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Updated: July 4, 2025
"Who, Colonel Miranda?" is the quick interrogatory of the Kentuckian, while with flashing eyes and lips apart he breathlessly awaits the answer. For all, he does not much need it; the name to be pronounced is on the tip of his own tongue. It is again "Gil Uraga!" "Yes," replies the Mexican, with added emphasis. "He is, undoubtedly, the robber who despoiled you.
Gil Uraga stands beside him. There is an interval of silence, with only an interchange of glances; Don Valerian's defiant, Uraga's triumphant. But the expression of triumph on the part of the latter appears held in check, as if to wait some development that may either heighten or curb its display.
"Dios de mi alma!" she cries out in the anguish of conviction, "can this be true?" "It is true." "Colonel Uraga, you will not carry out this cruel sentence! It is not an execution it is an assassination! You will not stain your soul with murder?" "I must obey orders." "My poor brother! Have mercy! You can save him?" "I can." "You will? You will?" "I will!"
It is easy to see that an English factory in Yedo and English ships at Uraga would have strengthened the Tokugawa ruler's hand instead of supplying engines of war to his political foes; and it must further be noted that the question of locality had another injurious outcome.
While seeking permission to dress the wound I had received, chance conducted him to a place where he could overhear a conversation that was being carried on between Uraga and one of his lieutenants a ruffian named Roblez, fit associate for his superior. They were in high glee over what had happened, carousing, and in their cups not very cautious of what they said.
When he further informs Uraga about the two guests who have strayed to this solitary spot, and, despite his maudlin talk, minutely describes the men, his listener utters a loud cry, accompanied by a gesture of such violence as to overturn the table, sending bottle and glasses over the floor.
Miranda, his ankles bound, is at first unable to follow, but with the sword-blade he quickly cut the thongs, and is on his feet free! In another instant he is chasing Uraga across the camp-ground, the latter running like a scared hound. Before he can be overtaken, the trampling of hoofs resound upon the grassy turf, and the returned lancers, with Roblez and the sentry, close around the prisoner.
No need saying that the cavalcade seen passing the copse is the lancer troop of Colonel Uraga. Some thirty hours before, they ascended to the Staked Plain, and are now nearly across it. Guided by the traitor, they had no need to grope their way, and have made quick time. In a few hours more they will pounce upon the prey for which they have swooped so far.
At sight of this old acquaintance, a world of thought rushes crowding through the brain of Gil Uraga conjectures, mingled with pleasant anticipations. For it comes back to his memory, that at the time of Colonel Miranda's escape, some of his domestics went off with him, and he remembers that Manuel was one of them.
Though strongly urged by Will Adams to make Uraga the seat of the new trade; though convinced of the excellence of the harbour there, and though instructed as to the great advantage of proximity to the shogun's capital, he appears to have harboured some distrust of Adams, for he finally selected Hirado in preference to Uraga, "which was much as though a German going to England to open trade should prefer to establish himself at Dover or Folkestone rather than in the vicinity of London."
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