Dinner chez Don Pedro was, as might well have been expected, a quite hideous affair. Even the process of getting ready proved to be something of a chore. Upon retiring to my room, I discovered that, as part of his hostly duties, the Governor had seen fit to provide me with a personal maid from among his staff. This might have been his idea of doing me a good turn but it was one that, quite frankly, I could have done without. There may be lots of people who enjoy being waited on hand and foot but, in my admittedly rather limited experience, I generally find it quite awkward and would really rather just be left to put on my own pants, thank-you very much.

     The girl provided for the task was a short, slim lass of about eighteen who went by the name of Luisa. She seemed like a more promising candidate for friendly relations than anyone encountered so far in the Governor’s household but my early attempts at striking up a conversation were met with a steady wall of monosyllabic responses. I can’t say I blamed her. Having been in her position myself I know how hard it can be to warm to someone who is presented as your social superior yet is apparently incapable of dressing themselves.

However, preferring mindless chatter to a frosty silence, I continued to prattle on nonetheless. I was busy describing the thoroughness of the Governor’s tour of the hacienda when I noticed a distinct shift in the atmosphere. As I related our encounter with the prisoner in the stable block there was no mistaking a tensing of Luisa’s shoulders and the frown that passed swiftly over her face.

     “Do you know the man who is to be hanged tomorrow?” I asked her.

     “No,” Luisa replied, suddenly busying herself with the needless rearrangement of items on the dressing table by way of avoiding my curious gaze. “I have heard of him of course but I cannot say that I know him.”

     “But I suppose you know all about this bloke, Juarez?” I pressed. “The man they call ‘El Bandito’?”

     Luisa suddenly swung round. “Juarez is no bandit,” she declared, her eyes flashing with anger. “To the people of Santa Marta, he is ‘El Angel’. A hero, a saint, a champion of the oppressed, he is the scourge of every rotten, crooked official in the territory!”

     A somewhat startled pause followed, Luisa seeming every bit as surprised by her outburst as I was. “Sounds like quite a guy,” I finally noted with a wry smile.

     Afraid she had said too much, Luisa dropped her eyes and murmured, “I do not think His Excellency Don Pedro would like to hear you speak of him that way.”

     “Well, let’s just say that what Don Pedro doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” I offered.

     Luisa regarded me warily for a moment or two, clearly trying to size me up. Eventually, having apparently decided to take a chance on viewing me as an ally rather than an enemy, she responded with a shy smile of her own. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we became bosom buddies in that instant – there was still a certain servant/house-guest hierarchy that wasn’t so easily overcome – but a definite rapport was established and from that moment conversation flowed more easily between us.

     In fact, with a little encouragement on my part Luisa soon proved quite forthcoming on the subject of Juarez, painting quite a different picture to that provided by Don Pedro and the Captain. She told me that no-one was sure of his true identity and that he was rumoured to be anyone from the sole survivor of a remote village people who had been massacred by the Provincial Guard to the illegitimate son of the previous Governor. That he maintained a secret network of informers that enabled him to show up whenever and wherever he was most needed. That he dressed in fine clothes and rode a magnificent horse but otherwise kept nothing for himself – whatever was taken from raids on the tax collectors and the mine owners always made its way somehow into the collection boxes at the orphanage or the pauper’s hospital.

     “They say that he is very handsome,” remarked Luisa approvingly. “I have not had the good fortune to meet him myself but Juarez helped to defend my uncle’s ranch when some of the Governor’s thugs tried to run him off his land and my cousin told me he was very good-looking.”

     “It seems such a shame that Don Pedro managed to capture his lieutenant,” I remarked thoughtfully. “I hate to think of that poor guy being hung in the Plaza tomorrow.”

     “Juarez will not let his confederate hang,” Luisa confidently replied. “I do not know how he will do it but he will rescue him for sure. All the town knows of it.”

     “Well, I hope they’re right,” I said.

     After the relative warmth of my burgeoning friendship with Luisa I was plunged straight back into the seventh circle of social hell when I entered the dining room. The Governor dominated the conversation throughout dinner, delivering a distinctly one-sided account of the history of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. There appeared to be no sign of either desire or expectation on the part of the rest of the family to join in. The boys were all far too preoccupied with the meal itself, shovelling their food with intense concentration. The girls, on the other hand, ate little, instead merely pushing the food around their plates with a listless air. Attributing this behaviour to the tightly corseted fashion of the time, I viewed them with a great deal of sympathy. If I hadn’t put my foot down with Luisa and insist that she let the laces of my own corset out a notch or two I might have failed to do justice myself to what was in fact quite an excellent meal.

     As soon as the last course had been cleared away the party divided up along gender lines, we females being shuffled off to a sitting room whilst the men remained to push a bottle of port around the table. I wondered if the removal of the domineering presence of Don Pedro might bring the ladies to life but, alas, it was not to be. Upon entering the sitting room, each of them settled immediately into what appeared to be their customary place and took up either a book or a piece of sewing with the same mournful air with which they had regarded their dinner plates. I suppose it’s hard to be convivial on an empty stomach. I made a couple of half-hearted efforts at sparking up a little light conversation before excusing myself on the pretext of needing some air. Barely a head was lifted as I left the room.

     I made my way out onto the rear veranda and took up a seat where I could watch the shadows lengthen over the courtyard while I waited for Michael to join me. It was a good forty minutes before he finally appeared wearing an expression that did not suggest he had particularly enjoyed the intervening time.

     “Nice port?” I remarked with a light smile as he sat down beside me.

     “That man becomes less and less bearable the longer one spends in his company,” he observed by way of response. Coming from Michael this amounted to a fierce denunciation of the Governor’s character.

     I felt there was little to be gained from digging into the details of the after-dinner conversation and so remained silent, letting the soothing night air do its work. After a couple of minutes, the frown faded from Michael’s face and he had relaxed sufficiently to remark, “It’s quiet out here, isn’t it?”

     “I’ve been sitting here wondering where all the guards have got to,” I noted.

     “I passed a couple of them heading down to the cellar as I was on my way out,” observed Michael. “That seems to be the favoured hang-out.”

     “If they’re filching wine, they want to be careful,” I remarked. “Don Pedro strikes me as the sort of man to have all his bottles carefully marked.”

     “Well, I suppose we had better get on with this,” Michael finally said with a sigh after another long pause. “Did you manage to bring the inter-dimensional travel device?”

     I patted my hips with a knowing smile. “That is the one advantage of these ridiculous bustles,” I told him. “I could be packing a telescope and a small tricycle down here and no-one would be any the wiser.”

     We began our hunt on the right-hand side of the house and worked our way around the courtyard in an anti-clockwise direction, surveying barns, stores and outbuildings as we went. Our way proved pretty clear and soon only the stable block stood between ourselves and a return to the veranda. A solitary guardsman stood sentinel over the doorway, presumably guarding the bandit locked inside.

     “We don’t really need to go in there again, do we?” I asked Michael, warily eyeing the guard.

     “I wouldn’t say our visit this afternoon constituted a thorough search,” replied Michael with a sigh. “I think we had better take a quick look.”

     “But what about…?” I nodded at the guard blocking the entrance.

     “Don’t worry, we can handle him,” Michael confidently asserted. “It’s all just a question of tone.”

     The guard, I noted, appeared to be a particularly fresh-faced specimen who was wearing a uniform at least two sizes too big for him. He still carried a rifle however and snapped to attention at our approach.

     “Step aside please,” I ordered, aiming to imbue my voice with the natural assertiveness of the entitled aristocrat. “We’d like to see the horses.”

     “I’m very sorry Senorita but no-one is to enter the stables without the Governor’s express permission,” returned the Guard, not much subdued by my commanding tone.

     Michael stepped forward. “Look here, my man,” he declared in a voice that positively dripped with Don Pedro-esque hauteur. “We are the personal guests of the Governor and can go wherever we damn well please.”

     The Guard wilted slightly. “I understand that sir but I do have my orders,” he protested. Gripping his rifle tightly, he attempted to stand tall under pressure but his efforts were somewhat undermined by the fact that he was giving away several inches in height to Michael.

     “If you insist, I can bring out Don Pedro himself to explain to you exactly where your duty lies,” Michael imperiously returned. “But I really don’t think he’ll thank you for dragging him from his fireside, do you?”

     “Well, I don’t…” spluttered the Guard. “That is…” His eyes flicked round the courtyard in search of someone to lend him some support but there was nobody to be seen.

     “Well, do you?” barked Michael.

     The Guard crumpled. “Please, do not be long,” he pleaded and, lowering his rifle, swiftly opened the door and ushered us through.

     “What is it?” asked Michael, noting my sideways glance as we paused for a moment just inside the door.

     “Nothing,” I replied. “Just, I realise you’re a professional actor and all, but it is just a little bit disturbing when you do that so well.”

     Michael broke into a smile. “I’m sorry. I was pretty offensive, wasn’t I? But it’s all in a good cause, right?”

     I conceded this point with a smile of my own and then turned to survey the building we had entered. There was something undeniably eerie about the place after dark. The interior was patchily illuminated by a solitary lamp hung in the rafters and the thin slivers of moonlight that reached in through narrow windows cut high in the walls. A soft rustling sound and a few equine snorts made you uncomfortably aware that you were not alone.

     “I can’t see anywhere to stick a hidden door in here,” I told Michael, gazing along the two rows of identical horse boxes.

     “Let’s just walk to the end and back to be sure,” he replied. “I don’t want to spend the next few days stuck in Don Pedro’s company only to find it was here all along.”

     And so, we made our way slowly down the central aisle. In the stress of getting past the guard I had almost forgotten about the prisoner being held in the fourth box on the right. One-Eyed Alfonso must have been disturbed by the sound of the door opening for when we came upon him he was standing bolt upright in the centre of his pen. Or perhaps he wasn’t much inclined to sleep this evening anyway. I imagine the prospect of being hanged the following day is liable to induce a touch of insomnia in anybody.

     Whatever the reason for his restlessness, the bandit made no effort to speak but merely watched us curiously as we approached. Unable to find any words that might be suitable to the occasion ourselves, Michael and I passed on by in silence. We pressed on to the end of the stable block but came upon nothing other than a few bales of hay and a couple of barrels of oats. There was clearly no hidden door in here.

     Having shared a wordless nod in silent recognition of this fact, Michael and I turned to retrace our steps to the door. We had travelled less than half the distance when the sound of a sudden loud explosion somewhere not too far away stopped us in our tracks.

     “What the hell was that?” I asked Michael once the chorus of whinnying and snorting brought about by the disturbance had finally died down.

     Michael could only shrug by way of reply. “It sounds like it came from somewhere out in the Plaza,” he said.

     “I think we had better get back to the house,” I suggested.

     “I think you might be right,” Michael agreed.

     But before we could make a move there was a second, loud bang that seemed to originate in the opposite direction, from somewhere behind the Governor’s Mansion, and sparked a fresh barrage of stamping and whinnying from the decidedly spooked horses. Michael and I shared a nervous glance and hurried to make our way out of the stables. But we had taken barely a couple of steps when we saw the door up ahead of us swing open.

     We both stood, frozen to the spot, and watched in astonishment as the young guardsman who had been standing on duty outside slipped backwards through the door with his hands raised high in the air and a look of sheer terror on his face.

He was closely followed by a man in a dark red cape and wide brimmed hat who prodded him forward with a sword in one hand and the guard’s own rifle in the other. Through the open door we heard a brief snatch of sound from the courtyard outside – a confused medley of shouting voices, hurrying footsteps and the crackle of fire – before the man in the hat deftly pushed the door shut behind him with his foot and we were enclosed within the relative quiet of the stables once more.

     The guard’s terrified eyes were fixed firmly on the flashing blade steering his movements but the caped intruder couldn’t fail to spot Michael and I stranded awkwardly halfway down the corridor. For a long, long moment he regarded us with his head tipped slightly to one side as though trying to account for our unexpected presence. Then, to my surprise, he broke into a smile and offered us a polite nod, almost as if he were a host who wished to acknowledge some unexpected party guests who he would be delighted to welcome to the fun but not before he’d dealt with more practical matters like rearranging the canapes first.

     Turning his attention back to the young guard, he prodded him with the butt of his own rifle towards an empty horse box on the left. “Open it,” he instructed.

     The poor guard fumbled for a few moments with shaking fingers before he finally succeeded in releasing the bolt.

     “Inside, if you please,” the caped intruder politely ordered.

     The frightened young guard stumbled inside, swayed nervously for a moment while his captor shut the door behind him and slammed the bolt back into place and then promptly fainted onto the straw-covered floor.

     This minor inconvenience thus dealt with, the intruder propped the guard’s rifle against the wall, deftly slotted his sword into his belt with a dexterous twirl and then, sweeping his hat from his head, made a smart bow towards Michael and I. “Allow me to introduce myself,” he said, regarding us with a confident smile. “I am… Juarez.”

     His manner was so relaxed that it was impossible not to respond with a smile of one’s own. Luisa’s cousin had not been wrong in describing the famous bandit as a good-looking bloke. His was not what you would call a classically handsome face – the jaw was a little too heavy, the brow a touch too flat and the broken nose altogether too crooked for that – but he carried his rather stocky figure with a surprising grace and there was an altogether irresistible charm about his perpetually amused expression and deep, musical voice.

     Setting his hat lightly back on top of his head, he continued in the same lilting tone, “Do forgive my tardy manners but I was not expecting company here tonight. I hope you will not think it impertinent of me if I ask who you are and what you are doing in the stables at this hour. I thought I had accounted for all the members of Don Pedro’s household.”

     “We are guests of Don Pedro, just arrived today,” explained Michael.

     “Ah, that explains it,” replied Juarez. “Though you seem like much too nice people to be friends of our noble Governor,” he added with a comically pained expression.

     “Believe me, we’re no friend of Don Pedro,” I hurriedly advised. “Our stay here is kind of accidental. We’d never met him before today and if we’d had any idea what the guy was like, I swear, we would have found another place to stay.”

     The beaming smile returned to Juarez’s face. “It cheers me no end to hear you say this,” he declared. “But what brings you to Santa Marta in the first place?”

     Michael and I swapped a glance. “It’s quite a long story,” Michael offered.

     “That is a shame for I am particularly pressed for time just now,” replied Juarez. As if on cue, he was interrupted by the sound of another loud explosion, echoing across the night air from somewhere to the west of the hacienda. “Please, do not be alarmed,” Juarez hastily added, noting the worried expressions on our faces. “You have nothing to fear. That sound is nothing more than a couple of fireworks set off by a few of my compadres. Their purpose is distraction rather than damage. But they do serve to remind me that I must be getting on with my business.”

     Juarez moved swiftly forward. “Alfonso, my friend!” he cried out as he came upon the pen holding his lieutenant.

     The captured bandit reached out his hand to clasp that of Juarez through the bars of his cell. “Juarez!” he exclaimed in a surprisingly soft tone. It was the first time I had heard him speak and his voice was full of emotion as he added, “You should not have come here tonight.”

     “Nonsense,” returned Juarez. “You did not think that I would leave you to hang, did you?”

     “You know very well that it is your neck that Don Pedro aches to see in a noose,” said One-Eyed Alfonso. “You take too many risks.”

     “And you worry too much, my friend,” insisted Juarez. “Everything is taken care of. The Captain and his men are being kept busy with all our diversions. All I need now is to work out how to break open this lock,” he added, thoughtfully examining the padlock that was fixed onto the bolt.

     There was a pause before One-Eyed Alfonso said, “I think you will find an axe by the front door.”

     Juarez turned around. “Well spotted Alfonso!” he exclaimed in delight as his eyes fell upon the tool hanging by the door. “Father Esteban is right – the Good Lord always provides. Stand back and we will have you out of there in no time.”

     Once in possession of the axe, Juarez positioned himself squarely in front of the door to One-Eyed Alfonso’s pen, took just a moment to steady himself and then took a hefty swing at the padlock.

     The events that followed all occurred so swiftly and unexpectedly that when I look back I seem to see them passing before my eyes like static images flickering through a carousel. I can picture the axe striking cleanly against the padlock, ringing out with a sharp clang. But in the next instant my view was almost entirely obscured as the trapdoor set in the floor of the stables that I had noted earlier that afternoon was suddenly flung up right in front of us. I heard shouts and the sound of urgent footsteps indicating people trying to emerge on the other side of the door though I could see nothing but the heavy wall of wood right before my face.

     I think it was pure instinct that caused Michael to swing out a leg and kick the trapdoor shut again. A heavy thud and accompanying grunt indicated that it hit at least one person on the way down but as my view down the corridor opened up once more, I could see that a single guardsman had already escaped from beneath the floor and was advancing on Juarez with a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other. There was just time for me to see Juarez skip neatly away from a thrust of the guardsman’s sword, knocking the pistol out of his hand with his axe, before my line of sight was again obscured by the trapdoor rising up again.

     It occurred to me in that instant that the escape attempt had been anticipated and either Don Pedro or the Captain must have stationed their men below ready to spring an ambush. What was more, this thought was almost instantly followed by another; that the trapdoor almost certainly linked the stables with the house, most probably via the cellar. By the time Michael was kicking the rising door down a second time I realised that there was every chance there was a whole platoon of guardsman waiting below. If we were going to keep them out (and in any developing scrap between Don Pedro and Juarez it didn’t require any deep deliberation to figure out where my loyalties lay) we would need something pretty solid to block them off.

     Casting my eyes frantically around, they swiftly fell upon a barrel of oats standing just a few feet behind us. Throwing out a warning yell, I dashed over, got behind it and gave it a shove. The thing weighed a ton, but that was kind of the point. Responding to my cry, Michael stamped the door down one last time before joining me behind the barrel. It was a close-run thing but somehow the pair of us managed to heave it over onto the top of the door just before the soldiers below could lift it again. Flopping over the barrel, breathless from the exertion, I could hear a sequence of muffled thuds as the soldiers below hammered against the door but there was no shifting it now.

     I looked up just in time to catch the concluding moves of the tangle between Juarez and the sole guardsman who had escaped through the trapdoor. The soldier had the advantage in height and weight but Juarez more than made up for this with skill and agility. He deftly parried one lumbering thrust from the guard’s sword, neatly skipped away from another and, in doing so, landed a smart blow to the side of the guard’s head with the butt of his axe. The guard stood and swayed for a second as though he needed a moment to take in the completeness of his defeat before he slumped into an unconscious heap on the floor.

     For a moment nobody spoke. Juarez slowly lifted his gaze up from his defeated opponent and across to Michael and I and burst into laughter. “My friends, I do not know how I can ever thank-you,” he declared. “Without you, I fear I would have found myself in a very tight spot.”

     Too overcome for words, I could only offer an ‘oh, it was nothing’ sort of wave by way of response. Michael managed a breathless, “You’re welcome.”

     “I told you, you take too many risks,” One-Eyed Alfonso’s voice rang out rather unexpectedly from his pen. In all the excitement, I had almost forgotten he was still there. His statement was almost immediately followed by the sound of another explosion from somewhere outside.

     “Perhaps you are right,” conceded a sobered Juarez. “That is undoubtedly our signal to leave.” Stepping forward, he discovered that the blow from his axe had damaged the padlock sufficiently that it was quite easily worked free. Opening the door, he asked One-Eyed Alfonso, “Can you manage a dash across the courtyard?”

     His lieutenant responded with a terse nod.

     Juarez passed him the axe to keep as a weapon and drew his own sword. He paused to offer Michael and I a final bow. “God’s will, we will meet again my friends. I am forever in your debt,” were his parting words.

     We stood rooted to the spot for a minute or so after the two bandits had slipped away out of the stables, still stunned by the rapid pace of the events that had overtaken us. But then a low moan from the guard who had been knocked out by Juarez, together with the continued thuds from his comrades still trying to bust their way out through the trapdoor served to bring us to our senses. “I think we’d better get out of here or else there might be some awkward questions asked,” suggested Michael.

     Stepping out into the courtyard, we emerged onto a scene of complete chaos. The diversions of Juarez’s men had been most effective. Soldiers and servants were dashing this way and that with no obvious sense of purpose. A barn by the rear wall and some stores to the right had both caught fire and small crowds were gathered round each, making largely ineffectual efforts to douse the flames. The night air rang with shouts and cries but there was no sense of command or coordination to all the bustle.

     Michael and I skipped discreetly between the pockets of activity. It seemed we had made our move none too soon for barely a minute after we exited the stables a squad of heavily-armed guardsmen emerged from the house and charged towards the doorway, having presumably realised that their efforts to break in via the trapdoor were futile. Having circled cautiously around for a few more minutes, we finally felt secure enough to approach the veranda and discovered Don Pedro standing against the rail, staring impassively out over the courtyard and looking something like the captain of a grand ship watching the storm that swirls menacingly around his craft.

     “Good evening Your Excellency, we’ve just been out for a walk,” I politely and rather pointlessly remarked.

     “Is everything quite alright sir?” Michael enquired in a tone of pure innocence. “It looks like a battlefield out there.”

     Don Pedro managed, with some difficulty, to acknowledge our existence. “Just some slight trouble…” he distractedly muttered, keeping his eyes fixed upon the courtyard. “Nothing to worry about…” His gaze sharpened as he caught sight of a figure approaching. “Yes, what news?” he barked urgently at the new arrival.

     I turned to see the Captain of the Provincial Guard waddle, red-faced and panting, into view. “Your Excellency,” he began by clicking off the customary salute before being obliged to stop to catch his breath.

     “Report Captain, for God’s sake,” Don Pedro impatiently demanded.

     “Well sir, I am happy to say the fires are slowly coming under control,” began the Captain. “I have men posted…”

     “Damn the fires and damn your men!” interrupted Don Pedro. “What of the bandits? Where is… Juarez?”

     “Well sir… My men are still… It’s not yet entirely clear…” the Captain blustered.

     “Do you have him? Do you have Juarez?” cried Don Pedro.

     The Captain swallowed hard, twice. “I am very sorry to say, Your Excellency, that it looks as though both Juarez and the prisoner have escaped,” he finally blurted out.

     Having delivered his news the Captain took an instinctive half step backwards, as though bracing himself for the eruption that would surely follow. And indeed, for the few seconds that followed, Don Pedro’s face cycled through every shade of red from rose pink to deepest crimson. But though he gripped the rail so tightly I was afraid it might break in two, the moment passed and the Governor somehow managed to swallow his rage. “Very good,” was all he said through gritted teeth.

     Acutely relieved to be dismissed with a curt nod, the Captain hurried away. Muttering a hasty goodnight, Michael and I also slipped away, leaving Don Pedro standing at the veranda rail, still staring out over the chaos of the courtyard. Though his face gave little away, it seemed that the Governor’s ship had just been hit by one hell of a wave.

To be continued…