"I do not understand you."
"My friend," Nocobotha said, "I have devoted my life to the accomplishment of an idea to which I have sacrificed my hatreds and friendships."
"Why in that case lay a trap for your rival?"
"My rival? No, it is not he whom I have attacked."
"Who then?"
"The richest and most influential man in the colony; the man who may thwart my plans; a powerful adversary, a Spaniard, but not a rival. Nothing permanent is founded on corpses. I would have willingly killed him in battle, but I do not wish to make a martyr of him."
"Nonsense," Pincheira said, "one more or one less, what matter?"
"Brute," Nocobotha thought, "he has not understood a word I said."
Two gauchos, aided by Panchito, incessantly rubbed with rum the temples and chest of Don Sylvio, whose features retained the rigidity of death. The Indian chief drew his knife from his girdle, wiped the blade, and placed it to the wounded man's lips. It seemed to him as if it were slightly tarnished. He at once kneeled down by the side of Don Sylvio, raised the cuff of his left coat sleeve, and pricked the vein with the sharp point of his knife. Gradually a black dot appeared on the wound, and became enlarged to the size of a pea. This drop hesitated, trembled, and at length ran down the arm, pushed on by a second drop, that made room for a third; then the blood became less black and less thick, and a long vermilion jet gushed forth, which announced life. Nocobotha could not repress a cry of joy: Don Sylvio was saved!
Almost immediately the young man gave a deep sigh.