We set out. Daylight was fast ebbing away, and it was doubtful if we should reach Guanajuato before nightfall. Desiderio kept up a continual flow of talk about the sayings and doings of the miners, and what an excellent profession he belonged to; but I took no interest in his conversation, and inwardly imprecated the bore whom I could not shake off. All at once he stopped, and struck his forehead with the palm of his hand.
"Voto al demonio!" cried he. "I have forgotten the unhappy devil for these two hours, and he may have bled to death by this time."
"Whom do you refer to?"
"Planillas, to be sure."
Almost at the same moment Fuentes went off at a gallop. I had now got a capital opportunity of ridding myself of him; but my curiosity prevailed, and I hastened after him. When we had arrived at a place not far from where we had that morning met Planillas plunged in grief, sitting on the carcass of the mule, Desiderio paused, and made a gesture of surprise.
"I don't see any body," I said.
"No more do I, and that's what astonishes me. True, he must have been tired waiting. It is very shabby of him; and another time I won't believe him. However, it is more than probable that some charitable person has removed him, for he had excellent reasons for remaining there till the sounding of the last trump."
"What has happened to him?"
"Look!" said Fuentes, pointing to the earth dyed in blood, and to the mule which the vultures were then preying upon. The miner added that, in the morning after leaving me, he had returned to ask some questions of Planillas, whose crooked morality made him an object of suspicion. Not finding either him or the mule at the place he had left them, he had followed their traces, and having arrived at the spot where we now were, found poor Florencio lying on the ground almost insensible, and bleeding profusely. He had then learned the truth from the lips of the wounded man. The mule, which Florencio and his companion were dragging to a solitary place, had died, it is true, in the hacienda de platas; but Florencio had never seen the animal till that day, and the cause of his tender solicitude was, that its flanks contained a number of silver ingots which Planillas had stolen and hidden there, so that the clerk of the mines might not discover them. The stratagem had been successful; but when they came to divide the spoil, after having drawn it to a still more solitary spot, a quarrel arose, and the result was, that Planillas got nothing but a couple of stabs from the ready knife of his neighbor, which had placed his life in great danger.
"You can guess the rest," continued Fuentes. "I could not help being sorry for the fellow, and went away, promising to send him assistance. I can't tell how it is, but I completely forgot the poor devil."