CHAPTER XXVII.

THE TRUE CABALLERO. Four days after the defeat of the insurgents, in his own bedroom of the Hacienda of the Monte Tesoro, don Benito Vázquez de Bustamente lay extended on the couch, pale and weak. His dulled eyes were half shut, and only at long intervals did they let gleams of consciousness escape. Near him were kneeling his daughter and his wife; their daughter-in-law being too ill from her loss and the emotion of the conflict in which all dear to her were involved, to participate in this additional scene of sorr…