His travelling companions were his
secretary, Dr. Ortiz, and a young man of his acquaintance, bound for
Cordova, to whom he had given a seat in his vehicle. The postilions were
incessantly admonished to make haste. At a shallow stream which they
forded, in the mud of which the wheels became imbedded, resisting every
effort for their release, Quiroga actually hooked the postmaster of the
district, who had hastened to the spot, to the carriage, and made him join
his exertions to those of the horses until the vehicle was extricated,
when he sped onward with fearful velocity, asking at every post-station,
"When did the _chasqui_ from Buenos Ayres pass? An hour ago! Forward,
then!" and the carriage swept onward, on unceasingly, across the lonely
Pampa,--racing, as it afterwards proved, with Death.
At last, Cordova, nearly six hundred miles from his starting-point, was
reached, just one hour after the arrival of the hunted courier. Quiroga
was besought by the cringing magistracy to spend the night in their city.
His only answer was, "Give me horses!" and two hours before midnight he
rolled out of Cordova, having _beaten_ in the grisly race.
Beaten, inasmuch as he was yet alive. For Cordova was ringing with the
details of his intended assassination. Such and such men were to have done
the deed; at such a shop the pistol had been bought; at such a spot it was
to have been fired;--but the marvellous swiftness of the intended victim
had ruined all.
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