"No, Don Pedro, I shall not leave you."
"Wait for me here, then, both of you."
Several hours passed, and Pedrito did not return. Alarmed by this inexplicable delay, the two girls joined the other two bomberos in the front cave. Night had set in when Pedrito returned; he bought an enormous bale on the neck of his horse, which was panting with fatigue.
"Put on these gauchos' dresses," he said to the two ladies; "we are going to get inside Carmen. The journey will be a rough one, but make haste, for every moment lost is an hour of danger for us."
They ran off to dress themselves, and were ready in a moment.
"Take your Indian robes," Pedrito said, "for they may be useful to you. Good! Now follow me, and be cautious!"
The three bomberos, the two girls, and Patito left the cave, and glided through the darkness like shadows, marching in Indian file, at one moment stooping down to the ground, crawling on their knees, and trying as far as possible to hide their passage. It was a singular and dangerous journey, in the depths of night, and across a desert whose thickets in time of war are peopled with invisible enemies. Pedrito had placed himself at the head of the party. Doña Concha, excited by the courage which love imparts, stained the prickles with her blood, but not a single complaint passed her lips. After three hours of extraordinary effort, the little party that followed Pedrito's track suddenly stopped on his stopping.
"Look!" he said to them, in a whisper, "we are in the heart of the Aucas' camp."
All around them in the moonbeams they saw the Indian sentinels leaning on their lances and watching over the safety of their brothers. A shudder ran over the maidens; fortunately, the guards, not fearing a sortie from Carmen, were sleeping at their posts, but the slightest badly calculated movement or stumble might wake them. Hence, Pedrito recommended them to redouble their prudence, if they wished to save their lives.
About two hundred yards in front of them rose the first houses of Carmen, gloomy, silent, and apparently at least deserted or plunged in silence. The six adventurers had cleared one half the distance, when suddenly, at the moment when Pedrito stretched out his arm to shelter himself behind a sandhill, several men crawling on the opposite side, found themselves face to face with him.