels — the omnibus often required pushing
up hill or dragging out of a rut — or riding
on the mules, or trudging through the sand
or over the pebbles with their shakoes on
the points of their bayonets, and their blue
cotton handkerchiefs tied round their shins,
with, perhaps, a damp plantain leaf
super-added. These were the merriest set of
fellows I ever met with, and they laughed
and smoked and sang songs and capered
all the way up to Mexico. They never
asked us for drink money, and were
uniformly respectful, polite, and cheerful.
They had a little boy-soldier with them—
an "enfant de troupe" in training to be a
drummer — who was their pet and plaything
and darling, and for whom, when he
was tired of riding in or outside the omnibus,
they would rig a kind of litter, made
of knapsacks and ammunition blankets laid
on crossed muskets, and with a canopy
above of pocket-handkerchiefs tied together
and held up by twigs. And they would
carry the little man along, the soldiers singing
and he singing, with a "Tra la, la!
Tra la, la!" and the rest of the company
beating their hands in applause from the
top of the 'bus. There were but two
officers with the company—the captain,
who rode with us, and a sub-lieutenant,
who preferred occupying the box seat of
the longer vehicle. The captain was a pudgy
little man, who, his stoutness notwithstanding,
wore stays. He had been in Algeria,
and, according to his showing, whenever
he and Abd-el-Kader met, there had been
weeping in the Smala and wailing in the
Douar. He had been through the Crimean
campaign, and, not very obscurely,
insinuated that he, and not Marshal Pellisier,
should, if the right man had got his
deserts, have been made Duke of Malakoff.
In fact, the fat little captain would have
bragged Major Longbow's head off. He
overflowed with good humour, however,
and had a capital baritone voice. The sub,
on the other hand, was a moody gaunt
man, whose solitary epaulette seemed to
have made him at once low-spirited and
lopsided. It was as well, perhaps, that he
did not form one of our party; for he
evidently hated his captain with great fervour,
and when they met, off duty, there was
generally a squabble. "I know my duty,
but I also know my rights," the sub used
to mutter, looking fixed bayonets at his
superior officer. He was scrupulously
attentive to his duties, however, and never
missed saluting his pudgy chief. I think
the captain would have been infinitely
rejoiced had the omnibus toppled over one of
the yawning precipices in the Cumbrera,
and had the dismal chasm comfortably
engulfed that cantankerous sub-lieutenant.

But the Canonigo had a berline. Well;
that was very soon got rid of. The
postmaster, who was also landlord of the fonda
where we dined — I remember that he
expressed a hyperbolical wish to kiss my hands
and feet at departing, and that he obliged
us with two bad five-franc pieces in change
for the napoleon we tendered him — would
have none of the canonical equipage. "Vala
nada," it is worth nothing, he said contemptuously.
He hoped that the Canonigo would
leave it "until called for," and that he
would never call for it. But he was not
destined to profit by the relinquishment of
the vehicle. At first I suggested that it
should be affected to the use of the
cantankerous sub-lieutenant, and that fatigue
parties of light infantry should be harnessed to
the pole, and drag it; but this proposal did
not meet with much favour — especially
among the light infantry — and the sub
himself vehemently protested against making
his entrance into Mexico "before his chiefs,"
in a carriage, which he declared to be fit
only for a quack doctor. "There may be
those," he remarked, with a sardonic glance
at the baritone captain, "who would like to
play Dulcamara, or imitate Mengin in a
Roman helmet, selling pencils in the Place
de la Concorde; for my part, I know my
duties, and I know my rights." In this
dilemma Pedro Hilo was sent for. Pedro,
a rather handsome half-caste, was the
administrador or steward to the lordly
proprietor of a hacienda — a maguey
plantation in the neighbourhood. He was
accustomed to buy everything, even, as my