CHAPTER XXIV.

THE UNWILLING VOLUNTEER. It had fallen a very black night, we say. Not a star peeped out among the heavy clouds grazing the treetops and rim of the bowl in the centre of which Monte Tesoro flaunted its defiant colours. In the northward, long peals of thunder rolled without any lightning being visible. Whether from the effect of the atmosphere, or by the presentiment of the assault by the multitude of besiegers being imminent, a kind of gloom seemed to reign in the hacienda; the courts were deserted, the sentries we…