CHAPTER XV.
AN OLD ENEMY.
Our captors were Spanish soldiers.
"Be good enough to rise and accompany us to San Felipe, senores," said the non-commissioned officer in command of the detachment, "and if you attempt to escape I shall blow your brains out." "_Dios mio!_ It serves us right for not keeping a better lookout," said Carmen, with a laugh which I thought sounded rather hollow.

"We shall be in San Felipe sooner than we expected, that is all.

Lead on, sergeant; we have a dozen good reasons for not trying to escape, to say nothing of our strait waistcoats." Whereupon we were marched down the hill and taken to San Felipe, two men following with our horses, from which and other circumstances I inferred that we had been under observation ever since our arrival in the neighborhood.

The others were doubtless under observation also; and at the moment I thought less of our own predicament (in view of the hanging propensities of General Griscelli, a decidedly unpleasant one) than of the terrible surprise which awaited Mejia and his army, for, as I quickly perceived, the Spaniards were quite on the alert, and fully prepared for whatever might befall.

The place swarmed with soldiers; sentries were pacing to and fro on the parapets, gunners furbishing up their pieces, and squads of native auxiliaries being drilled on a broad savanna outside the walls.
Many of the houses were mere huts--roofs on stilts; others, "wattle and dab;" a few, brown-stone.