There was a _mirador_ or belvidere upon the roof--the same beside which Colonel Miranda and his American guest, just twelve months before, had stood smoking cigars.
As then, there was a guard of soldiers within the covered entrance, with a sentry outside the gate.

He was leaning against the postern, his form in the darkness just distinguishable against the grey-white of the wall.
"_Quien-viva_ ?" he hailed as the two horsemen rode up, the hoof-strokes startling him out of a half-drunken doze.
"_El Coronel-Commandante_!" responded the tall man in a tone that told of authority.
It proved to be countersign sufficient, the speaker's voice being instantly recognised.
The sentry, bringing his piece to the salute, permitted the horsemen to pass without further parley, as also the _atajo_ in their train, all entering and disappearing within the dark doorway, just as they had made entrance into the mouth of the mountain cavern.
While listening to the hoof-strokes of the animals ringing on the pavement of the _patio_ inside, the sentinel had his reflections and conjectures.

He wondered where the colonel-commandant could have been to keep him so long absent from his command, and he had perhaps other conjectures of an equally perplexing nature.

They did not much trouble him, however.

What mattered it to him how the commandant employed his time, or where it was spent, so long as he got his _sueldo_ and rations?
He had them with due regularity, and with this consoling reflection he wrapped his yellow cloak around him, leaned against the wall, and soon after succumbed to the state of semi-watchfulness from which the unexpected event had aroused him.
"Carrambo!" exclaimed the Colonel to his subordinate, when, after looking to the stowage of the plunder, the two men sat together in a well-furnished apartment of the hacienda, with a table, decanters, and glasses between them.