"I will drink no more," the gaucho answered.
Don Torribio smiled.
"Drink, but without destroying reason. In drunkenness people utter words, as you did just now, which cannot be recalled, and are more deadly than a dagger. It is not your master who is now speaking, but the friend. Can I count on both of you?"
"Yes," the gaucho said.
"I am going away; but you must not leave the colony, but be ready for anything. Before all, carefully watch the house of Don Valentine Cardoso, both inside and out. If anything extraordinary happens to him or his daughter Doña Concha, you will immediately light two fires, one on the cliff of the Urubús, the other on that of San Xavier, and within a few hours you will hear from me. Do you promise to execute promptly and devotedly any order of mine, however extraordinary it may appear to you?"
"We swear it."
"That is well. One word in conclusion. Connect yourselves with as many gauchos as you can; try, without exciting suspicion, which always sleeps with one eye open, to collect a band of determined fellows. By the by, distrust Patito: he is a traitor."
"Must he be killed?" Corrocho asked.
"Perhaps it would be prudent, but you would have to get rid of him cleverly."
The two gauchos exchanged a side glance, but Don Torribio pretended not to see it.