At last the long stormy interview ended. Nadi made a gesture as if about to ask forgiveness from the strange cacique, but he turned from her.
Then the Indians of our party filed slowly past the others, Jeeka, with his wife riding beside him, exchanging glances of deadly hatred with the other cacique as he left him on his right hand.
When all had gone on, but not one moment before, Castizo slowly lowered his revolver, made a salaam, which was—not without some considerable degree of courtesy returned,—and came on after us.
I noticed soon after this that Nadi, with a fond smile, handed her baby to Jeeka, and that he kissed it and returned it. This was a very pretty little Patagonian love-passage that spoke volumes.
Peter asked Castizo for an explanation of the feud soon after, but was laughingly referred to Jeeka himself.
“That man, that cacique, is my Nadi’s blood-brother,”—he meant her real brother, for the term “brother” is often used among the Patagonians in the sense of sincere friendship. “I visit far north. I see Nadi; Nadi see me. I not can live without Nadi. I offer fifty horse for her. The brother refuse. Then I call my men; I ride to the brother’s camp. We fight, and kill much men. Then I carry Nadi away. I not give one horse. Ha, ha!”
“Then it was, after all, a case of elopement. It was young Lochnivar all over again, only ten times more so.”
“We see, then, Peter,” I said, “that the self-same feelings agitate the breasts of these savages as dwell in our own.”
“Yes,” said Peter, “human nature is the same all the world over.”
That evening, after supper, Jill asked Peter what his feelings were particularly.