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Desirous to conciliate a nobleman of ancient name and high character, and out of consideration for the great services which Herrera's zeal and talents had rendered the cause, the queen's government had some time previously restored to the Count his confiscated estates.
"Have you heard that the prisoners are to be shot to-morrow?" Paco started. "And Don Luis with them?" The Count nodded affirmatively. "It will be the death of Doña Rita," exclaimed Paco with blunt passion. "Speak to the general you can do it. He will not refuse Señor Herrera's life, if you ask it." "You are mistaken," said Villabuena; "in that quarter there is no hope.
Oh, my poor mother!" and Lucien burst into tears. "Coquart, read out to the prisoner that part of Carlos Herrera's examination in which he said that Lucien de Rubempre was his son." The poet listened in silence, and with a look that was terrible to behold. "I am done for!" he cried. "A man is not done for who is faithful to the path of honor and truth," said the judge.
He would then return to his father's house, and obtain Don Manuel's sanction to his project. Since the unfortunate death of the young Villabuenas, Herrera's chief intimate at the University had been Mariano Torres, a hot-headed, warm-hearted Arragonese, entirely devoted to Luis, to whom he looked up as a model of perfection.
On Herrera's entrance, the terrified nuns thought that the guerillas were returning, and with cries of terror fled in all directions. He succeeded in calming their fears, and enquired for the abbess, although nearly certain that she it was to whose death he had been witness.
In reply to Herrera's enquiries as to the original authors of this curious contrivance, and the manner in which he had discovered it, the Mochuelo informed him that the Frenchman, Roche, or El Tuerto, as his Spanish comrades styled him, had, previously to the war, been one of a band of outlaws, smugglers avowedly, and on occasion, as it was affirmed, something worse, who for a considerable period had carried on their illegal avocations in the Navarrese Pyrenees and their contiguous ranges.
Wearied by their rapid and toilsome march, the guerillas stretched themselves upon the grass, and seemed disposed to make amends by a morning nap for the vigilance and fatigues of the night. The Mochuelo took Herrera's arm. "I will show you," he said, "that I have not overrated the security of our hiding-place."
All the old hatreds and bitter party animosities of Merino seemed wakened into new life by the name of one of his former opponents. His eyes flashed, his lips quivered with rage, and he half turned his horse, as if about to proceed to Herrera's house and put his threat into execution. The impulse, however, was checked almost as soon as felt. "Another time will do," said he, with a grin smile.
"The cavalry! the cavalry!" repeated Cordova, for he it was. "Where is Lopez and the cavalry?" But, save his own escort and Herrera's squadron, no cavalry was forthcoming. Lopez remained unpardonably inactive, for want of orders, as he afterwards said; but, under the circumstances, this was hardly an extenuation.
Such was the fate of President Herrera's administration in 1845 for being disposed even to listen to the overtures of the United States to prevent the war, as is fully confirmed by an official correspondence which took place in the month of August last between him and his Government, a copy of which is herewith communicated.
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